Fruit and Seed

Since we haven’t much time to engage in discussion here, I’ll throw up a couple of quick questions for now and return to make some additional comments.

“Hep! Hep! Hep!” refers several times to separateness:  “a sense of separateness unique in its intensity” (175), “a separate people”  (177), “the separateness which was made their badge of ignominy” (179), “steadfast in their separateness” (192).  What entirely is Eliot getting at?  How does that relate to difference, race, or nationality/nationalism?

I wonder about the differences in the histories of Deronda and Klesmer and the position of each by the end of the novel.  Are the differences in their outcomes coherent?  How is that informed by “Hep! Hep! Hep!”?

In Search of a Nation(al Allegory)

In the “The Cultivation of Partiality” Anderson argues that Eliot’s rendering of Judaism and Jewish nationalism in Daniel Deronda represents her cosmopolitan ideal of the modern citizen that “balances the claims of the particular against those of the universal”(122) by testing the (possibly alienating) tenets of modernity “against the articulated experience of the excluded particular” (146). In Deronda, Anderson reads Eliot arguing for a “form of cultural understanding” that Anderson terms “reflective dialogism,” in which individuals relate to and articulate their national and cultural identities through “passionate argumentation, not simple embrace” (121). This “reflective dialogism” takes its most prominent form in the relationship and conversations between Mordecai and Deronda. Their conversation is one of a “double discourse” that represents different models of nationality, the Jews relationship to modernity and a broader “split response to the challenges of modernity” (137).

This reading runs counter to previous criticism that, according to Anderson, conflates the views of Deronda and Mordecai, creating a false binary between the utopianism of the “Jewish section” or the story of Deronda and Jewish nationalism and the realism of Gwendolen Harleth (to steal from Leavis), which draws Judaism and its culture as traditionalist and in stark contrast—and naturally opposed—to modernity. In her construction, Eliot negotiates the paradoxical tension of “European” models of modern nationalism that call for both cosmopolitanism, and a homogenous “national character” which engenders “national cohesion”—a character often delimited along racial and ethnic lines that indicates the failure of civic ideals meant to transcend this very definition. The Jewish figure, whether cosmopolitan or traditional, represents a “separatist character” that threatens “national cohesion” by either exploiting the culturally unmoored nature of the cosmopolitan state through transnational forces like capitalism for individual gain, or by refusing to participate in this modern, political establishment.

To Anderson, it is the specified distance of opinion between Mordecai and Deronda, and Deronda’s detachment and “universal sympathy, that exemplify Eliot’s attempt to strike a balance between the “cultivated particular” of a tradition-bound cultural heritage that impedes participation in the modern state, and the alienation of a cultural and historical repudiation modernity seems to require. While the desire to “steer a middle course between traditionalism and hypermodernism” is not unique to Eliot, her modeling this ideal through the language of Jewish nationalism and idealism “radically challenge[s] the dominant cultural rhetoric” (129) which places Judiasm at each of these polarities. Rather than a figure of the extreme, Eliot asserts that the modern European Jew, as a figure with a culture but not a nation, a “rootedness” without a spatial association and a religion but not necessarily an occluding religious practice, the best suited to negotiate this liminal space and respond to its cultural quandary.

For me, this article made me wonder how the Jewish characters other than Deronda and Mordecai—the two most critics are concerned with—operate in relation to the ideas of nationalism and cultural identity and Jewish nationalism and cultural identity, specifically, that Anderson argues Eliot advocates. But first, before we move to those considerations, a few questions about the article that, hopefully, will inform he later discussion of the literature:

