N.a.v.
het bericht dat Clare Carlisle op 6 december 2018 voor de London Spinoza Circle
zal spreken over “George Eliot’s Spinoza” [cf.] ontdekte
ik twee dingen die ik hier graag doorgeef en vasthoud.
[1.] dat Clare Carlisle onlangs opnieuw
George Eliot’s vertaling van Spinoza’s Ethica
heeft geredigeerd.
"Eliot's
translation of Spinoza's Ethics was completed in early 1856, but she could not
agree terms with her publisher (Bohn) and it was shelved. Though considered by
another publisher in 1859 it did not see the light of day until it was
published in Salzburg in 1981. The text is useful because it give us some clues
about how Eliot animated her fictional characters." Aldus Nathan Uglow ["Spinoza's
Ethics". The Literary Encyclopedia.
First published 18 June 2002, cf.]
"Ethics
of Benedict Spinoza", Translated by George Eliot; edited by Thomas Deegan
(Salzburg studies in Romantic reassessment). Salzburg: Institut fur Anglistik
und Amerikanistik, Universitat Salzburg, 1981
xi, 259 p.
Reprint New York: Edwin Mellen Press Ltd , 1981, 270 pages
Reprint New York: Edwin Mellen Press Ltd , 1981, 270 pages
Het
ziet er dus naar uit dat er een nieuwe uitgave van deze eerste Engelse vertaling
van de Ethica door George Eliot op
komst is.
[tussendoor] Ik had de volgende blogs over George
Eliot
14-05-2009: “Luisteren naar meedenken met Spinoza;” via
welke geluisterd kan worden naar de
lezing van Moira Gatens (University of
Sydney), "Compelling Fictions. Spinoza and George Eliot on Belief and
Faith"
16-12-2009: George Eliot (1819 - 1880) Spinozistische en
Feuerbachse invloeden op haar 'experimenteel filosofische' romans
09-03-2010: Rebecca Goldstein over ideeënromans [o.a.
Middlemarch By George Eliot (1873)]
22-12-2011: Spinoza aangevuld. Tot nadenken aanzettende
literatuur als tweede weg naar vrijheid
[over Moira Gatens, Spinoza’s Hard
Path to Freedom, dat vooral over George
Eliot gaat]
22-01-2014: Joe Hughes over George Eliot en Spinoza in
Engeland
17-06-2014: Hoe het zit met het dynamische en procesmatige
bij Spinoza
Nu ontdek ik:
[2.] Miriam Henson, “George Eliot's
Middlemarch as a Translation of Spinoza's Ethics.”In: George Eliot Review, 2009: 40, 18-26 [cf. en PDF] Het essay begint aldus:
In 1846 John
Chapman of Newgate Street published a translation of David Strauss's Das
Leben Jesu. Although no translator was accredited, this book was the result
of two years' arduous work by Mary Ann Evans, the woman who would later achieve
renown as George Eliot. Strauss's presentation of Jesus is that of a historical
figure; he denies his divine status, and suggests that the miracles written
about in the Gospels are mythic in nature. Although Mary Ann was distressed by
Strauss's destruction of all the 'miraculous and highly improbable' elements of
the Gospel, she too had, for some time, been unable to regard Jesus as the Son
of God; after reading Charles Hennell'sAn Enquiry Concerning the Origin of
Christianity in 1838 she suffered a loss of faith and ceased her church
attendance in 1842.1 The religious and scientific climates of the period were
changing: by 1842 Mary Ann had read the work of the geologist Charles Lyell
and, ten years later, Herbert Spencer presented his theory of evolution in the Westminster
Review under her management; elements of each anticipated Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species of
1859. Although the change occurred gradually, the increasing secularization of
intellectual thought, and the lack of a divinely endorsed role model, placed
the nature of morality under scrutiny.
Mary Ann translated two further
philosophical texts which could be considered to offer alternative systems of
morality: Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity and Benedict de
Spinoza's Ethics, both of which reject the idea of a Judaeo-Christian
creator god: Feuerbach's 'god' is a projected ideal of human nature, whereas
Spinoza's equivalent is immanent in all substance. Both writers influenced her
fiction, but it is especially interesting to consider her relationship with
Spinoza as she became convinced that a simple translation was not sufficient to
make his ideas available:
What is wanted in English is not a
translation of Spinoza's works, but a true estimation of his life and system.
After one has rendered his Latin faithfully into English, one feels that there
is another yet more difficult process of translation for the reader to effect,
and that the only mode of making Spinoza accessible to a larger number is to
study his books, then shut them and give an analysis. (Letters, 1,321)
Hilda M. Hulme believes that she
effects this analysis through her literature and that her acknowledged
masterpiece Middlemarch is such a 'process of translation'.2 It is
certainly noteworthy that it was the very year Mary Ann finished translating
the Ethics that she turned to writing fiction. This raises the question
of the capabilities of fiction for moral education: is it the case that Middlemarch
is 'a true estimation' of Spinoza's system of morality, and why did Eliot
choose to write a novel rather than a philosophical treatise of her own?
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