GE to Walter W. Skeat, London, [1872?]
Title
GE to Walter W. Skeat, London, [1872?]
Title
GE to Walter W. Skeat, London, [1872?]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Walter W. Skeat
Date(s)
- 1872
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Walter W. Skeat, London, [1872?]
Text: English Dialect Society, A Bibliographical List, Part I, London, 1873, p. viii. 72
It must be borne in mind that my inclination to be as close as I could to the rendering of dialect, both in words and spelling, was constantly checked by the artistic duty of being generally intelligible. But for that check, I should have given a stronger colour to the dialogue in "Adam Bede," which is modelled on the talk of N. Staffordshire and the neighbouring part of Derbyshire. The spelling, being determined by my own ear alone, was necessarily a matter of anxiety, for it would be as possible to quarrel about it as about the spelling of Oriental names.
The district imagined as the scene of "Silas Marner" is in N. Warwickshire. But here, and in all my other presentations of English life, except "Adam Bede," it has been my intention to give the general physiognomy rather than a close portraiture of the provincial speech as I have heard it in the Midland or Mercian region. It is a just demand that art should keep clear of such specialities as would make it a puzzle for the larger part of its public; still, one is not bound to respect the lazy obtuseness or snobbish ignorance of people who do not care to know more of their native tongue than the vocabulary of the drawing-room and the newspaper.
Text: English Dialect Society, A Bibliographical List, Part I, London, 1873, p. viii. 72
It must be borne in mind that my inclination to be as close as I could to the rendering of dialect, both in words and spelling, was constantly checked by the artistic duty of being generally intelligible. But for that check, I should have given a stronger colour to the dialogue in "Adam Bede," which is modelled on the talk of N. Staffordshire and the neighbouring part of Derbyshire. The spelling, being determined by my own ear alone, was necessarily a matter of anxiety, for it would be as possible to quarrel about it as about the spelling of Oriental names.
The district imagined as the scene of "Silas Marner" is in N. Warwickshire. But here, and in all my other presentations of English life, except "Adam Bede," it has been my intention to give the general physiognomy rather than a close portraiture of the provincial speech as I have heard it in the Midland or Mercian region. It is a just demand that art should keep clear of such specialities as would make it a puzzle for the larger part of its public; still, one is not bound to respect the lazy obtuseness or snobbish ignorance of people who do not care to know more of their native tongue than the vocabulary of the drawing-room and the newspaper.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Walter W. Skeat, London, [1872?], Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/94169