1. Anderson ties the conception of the Jew as potentially both too cosmopolitan and too traditional, a dangerously “untethered” individual and a recalcitrant culturally-bound separatist—which allows Eliot’s manipulation of this discursive space—to Mill’s concern over “national cohesion” and Arnold’s ideas of Hebraism. This underlying discourse ties into last week’s discussion of “chosenness” and the simultaneous need for the existence and rejection of the Jew in the creation of British nationalist identity. For Anderson as well, Judaism represents to Victorian England the informing tradition of Christianity that has been transformed and improved, rendering those within the tradition either static separatists or “unmoored” individualists based on their embrace or rejection of Judaism, unless they are able to be “absorbed” into the more universal and modern British culture. This posits that both universalism and modernism are necessarily Christian ideals. Therefore, the Jewish figure must “convert” or (as Gideon argues) mix, in order to assimilate and participate in the modern state. Does Anderson’s reading of Deronda provide any solution to this in trying to articulate a way to maintain cultural heritage and modern identity? Is that answer Jewish nationalism or revision of both Judaism and modernity or both? What is the role of the “external” or what Arnold claims calcified, nature of a Judiasm bound by “the Law” in placing the Jew at one extreme or the other? Are other non-Protestant/non-Christian figures as irrevocably bound by a religious tradition? If not, why?

2. The tacit connection between universalism and Christianity and Mill’s argument that the benefits of cosmopolitanism cannot overcome a “national cohesion,” seem related to our discussion of Mordecai’s assertion that through the separateness of the Jewish nation, it will become universal (534-35; Hand and Banner conversation). Yet, Anderson states that Deronda’s conception aligns with Mill’s “universalist civic model of nationality” while Mordecai represents a “collectivist-romantic model” of Germain idealism which requires a “national unity” (122-23). How do we read Deronda as an individual which symbolizes a nationalist conception that transcends but does not subsume the individual, in contrast to a concept that “reifies national community…[in] the single individual” and demands “total subsumption into the state” (134)? Is Mordecai’s nationalist doctrine different from the British “universalism” which requires homogeneity in order to sustain the modern state? Is this not both organic and advocating complete “subsumption”? How does Mordecai’s argument tie into the “balancing [of] claims of the particular against those of the universal” (122) that Anderson argues Eliot achieves through Deronda’s cultural journey? Does the “excluded particular” require a certain separateness that enables both cultural ties and modernity?

3. Anderson asserts that Deronda never fully accepts Mordecai’s idea of “guaranteed cultural transmission” (135) which relies on the conception of an organic and racially based bond that is inescapable—an idea that runs counter to what Anderson calls Deronda’s belief in the need for “informed consent” that represents a “profound rejection” of Mordecai’s nationalism (751 in Deronda). Yet, Deronda does come to a “gradual accord” with Mordecai and feels an innate connection before returning to a cultural heritage most prominently represented by Mordecai and his ideas. Does Anderson’s distinction hold up? Are Deronda and Mordecai—and their doctrines—manifestly different enough to maintain Anderson’s delineation? Or does this apparent slippage between the two representations underpin the “reflective dialogic” in the text?

4. If the narrative follows Anderson’s distinctions, how can we view it in terms of the national allegory that we previously rejected as a possibility because there is no nation? Anderson calls Deronda’s history an “allegory about cosmopolitanism.” In light of the role of cosmopolitanism established within the article, could we consider Deronda an allegory of the concept of modern (Jewish) nationalism?

5. If we are to think of Deronda as an allegory, of either cosmopolitanism or nationalist conceptions, what could the following events (listed in no particular order) signify or symbolize: Deronda’s rejection of his grandfather’s exact belief but acceptance of his notion of “separateness with communication (725); Deronda’s marriage to Mirah, and her own stance on her heritage; the Klesmer marriage plot; Lapidoth’s absconding with Deronda’s “heritage” ring; Mordecai’s death, before the trip “East”; the description of and attitudes taken toward the Cohens; the “wandering” Kalonymos and Lenora.

6. Topics I would like to discuss but for which I have no particular questions: femininity in Deronda; the Jew as a “post-colonial subject”; the Meyricks’ stark prejudice; Deronda’s prejudice toward the Cohens.

