Embodied Transcendence in Victorian Novels: A Comparative Study of Select Works by George Eliot and Thomas Hardy

Abstract

This thesis is a study of embodied transcendence as a literary principle and its application in Victorian Literature. Through close reading and textual analysis, especially through the lens of cognitive linguistic science, this study offers the following three findings. First, in an age characterized by religious reform and scientific advancement, the narratives in select novels by George Eliot and Thomas Hardy reveal a literary phenomenon where the authors adopt a humanistic, embodied approach to the characters’ transcendence, as an alternative to the metaphysical claim of immaterial, disembodied transcendence. Second, during the philosophical, theological probing of the concept of transcendence that hinges on the related conceptual pairs -- body and spirit, immanence and transcendence -- the study recognizes while the body-spirit relationship has been a persistent problem for western thought, the Victorian novels seem to approach this long-standing, unanswered question in a new way, with an answer that happens to anticipate the contemporary cognitive science. Third, this thesis claims that through the application of the principle of embodied transcendence, the Victorian authors manifest a reformative purposefulness: their narratives transform three interrelated concepts -- transcendence, religion and heroism – which reflects the Victorian consciousness of the primacy of embodiment, humanity, and the heroism of common people with their belief that everyday moral acts would make the community and world a better place.