Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Newton, K. M.

Titel

George Eliot and the Bushmen

Ist Teil von

• Notes and queries, 2008-03, Vol.55 (1), p.45-46

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In Chapter 28 of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, she mentioned the word "Bosjesman," a Dutch for Bushman. In a footnote to an essay published in 1985 Sandor Gilman claimed that the sentence where the word "Bushman" was cited assumes 'a polygenetic view of race', polygenesis being the theory that races are descended from more than one ancestral type. Though there is no indication in George Eliot's other writings that she took 'a polygenetic view of race', Gilman's claim has been accepted by a considerable number of her critics and has been used to support the argument that there is explicit or implicit racism in her writing. Here, Newton argues that none of these critics has investigated further her interest in or attitudes towards the Bushmen, nor have they explored how the Bushmen were perceived at the time Eliot was writing. In this regard, he inquires why these critics seem so ready to connect Eliot with a racist ideology such as polygenesis on such slender grounds is an interesting question.