“The Life of George Eliot” by Nancy Henry: “Double consciousness,” 19th-century multiple personality

“Describing the ‘double consciousness’ that [Herbert] Spencer was to attribute to her in his autobiography, she [George Eliot] writes:

“ ‘One great deduction to me from the delight of seeing world-famous objects is the frequent double consciousness which tells me that I am not enjoying the actual vision enough, and that when higher enjoyment comes with the reproduction of the scene in my imagination I shall have lost some of the details, which impress me too feebly in the present because the faculties are not wrought up into energetic action.’

“This double (or triple) consciousness and interplay between what she anticipated, the reality of the present as she experienced it, and how she remembers or represents that reality, is important to note for the complicated consciousness of the narrative voice she was developing in her fiction. It is also an indication of how she understood her own process of realistic representation…

“In addition to the implicit concerns about realism that her ‘Recollections of Italy’ reveal, the double consciousness she describes as constituting her own world view provides an insight into the way her narrators hold their knowledge of past, present, and future in balance, often thinking of how a past experience will affect a character in the future. The double consciousness with which she lived constantly was a state of mind explored in the poetry of Wordsworth, who remained one her favorite poets and most important influences” (1, p. 121).

Search “Wordsworth” and “double consciousness” here for relevant past posts. Also see http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug03/souls/brucepg.html for a history of the term.

1. Nancy Henry. The Life of George Eliot: A Critical Biography [2012]. Wiley Blackwell, 2015.