CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION
1.1Research Questions
1.2Research Background
1.3Literature Review: A General Survey
1.3.1From the 1880s to the 1940s: A Slow Process of Regaining Critical Attention
1.3.2From the 1950s to the 1980s: A Fertile Testing Ground for Various Schools of Literary Criticism
1.3.3From the 1990s to the Present: Contextual Studies
1.3.4Previous George Eliot Studies in China
1.4Research Methodology
1.4.1The Historical Trajectory of Images
1.4.2The Historical Relations between Images and Words
1.4.3The Rise of Iconology
1.4.4Previous Image Studies in Literature
1.4.5Ekphrasis Revisited: A Prospective Theoretical Framework of Studying Images in Literature
1.5Potential Research Significance
1.6Chapter Outline
CHAPTER 2GEORGE ELIOT, REALISM, AND IMAGES
2.1Realism in Nineteenth-Century Britain
2.2George Eliot’s Evolving Realism and Pictorial Tastes
CHAPTER 3SCENES AS IMAGES: GEORGE ELIOT’S MIMETIC REALISM
3.1George Eliot’s Religion of Humanity
3.2Scenes of Clerical Life: The Secular Priest as the Suffering Christ
3.2.1“Mr. Gilfil’s LoveStory”
3.2.2“The Sad Fortunes of the Reverent Amos Barton”
3.2.3“Janet’s Repentance”
3.3Adam Bede: The Divine beneath the Human in Ordinary Life
3.4The Mill on the Floss: The Hazards of “Public Opinion”
CHAPTER 4IDEAS AS IMAGES: GEORGE ELIOT’S SYMBOLIC REALISM
4.1Silas Marner: Love as the Natural Bond of Human Relations
4.2Romola: Fear and Sympathy Incarnated
4.3Felix Holt: Arnoldian Cultural Radicalism
CHAPTER 5MOTIFS AS IMAGES: GEORGE ELIOT’S INTELLECTUAL REALISM
5.1Later-born Theresas in Middlemarch: “All This Vast Wreck of Ambitious Ideals”
5.2Daniel Deronda:“Gambling Being a Vice I Have No Mind To”
CHAPTER 6CONCLUSION
References
Appendix Figures