resp 5 - hegelian resonances

8/3/2019 Resp 5 - Hegelian Resonances

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Some Echoes of Hegel inRomola

Given Eliots well-documented relationship to German Idealism via her readings of Feuerbach, itwould hardly be surprising to detect resonances of Hegelian philosophy in the beginning of

Romola.

Even as Eliot takes more distance from her subject-matter than Hegelembodying philosophicalsentiments in characters voices or in the voice of her narratorshe sets the stage for a novel that

will have Hegelian concerns at its core. As the novel opens, we are introduced to the spirit of aFlorentine citizen. Eliots narrator is concerned not just with an individual mind here; the

Florentine citizen is not a particular character but a representative one, the embodiment of acollectivegeistfrom a particular historical period. Eliots narrator informs us that this citizen is

a man of the fifteenth century, who, as such, inherits its strange web of belief and unbelief; ofEpicurean levity and fetichistic dread; of pedantic impossible ethics uttered by rote, and crude

passions acted out with childish impulsiveness; of inclination towards a self-indulgent paganism,and inevitable subjection to that human conscience which, in the unrest of a new growth, was

rilling the air with strange prophecies and presentiments. Like Hegel, Eliot here beyond KantianIdealism even as it preserves its fundamental insight; although thoroughly historicist, (rather than

formulaic or abstractly transcendental), Eliot is nevertheless concerned with what transcendentfreedom can achieved through the use of self-conscious reason within an immanent historical

frame. Here Eliots narrator does not just read history as an end in itself; she reads care toseparate contingent custom from reflectively endorsed spirit. One notes here the careful

discrimination between the accidentals of Fetichistic dread, Crude passions, and self-indulgent paganism, and the essentialthe essential which, for Eliot as for Hegel, finds an

expression in human conscience.

Other early passages inRomola speak to the concern Eliot shares with Hegel to depict therational core of historically evolved structures of conscience. One structure of conscience

important to Hegel of course is the public-spiritedness that comes through collective politicalparticipation. We see the grave, elderly goldsmith Cennini voice a distinctively Hegelian

perspective as he berates a fellow Florentine for failing to discern the importance of a ceremonialprocession. According to Cennini, the poet, Cei, despises the procession only because forgets

that, the great bond of our Republic is expressing itself in ancient symbols, without which thevulgar would be conscious of nothing beyond their own petty wants of back and stomach, and

never rise to the sense of community in religion and law.i

Such a claim echoes Hegelianlanguage almost directly. Of course, works likePhenomenology of SpiritandPhilosophy of

Rightare, among other things, systematic attempts to distinguish what Cennini calls petty wantsof back and stomach (or, in Hegels words, appetite, want, impulse and random desire

ii) from

a nations historically evolved sense of community in religion and law (or, in Hegels words,the idea and the consciousness of what is reasonable in so far as it is developed in a peopleiii).

Like HegelsPhilosophy of Right,Romola does not portray religion and politics as the sole

vehicles for the structuring of rational will. The novel also sees the sphere of the family asplaying a crucial mediating role in shaping formless desire in accord with rational concept.

Commenting on children observed in the Florentine streets, Eliots narrator actually echoesHegels view of marriage almost directly; for the narrator, little children are still the symbol of


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the eternal marriage between love and duty. Hegel, likewise, views children as the externalembodiment of the fundamentally rational commitment of marriage. Because marriage and

family life at their best involves the synthesis of particulars of passion with the universality ofduty, they exemplify Hegels conception of positive freedomthe ability to view an obligation

not as external constraint upon ones freedom, but as the means by which directionless impulse is

given rational structure. Because the duties of marriage depend for Hegel upon the socializingof the whole individual existence in order to reconcile ones passions to a role or duty, it is astructure by which positive freedom is achieved (PR 163); in marriage, participants give up

their natural and private personality to enter a unity, which may be regarded as a limitation, but,since in it they attain to a substantive self-consciousness, is really their liberation (PR 162).

