

Epigraphs are concerned with inheritance from the past, scientific minuteness and microscopic observation and a humanist apprehension of the larger world of literature. He includes epigraphs in the vast pattern of interactions developed in Middlemarch between the small and the large, the present and the past, the part and the whole hence he suggests a link between epigraphs and mirrors, calling to mind the multiple references made to glasswork by Eliot herself in the novel.

In the line of former studies (like David Leon Higdon’s George Eliot and the Art of Epigraphs), Roberts advocates that epigraphs are organically linked to the body of the text, whose meaning they enrich and illuminate.

Epigraphs are much more than pedantism and gratuitous quoting, hindering comprehension rather than clarifying it, as embodied by the emblematic character of Casaubon the scholar. Indeed, Roberts underlines that Middlemarch is not just a novel containing epigraphs but one about epigraphs, which function to unravel the complexities and the richness behind the story being told. Among her literary output, Middlemarch is particularly relevant when discussing the value of epigraphs. Myth, Middlemarch and the Mill: Out in Mid-SeaĢAlthough she was not the first author to have used chapter epigraphs (writers like Scott, for instance, having done so before), George Eliot is known for her extensive use of epigraphs in her novels, some borrowed from identified sources, others coined by herself. essay along with an introduction, a postscript, a bibliography, a list of illustrations and an index, according to the following organization:ģ.
