SILAS MARNER

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Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot. It was published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, the novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community. The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in Northern England. woman Silas was to marry breaks their engagement and marries William instead. With his life shattered, his trust in God lost, and his heart broken, Silas leaves Lantern Yard and the city for a rural area where he is unknown.
George Eliot was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bece (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871-72) and Daniel Deronda (1876). 
Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women’s writing being limited to lighthearted romances or other lighter fare not to be taken very seriously. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as a translator, editor, ar d critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes .

PREFACE

HE main aim of teachers of English during the last decade Thas been to enable students in the secondary schools to secure a wider and closer familiarity with the great English classics. Until that aim be attained, indeed, we can scarcely hope to reap much benefit from the teaching of rhetoric, of composition, or of the history of English literature, for each of these studies, however separated from the others by the specific objects it has in view, must depend to a greater or less degree on a knowledge of, and a familiarity with, at least a few of the large body of English classics, and with literary English-the more dignified forms, usages, and idioms of the language, that have taken their place in our literature, and, by this very means, have become standard.
In favour of more reading in the schools, accordingly, as affording a basis for information, a source of pleasure, and an incentive to, and even a means for, growth in power of expression, the National Committee of Ten has recently offered a strong recommendation. The Conference on English assigned three “periods” a week for each of the four years of the high- school course to the study of English literature, and advised that it be “taught incidentally, in connection with the pupils’ study of particular authors and works;” that “the mechanical use of ‘manuals of literature’ be avoided;” and that “the committing to memory of names and dates be not mistaken for culture.” The position taken by the National Committee of Ten was fur. ther strengthened by the action of the Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English, whose recommendations, since adopted by almost all the prominent colleges and universities throughout the country, prescribed “Reading” as the first of the two requirements in English for admission to American colleges. A second recommendation of the Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English was, that certain English classics should be studied thoroughly, word by word and letter by letter, if need be, until the student should have as detailed and as intelligent an idea as his age and his opportunities permit, of their subject-matter, their form, and their structure.
In strict conformity with the courses of reading and study mentioned above, and certain to be adopted widely and uniformly throughout the United States, the publishers have arranged for the editing of a series of English classics, especially designed for use in secondary schools, either in accordance with the system of English study recommended and outlined by the National Committee of Ten, or in direct preparation for the uniform entrance requirements in English now adopted by the principal American colleges and universities. The Editors have been chosen for their scholarship, their literary or critical ability, or their experience in teaching, according as each qualification seemed most necessary for the treatment of the work in question. On their part, the publishers aim to provide a series of volumes moderate in price, attractive and serviceable in point of mechanical execution, and fit in every way for permanent use and possession.
The specific aims of the series are:
I. To interest young students in certain books (those prescribed for reading in the uniform entrance requirements) as literature, and to draw attention to the main subjects of importance in them. No stress is laid on merely linguistic study ; but every effort is made, by critical and biographical introductions, by pertinent explanatory notes, by bibliographies, chronological tables, and, in some instances, by portraits, maps, and plans, to make these books not only pleasant and useful reading in themselves, but incentives to further reading and study.
II. To provide, in each case, for the books prescribed for study a thorough and satisfactory method of treatment. Teachers in secondary schools will remember that the recommendations of the Committee of Ten and the uniform requirements suggested jointly by various associations of colleges and preparatory schools are general, rather than particular, and that definite methods of study still remain to be laid down by scholars and experienced teachers. Precisely this is done by the part of the present series devoted to the books prescribed for study. The position and the reputation of the editors are a sufficient guarantee that these volumes do all that can be done, at the present time and under the present circumstances, toward defining and typifying the best modern methods of studying literature in secondary schools.
III. To provide for students in secondary schools who are not preparing for college, a uniform series of properly edited English classics for reading and study. The series which we here present has the great advantages of uniformity and of authority, and, it is believed, will be widely adopted throughout the country by schools that refuse to give students who do not pursue their studies beyond the high school a less wide and thorough training in their mother tongue than those who go to college.
George Eliot’s charming story of “Silas Marner” is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons, from the authorized English edition of that work. 
“IT is a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought.” In these words George Eliot first describes “Silas Marner.” Later, in another letter to her publisher, she touches upon a different aspect of the tale. “it sets, or is intended to set, in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural relations.” These two statements present the important elements of the story, the rural setting of the action in an English village at the beginning of our century, where the simplicity of the social life is adapted to bring out in high relief the tragedy of Silas; and, on the other hand, the spiritual truth of Silas’s regeneration, caused by the awakening of the affections through his love for the helpless child. Each element is essential to the strength of the other, and throughout the book each is kept in sight. The superstition, ignorance, and conservatism of the Raveloe villagers, at the Squire’s house as well as at the Rainbow, form the background for the strange figure of the weaver, Silas Marner. He himself belongs to a remote epoch of pre-factory days, when isolation tended to produce simplicity and intensity of character, and ignorance also. Thus his position in life makes the drama more possible and more forcible. He loses his faith in the justice of God and man by an unexpected and undeserved calamity; it is restored by an unforeseen and mysterious blessing.
The story is brightened and made more real by a number of minor characters who take part in the action. Godfrey Cass through his folly and weakness of will prepares unhappiness for himself and his wife, and yet, in just recognition of the complexity of human events, the novelist shows how his weakness and failure are a means for the salvation of Silas. So, also, George Eliot uses the villainous Dunsey as an instrument in abstracting Silas’s gold. Tin til the loss of his gold hoard, which had become his God, had taken place, Silas was not in a condition to be reached by outside concerns.
The firm outline of the minor lives in the story show George Eliot’s of character drawing as much as the delineation power of Silas. The villagers, especially Mr. Macey and Dolly Winthrop, the doctor, old Squire Cass, and the Lammeters are all described vividly and made to live as independent human beings who interest us. Peculiarities of character are displayed so far as we need to know them. Each actor receives due attention; no one is slurred, or left vague. Thus the sense of real life-all important in telling a story-is created by the careful treatment given to the minor characters.
We may find, then, three essential requirements of good fiction satisfied in “Silas Marner”: Scene, Character, and Plot. And all three are kept in equal prominence. The novelist does not allow the strain of Silas’s tragedy to overshadow the humorous aspects of the life about him, nor does she neglect to relate his life with the other people of the scene. In other words “Silas Marner” is a story; the fine analysis of motive and character, the many sane and sagacious reflections on life, should not permit us to forget that we are reading a story, i.e., enjoying a picture of human life.
ROBERT HERRICK.
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