Jewish Identity and Genetics

Via Matt Yglesias:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/03/jews-are-by-definition-jewish/

Chosing to be Chosen

I take my title from a comment by Mordecai in the 'Hand and Banner' discussion. He argues that "the sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them" (538). This question of chosenness connects with our discussions on Tuesday, our Kaufmann reading for today, and with larger questions of how race, religion, inheritance, history, nation, and desire are related to agency in the novel.

Consider these broad suggestions/questions for discussion either here or in class.

1) Does Kaufmann's reading of the relation between Jewishness and Englishness change how we might read this same relation in Deronda (the novel) and in Deronda the character? More broadly, what impact does the discourse of Jewish nationality have on our conversation about the anxieties / fantasies about the cosmopolitan / unassimilable Jew within the British state?

2) We briefly discussed the relationship between Jewishness and biological (specifically maternal) ties in the last class. First, think about whether, in today's reading, we see that discourse deployed and for what purpose. Second, think about the moment Sir Hugo reveals he is not Deronda's father. what do you make of the description by the narrator: "After a silence in which Deronda felt like one whose creed is gone before he has religiously embraced another, the baronet said..." How is inheritance figured here? Does the idea of "religiously embrac[ing]" a "creed" suggest a kind of agency while also aligning it with circumstances (birth) outside one's control?

3) "And Gwendolen"? Eliot asks at the beginning of Ch. 45 (echoing her line in Middlemarch, "But why always Dorthea"). What do you make of how agency and ethics are related in Gwendolyn's conversations with Deronda. I'm specifically thinking of pp. 563. On a related note, the (inevitable) disconnect between Gwendolen's projected sense of her importance to Deronda (as well as Grandcourt's level of knowledge) and her actual importance to him and the development of the plot also brings up problems of agency and control. See the narrator's discussion of projection on p. 547. But, also think about how the novel theorizes Grandcourt's power and Gwendolen's own control (or lack thereof) of her own desires and fantasies, as well as how she represents that control (see 606).

4) Broadly related to agency is the question of national aspiration, but I want you to be thinking about the relationship among history, chosenness, choice, inheritance, and national identity. Moreover please think about the way in which the nation and the body are often linked by Mordecai. What kinds of embodiments and re-embodiments does this novel imagine? We'll talk more too about the way assimilation and difference are figured in that conversation.

That's all for now!

Conversion and Tolerance: Britain's Paradox

Ragussis ocuses on the Protestant concept of Jewish conversion in the 19^th century—particularly, the strange double ideology of simultaneous toleration and conversion. The Jew, according to this strange double bind, is merely an “imperfect Christian” who should be converted. This notion of conversion is troubled somewhat by notions of race, in which the Jew does not become a Christian but a “Converted Jew” or an “English Jew.” In this view, there is something essential about the Jew that cannot be changed, even if a change in faith is professed.

Ragussis looks at the various literary forms around conversion—from conversion novels to conversion memoirs. Although he looks to some specific types of texts (like the conversion of the Jewess), he also identifies series of common tropes to most conversion novels, many related to reading:

The Jew to be converted reads Christian books (often in secret)

The Jew “reads anew” a Scripture and suddenly sees it from a Christian perspective

Child converts adult

Servant converts master

The converts are persecuted by other Jews after their conversion

There are secret believers in Jesus Christ throughout the Jewish community

1.) Questions:

1. 1. What role has literature and reading played in Daniel Deronda? Are we seeing the reading trope occurring backwards when Mordechai is disappointed that Daniel does not read Hebrew?

2.) 2. Ragussis notes that England wants to consider itself the “new Israel,” the new chosen nation (17). How do we square this with the inherent anti-Semitism of, for example, the London Society? In short, I guess I’m asking how England is able to balance the seemingly paradoxical ideas of conversion and tolerance?

3.) 3. How does “the Jewish question” relate to the concepts of British identity that we’ve dealt with all semester? How are the notions of inclusion and exclusion, assimilation and Othering, playing out here—and how does it differ from the way that the Irish were figured?

