Dear Serial Readers,
Thanks for these collective comments on the last installment. Yes, Tito's striking gift to Romola of the tabernacle with the crucifix hidden inside prompts many intriguing readings (thanks Maura for all the mythology allusions). I wonder too about the role of religious passion, especially for women, a subject that engages Eliot's attention from Maggie Tulliver to Dorothea Brooke and Mirah Lapidoth. After all, the crucifix is also a token or totem from her brother, the last object his eyes beheld before his death, and it's also affiliated with Savonarola. Yet this symbol (of sacrifice, martyrdom) is enclosed from view.
Like Julia, I noticed a pattern of deferred expectations with this installment. As in her later novels, Eliot postpones a view of the new marriage--I remember this sort of narrative structure both with Dorothea's marriage to Casaubon and Gwendolen's to Grandcourt. Like those later ones, we can assume that trouble lies ahead for Romola, who has no idea of Tito's moral laxity, his betrayal of Baldassarre (who appears in this episode at the Duomo), his mock-marriage to Tessa. I'm intrigued though by Tito's character, not a wholesale despicable villain, but one of mixed qualities. I find the later Eliotic husbands increasingly repugnant in contrast.
As for Romola cloistered, like the crucifix in the tabernacle, in her father's house and even in his library, I find many intriguing contrasts between interior and exterior spaces, perhaps comparable to the temporal juxtapositions of historical past and present. This installment opens with an unequivocal statement of the date of the scene--the seventheenth of November 1494--for this November 1862 Cornhill episode. The arrangement of this segment outside and inside the Duomo again highlights exteriority and interiority. Exactly a year earlier, on November 14, 1861, George Eliot signed the signature book of the British Museum as "Marian Evans Lewes," where she conducted research for this novel under the domed space of the circular reading room in the heart of London, opened first in 1857. This installment initially reminds us that "the fortunes of Tito and Romola were dependent on certain grand political and social conditions which made an epoch in the history of Italy"--a juxtaposition or networking of personal and "grand political" histories. Through Savonarola, a "real" historical figure of much renown, Eliot links the individual story of Romola with these "certain grand political and social conditions." Rather than Romola's eclipse in the narrative so far, I've been more struck by Savonarola's cameo appearances.
To return to Maura's comments here, Eliot seems intent on patriarchal powers and their effects: Bardo (the private, familial father) and Savonarola (the public prophet) on Romola, but also Baldassarre and Tito. Is there a gendered element here, the daughter's devotion in contrast to the son's betrayal (Dino as well as Tito)? In this episode outside/inside the Duomo, there is the moment of recognition, when Baldassarre and Tito see one another.
By the way, I've scanned Frederick Leighton's drawing, "The Blind Scholar and His Daughter," which accompanied the first installment of the novel. You can see that in Leighton's reading of the scene, Romola, an active figure above the manuscript and with her hand adjusting the light, towers over Bardo.
Next week, installment #6--chapters 27 ("The Young Wife"--Romola or Tessa, or both?) through 32. I hope more serial readers have caught up, and will join the conversation!
Serially sincere,
Susan
P.S. For those of you who read Small House, Lily Dale and family and friends do continue in the sequel The Last Chronicle of Barset, although more as minor figures. In chapters 15-16, we learn that Alexandrina Crosbie has died, and while Lily has remained "faithful" to Crosbie, so has Johnny Eames remained "faithful" to Lily. The stalled marriage plot of Lily Dale continues...
3 comments:
In this historical and political section, I miss Romola! And why is Tito in mourning? (I imagine for Bardo?) I enjoyed Chapter 21 very much, and then I enjoyed Chapter 22, and then I was ready for a wife or two to show up.
It seems that Tito crosses the line here to villain when he rejects Baldassare. I wonder if he will be a villain from now on, in particular as he protects himself from Baldassare's serpent.
This section is filled with in/out as Susan observes- and with insider/outsider. I found it interesting that all of the hospitals are outside of the gates. There are several moments of trnasgression, as when the French soldiers are inside the city too soon.
I am still intrigued to see how Savanorala unfolds progressively. I find myself dreading the Bonfire of the Vanities, but I enjoyed the description of why different people follow him.
This installment left me with a couple of thoughts about how the plot is developing. Once again, we see Piero di Cosimo as a shrewd "reader" of character. He seems to see into Baldassarre and Tito so completely: "A mysterious old tiger...well worth painting. Ugly--with deep lines--looking as if the plough and the harrow had gove over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco...who has married the fair Antigone in contradition to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar's blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow's clutch" (p. 220). I find it interesting that it is the artist who can effectively see through outward appearances and into the hearts of others, even though his work is all about visuality and images.
It continues to be the case in this episode that accident controls plot, notwithstanding Tito's careful planning. I wonder if writing a novel might be like this? As Susan has pointed out, Eliot researched this novel meticulously, and I assume she carefully planned it. I wonder if there were any moments when the novel "surprised" Eliot, developing in unexpected ways, just as Tito's life does? Or perhaps the plot is a contrast to the process of writing, which is carefully controlled?
Finally, I found the last chapter's image of the "garment of fear" so compelling! This seems to be a blending of the inside/outside dichotomy that we've been noticing in the text. Niccolo the blacksmith notes that he would never wear such a garment because it is "like carrying fear about with one" (p. 228). This material object seems to embody both the emotion of the wearer and the external circumstances that necessitate it. It's so small (fits in two hands), yet so monumental in terms of what it represents.
I'm behind obviously. But I had a few random observations.
Ch. XXII. Whereas Tito deliberately determined not to ransom his foster father Baldassare as he could and should have, his bonds are cut gratuitously by the indifferent Lollo, as "an amusing and dexterous piece of mischief."
Baldassare's clutch of Tito's arm reminds me of the Ancient Mariner's skinny arm clutching the reluctant wedding guest. I don't really think there's a connection there, I just couldn't shake the similarity of the images.
With Tito, and Savonarola, Eliot continues to impress me with her deep analysis of complex psychologies. I still think Tito is a rank villain, and his constant calculations and placement of self before all continue to develop a deep and nuanced portrayal of this. But Eliot goes further to let us know that even he has softness, that he would prefer that Baldassare would be happy, and that Tito would even prefer to turn back the clock if he could (Ch. XXVI). It's just that the engine of his self-interest has gone too far. Interestingly, the label "madman" came out without Tito's conscious will (Ch. XXIII). With Savonarola, I enjoyed the profile of both the man and his adherents in Ch. XXV, outlining very thoroughly the mixed and coexisting motives and needs of both.
The most exciting thing in this section is of course the appearance of Baldassare. So far, he is simply a tragic type. Rejected, he instantly becomes a revenger/avenger, something both he (Ch. ) and Tito (Ch. XXIII) are conscious of. Interesting in this connection is that, as Savonarola sermonizes about the purifying fire ("let my blood flow and the fire consume me"), Baldassare succumbs to the promise of hell-fire ("signing with his own flood the deed by which he gave himself over to an unending fire, that would seem but coolness to his burning hatred").
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