George Eliot, Poetess

The position of George Eliot’s poetry within Victorian poetry and within her own canon is crucial for an accurate picture of the writer, as Wendy S. Williams shows in her in-depth examination of Eliot’s poetry and her role as poetess. Williams argues that even more clearly than her fiction, Eliot’s poetry reveals the development of her belief in sympathy as a replacement for orthodox religious views. With knowledge of the Bible and a firm understanding of society’s expectations for female author