4.) 4, Does Mirah’s character thus far comply with or defy Ragussis’s definition of the Jewess in conversion novels?

5.) 5. When Hans and Mirah discuss her stage-dress, Hans says, “’We must not make you a role of the poor Jewess—or of being a Jewess at all.’” Hans had a secret desire to neutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not keeping secret. ‘But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall never be anything else,’ said Mirah. ‘I always feel myself a Jewess’” (488).

What do we make of this passage, regarding the concept of Jewish essentialism and, perhaps, the idea of passing? Does Eliot’s novel consistently hold up the idea of Jewish essentialism—as it does here?

The good, the bad and Leavis's Daniel Deronda

In The Great Tradition, F. R. Leavis offers a seemingly sexist, and perhaps an anti-Semitic reading of Daniel Deronda. Leavis seems to conflate Eliot’s Zionist inspirations with her femininity and emotion, and finds fault in these qualities because the “determining drive” is from within; her intellect lapses with the Zionist inspirations and are “flights not deriving their impulsion from any external pressure; “the nobility, generosity, and moral idealism are at the same time modes of self-indulgence” (82). He describes the character of Daniel Deronda as “a woman’s creation” (82). Leavis also offers perhaps an anti-Semitic reading of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. Many of us may have not read the whole novel yet, and if not, the “bad part” is yet to come. Leavis calls the good part Gwendolen Harleth; the bad part “is represented by Deronda himself, and by what may be called in general the Zionist inspiration” (80). I will intermix questions from Leavis and the novel below, but, as usual, these are just suggestions.

1. Despite Leavis’s assertion that his judgment of the bad part of the novel is based on Eliot’s “diffusely ponderous and abstract” style, can Leavis be read as favoring the Anglican character over the eponymous Jewish character, since he names the good part Gwendolen Harleth? (This question might have to wait for later.)

2. Very early into the good part of the novel, after pawning the necklace that was once her father’s, Gwendolen remarks, “these Jew dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians unfortunate at play!” (19). Daniel Deronda will purchase this necklace and anonymously send it to her. What are we to make of the novel’s opening focus on Gwendolen gambling?

3. The novel’s narrator states that Gwendolen, “it must be owned, was a deep young lady” (36). How might the lines of the poem that preface the novel relate to her character?

4. If Daniel Deronda is “a woman’s creation,” what is Herr Klesmer? For that matter, what is Gwendolen?...What do you make of Eliot’s depiction of women, and her general comments on them—for example, on p. 124.

5. Leavis asserts, “it is quite plain that the ‘duty’ that Deronda embraces—‘ “I considered it my duty—it is the impulse of my feeling—to identify myself . . . with my hereditary people”’—combines moral enthusiasm and the feeling of emotional intensity with essential relaxation in such a way that, for any ‘higher life’ promoted, we may fairly find an analogy in the exalting effects of alcohol. The element of self-indulgence is patent” (84). What about this second attribution of self-indulgence? Prima facie, what do you make of Leavis’s criticism of Deronda’s commitment to Judaism? Is he simply favoring a secular world over a religious (religion=opiate of the masses) or what else is behind this statement?

6. Is it really a problem of the novel that “There is no equivalent of Zionism for Gwendolyn, and even if there were—: the religion of heredity or race is not, as a generalizable solution of the problem, one that George Eliot herself, directly challenged, could have stood by” (84-5). What does this comment mean? Do we judge novels because of the solutions they offer?

7. Interestingly, Leavis finds that elements in Daniel Deronda “seem to come from Dickens rather than from life" (85). Oliver Twist was published in 1837-8, while Daniel Deronda was published in 1876. Could Eliot’s adoption of a Dickensian tone be part of her metacritical response to his hostile handling of the Jew? What about Dickensian elements in Deronda’s prevention of Mirah’s suicide?

8. How might Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy inform the reading of Daniel Deronda so far?