Even if Eliot does not describe her project as the enumeration of structures of positive freedom,

these dialectical marriages of passion and duty are of fundamental interest in her novels. Againechoing Hegel, Eliot sees such structures of will manifesting themselves not only in Republican

politics or in act of raising children, but also in the pursuit of a vocation. One recalls Hegelsdefense in thePhilosophy of Rightof the role of corporations, or trade guilds, as playing an

essential role in civil society (positioned, for Hegel, between the family and the state). Hegelviews the peers in ones profession to be vital in order to create a stable sites of recognition

capable of fostering and encouraging the development of a sense of pride and dutythat senseof duty which distinguishes a shapeless will, ruled by contingent desires, from a will governed

by a culturally formed sense of purpose.iv

Notably, what Hegel defends only in the abstractEliots novels depict in concrete form; one sees the conscientious self-direction motivated by a

desire to live in a way becoming [ones] class Hegel supposes to be secured by participation ina corporation,

vgiven life inRomola. This desire to maintain class honor in Hegel, becomes in

Romola, Brattis self-important gravityvi

that does not allow him to enjoy anything he has notwon through hard bargaining

vii; Nellos conviction of that a man can be transformed by a good

shave; or Bardis commitment to forsake the vulgar pursuit of wealth in commerce in orderthat he might devote [himself] to collecting the precious remains of ancient art and wisdom.

In addition to a concern with historical structures of reason and the negative, aspirational aspects

of consciousness,

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The perspective of Eliots novel does not take its cue only from theHegel of the Philosophy ofRight, interested in the determinate manifestations of collective reason (as embodied in

historically realized structures of the rational constitution, the customs of civil society, and theprinciples of Christian religion). One also notes the emphasis on the ascent of the individual

consciousness of the young Hegel of thePhenomenology. Giottos half-completed marbleinlaying and statued niches, seem, to theRomolas narrator, to be a prophetic symbol, telling


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that human life must somehow and some time shape itself into accord with that pure aspiringbeauty (cit). Here distinctively human life, like the Hegelian spirit of thePhenomenology, is

viewed to be aspirational at its coreit is defined by its negativity, its ability to perfect itselfthrough the labor of the concept, through the estrangement of the immediate in the light of

universal reason.

i Cenninis speech continues: There has been no great people without processions, and the man who thinks himself

too wise to be moved by them to anything but contempt, is like the puddle that was proud of standing alone while

the river rushed by.iiPR 37iiiPR 274, addition.iv It is in the corporation that a conscious and reflective ethical reality is first reached. The superintendence of the

state is higher, it is true, and must be given an upper place; otherwise the corporation would be reduced to the

level of a wretched club. But the corporation is not in its absolute nature a secret society, but rather the socializing of

a trade, which without it would stand in isolation. It takes the trade up into a circle, in which it secures strength and

honour (PR 255, addition)v If the individual is not a member of an authorized corporation, and no combination can be a corporation unless itis authorized, he has no class-honour. By limiting himself to the self-seeking side of trade and his own subsistenceand enjoyments, he loses standing. He perhaps seeks, in that case, to obtain recognition by displaying his success in

his trade; but his display ha s no limit, because he has no desire to live in a way becoming his class (PR 253,

note).vi He was a grey-haired, broad-shouldered man, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is moulded with the fist and

polished with the pickaxe; but the self-important gravity which had written itself out in the deep lines about his brow

and mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences from the hasty workmanship which Nature had

bestowed on his exteriorvii [in Brattis own words] Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal. The cat couldnt eat her mouse if she didnt

catch it alive, and Bratti couldnt relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain[in the words of Nello]: Our Bratti is not a common man. He has a theory, and lives up to it, which is more than I

can say for any philosopher I have the honour of shaving Bratti means to extract the utmost possible amount ofpleasure, that is to say, of hard bargaining, out of this life; winding it up with a bargain for the easiest possible

passage through purgatory, by giving Holy Church his winnings when the game is over. He has had his will made to

that effect on the cheapest terms a notary could be got for.

resp 5 - hegelian resonances

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