Jessi Glueck | Harvard University (original) (raw)
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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Papers by Jessi Glueck
Explores the influence of Samuel Smiles's seminal self-improvement text, Self-Help, on George Eli... more Explores the influence of Samuel Smiles's seminal self-improvement text, Self-Help, on George Eliot's Middlemarch.
Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Milton in his Paradise Lost both narrate the creation of the world,... more Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Milton in his Paradise Lost both narrate the creation of the world, from the banishment of primeval chaos to the generation of new life. But these two aspects of creation are, in some ways, contradictory: is creation a process of unifying or of separating, of dividing warring elements or of bringing them together in fecund harmony? In Book 1 of the Metamorphoses, Ovid describes two types of creation, a creation based on separation and one based on generative unity. In Book 7 of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Milton’s narrator synthesizes these accounts, recognizing division and joining as fundamentally linked parts of the creative process.
Allusions to and quotations from the Aeneid abound in all of Augustine’s works. Yet at the same t... more Allusions to and quotations from the Aeneid abound in all of Augustine’s works. Yet at the same time, Augustine vehemently condemns the Aeneid in the Confessions. How are we to reconcile this condemnation with Augustine’s frequent employment of themes and language from the Aeneid? A close examination of several Virgilian allusions in the Confessions will suggest that, even as he claims to reject the Aeneid, Augustine is actually reimagining it. He employs Virgil’s descriptions of external, physical action to articulate his internal, spiritual struggles toward the love of God. In this way, Augustine uses the Aeneid to construct his own religious narrative, one whose vividness and pathos would rival that of the poem he once loved.
The sunny, peaceful hillsides of Dorlcote Mill may seem an unusual setting for an epic. Yet the t... more The sunny, peaceful hillsides of Dorlcote Mill may seem an unusual setting for an epic. Yet the theme of epic heroism pervades The Mill on the Floss. Tom Tulliver’s struggles and victories in the business world recall the battles of ancient heroes, while Maggie’s internal conflicts are described in terms of epic warfare. What function does this network of epic resonances serve in a pastoral English novel so distant from the battlefields of Troy? The repeated portrayal of Maggie’s internal epic constitutes a didactic process through which readers come to understand and sympathize with her inner struggles. But when Maggie abruptly achieves an external, active form of heroism at the novel’s end, we realize the limitations of Eliot’s didactic process, the hidden heroic strength that has eluded even our carefully trained moral vision.
Explores the influence of Samuel Smiles's seminal self-improvement text, Self-Help, on George Eli... more Explores the influence of Samuel Smiles's seminal self-improvement text, Self-Help, on George Eliot's Middlemarch.
Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Milton in his Paradise Lost both narrate the creation of the world,... more Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Milton in his Paradise Lost both narrate the creation of the world, from the banishment of primeval chaos to the generation of new life. But these two aspects of creation are, in some ways, contradictory: is creation a process of unifying or of separating, of dividing warring elements or of bringing them together in fecund harmony? In Book 1 of the Metamorphoses, Ovid describes two types of creation, a creation based on separation and one based on generative unity. In Book 7 of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Milton’s narrator synthesizes these accounts, recognizing division and joining as fundamentally linked parts of the creative process.
Allusions to and quotations from the Aeneid abound in all of Augustine’s works. Yet at the same t... more Allusions to and quotations from the Aeneid abound in all of Augustine’s works. Yet at the same time, Augustine vehemently condemns the Aeneid in the Confessions. How are we to reconcile this condemnation with Augustine’s frequent employment of themes and language from the Aeneid? A close examination of several Virgilian allusions in the Confessions will suggest that, even as he claims to reject the Aeneid, Augustine is actually reimagining it. He employs Virgil’s descriptions of external, physical action to articulate his internal, spiritual struggles toward the love of God. In this way, Augustine uses the Aeneid to construct his own religious narrative, one whose vividness and pathos would rival that of the poem he once loved.
The sunny, peaceful hillsides of Dorlcote Mill may seem an unusual setting for an epic. Yet the t... more The sunny, peaceful hillsides of Dorlcote Mill may seem an unusual setting for an epic. Yet the theme of epic heroism pervades The Mill on the Floss. Tom Tulliver’s struggles and victories in the business world recall the battles of ancient heroes, while Maggie’s internal conflicts are described in terms of epic warfare. What function does this network of epic resonances serve in a pastoral English novel so distant from the battlefields of Troy? The repeated portrayal of Maggie’s internal epic constitutes a didactic process through which readers come to understand and sympathize with her inner struggles. But when Maggie abruptly achieves an external, active form of heroism at the novel’s end, we realize the limitations of Eliot’s didactic process, the hidden heroic strength that has eluded even our carefully trained moral vision.