The Theme of Beauty and Goodness

Meet two extraordinary women: George Eliot, the author of Daniel Deronda, and her character Gwendolen Harleth. In this first episode, Professor Wisse calls our attention to the main aesthetic and moral themes that will run through the entire novel. Though the book concerns England, it opens abroad in Germany, so that the characters are not in their usual orbit. This immediately draws attention to the mobility of their society and disquiet of their lives.