Al-Adab Journal 2017 / 1439

Music at the Floss : the Effect of Music

in George Eliot's the Mill on the Floss

Haneen Sabah Abid

Al-Mamoon University College
Dept. of English

Introduction :
George Eliot interprets the psychological and emotional
development of Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss through
music and the use of musical metaphors and musical references. She
also uses musical pieces that were important and well known in the
Victorian society to illustrate the details and reveal the climax of the
plot. Moreover, Eliot focuses on the different aspects and sides of
music on young women and its importance to their education and self-
development; she illustrates the negative side of music on Maggie’s
character and her over indulgence in a musical and unreal world, and
her musical reactions to the books she reads and everything else
around her. But she also remarks the importance of music and reading
to women and its advantages when it is not overused. Therefore, on
one hand, music is important for women’s education and intellect, and
it provides them with spirituality and fills their domestic life with joy
and entertainment. On the other hand, it causes them distractions from
their domestic duties, and therefore becomes a dangerous factor on
their lives and authorships.
My thesis for this paper is on music’s effects on Maggie
Tulliver in George Eliot’s novel, The Mill on the Floss, and how
musical allusions are used to illustrate Maggie’s psychological and
emotional development throughout the novel. In addition, I will focus
on the importance of both music and reading for Maggie, her reactions
to both of them, and which effect is stronger than the other on her
character.
George Eliot uses musical allusions in many of her novels to
emphasize the fact that music was very significant for the Victorians,
especially the Victorian women. Delia da Sousa Correa1 states that
“Music played a distinctive role in the lives of Victorian women, both
in theory and in practice… [it] was the most spiritual and yet the most
sensual of the arts; it offered unique advantages for domestic life but
also dangerous distractions from home duties.” (59-60). So the use of
music in The Mill on the Floss is taking the form of a warning against
the dangerous side of music through the character of Maggie and her
over-indulgence in the world of music. In contrast to Maggie, Lucy

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does not fall for the temptation of music and is not pulled to another
world of imagination and self-denial like Maggie.
In addition, Eliot’s depiction of the drawing room and the
musical events that take place at it shows the importance of such
events in the Victorian era. Phyllis Weliver2 states that “people
continued to attend concerts to socialize and flirt, despite what the
musical establishment projected as the goal of the concerts (the music
itself). Novels, which prove highly responsive to these public spaces,
depict concert scenes as an opportunity to meet others, with conflict
arising when romantic partnerships occur between people from
different social tiers” (17). Thus, we see these meetings between
Maggie and Stephen Guest later in the novel happen at such musical
events even if it is not a big concert or a party. Music brings them
together from their different worlds, and it lights the passion between
the two of them despite the fact that it is forbidden. Music causes them
to find common grounds and flirt secretly with singing and gazes,
which symbolizes the arts of flirtation in the Victorian society.
Maggie’s psychological and emotional development can be
divided into three major and important stages throughout the novel:
her happy childhood, her adolescence and the renunciation of feeling
and desire, and young womanhood with indulgence in the fantasy
world and romance. In the first chapter of the novel, the narrator
describes the town of St. Ogg’s and its river, and refers to the “voice”
of the river and its influence. Like Maggie, who is not introduced at
this point of the novel yet, the narrator admires the river and
acknowledges its power, she (the narrator) states, “How lovely the
little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a
living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low
placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving.” (395) 3.
Eliot here combines the power of the river with the power of the
voice, and foreshadows the effect that both will have on Maggie
throughout the course of the novel.
Eliot introduces Maggie to the reader at the beginning of the
novel as a wild child with dark and shabby hair that often disturbs her
mother and causes her embarrassment in front of her family. Her need
of love and to be loved overcomes her pride ever since her childhood
and she often attempts to please her brother, Tom, in order to gain his
love and affection, and she sings happily “Yap, Yap, Tom’s coming
home!” (Eliot 412) when he was expected from school. She also has a
great interest in books and reading (which continues later on in the
novel), and she is usually found looking at images in the books and
making stories out of them. And even though she does not go to a fine

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school like Tom, she educates herself through books and music.
Maggie always wishes if she could have done something different,
and being more like the perfect image of her brother, Tom. In her
childhood, she spends hours in the attic singing absentmindedly with
herself, or she goes to the Floss and sits there for hours listening to the
sound of the river and the mills. Every sound was special and brought
magical music for her, even the snuffbox that her uncle Pullet used to
play. And in Christmas time, caroling was one of the musical
incidents in her life, Eliot states in the novel that “There had been
singing under the windows after midnight, --supernatural singing,
Maggie always felt, in spite of Tom’s contemptuous insistence that the
singers were old Patch, the parish clerk, and the rest of the church
choir: she trembled with awe when their caroling broke in upon her
dreams, and the image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust
away by the vision of angles resting on the parted cloud.” (Eliot 508)
However, what seemed to be happiness in her childhood
changes to misery and loneliness in the second stage of her life; that of
adolescence, and it starts with her father losing his job and Tom
growing careless and indifferent of her feelings. Everything changes
rapidly for her, and she cannot find the love and care that she is
looking for anymore. Christmas music and the magical sound of her
uncle’s snuffbox disappear from her life, Eliot also remarks:
Maggie’s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy,
had deepened with the brightness of advancing spring
[…] every affection, every delight the poor child had had,
was like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for
her anymore –no piano, no harmonised voices, no
delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate cries
of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through
her frame. (Eliot 606).
Maggie turns to books when music disappears in this stage in an
attempt of her to find inspiration from those books on how to survive
her misery and reconcile with her life, and the books that she finds are
of religious themes and messages. The most influential and effective
among these books on her is Thomas a Kempis because it connects
directly with her misery and guides her to find an inner love and
peace. Yet Maggie’s reactions to the book is very musical and Eliot
describes it by using musical metaphors, which indicates that the
power of the voice on Maggie is more authoritative and commanding
that the power of the word. The reader sees that there is “a strange
thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been
wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings

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whose souls had been astir while hers was stupor. She went on from
one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point,
hardly conscious that she was reading –seeming rather to listen while
a low voice said…” (Eliot 609)
In her adolescent years, she runs for the book in order to find
inspiration to change her unhappy life and find herself and her
emotions a home in the strange world around her, but she rather finds
“music” and “a voice” inside of the books speaking to her mind and
spirit from the past and bringing her secrets of life. This voice
connects to her misery in that it is helping her get rid of her
unhappiness and find an inner love and self-satisfaction, but this
eventually turned into a self-denial and it becomes dangerous with the
increasing music around her that feeds her virtual or dreamy world
and takes her far away from reality. She renounces all the feelings and
desires at this stage, and convinces herself that she has finally found
“a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets”
(Eliot 610).
The fact that George Eliot refers to Thomas a Kempis as a voice
instead of a books emphasizes the significance and power of the sound
on Maggie’s development; she is affected by the “voice of a brother,
who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced” (Eliot 610) and she is
inspired by it to the point that she feels that it is actually speaking to
her. The same thing happens later on when Stephen Guest’s bass voice
affects her emotionally as if it is speaking to her alone rather than
anybody else. The other books that Maggie reads in this stage besides
Thomas a Kempis are the Bible and the “Christian Year”, and they all
“fill her mind with a continual stream of rhythmic memories” (Eliot
612).
Philip Wakem plays a major role in Maggie’s life during the
second stage; he practically replaces the place of Tom. But even
though Philip shows signs of love and affection for Maggie, she does
not share the same feelings. Her feelings for him are of sympathy and
of old memories from her good old days. However, she starts to
realize the need for talking to him and becoming his friend once again
despite her father and Tom’s refusal of this idea, and she tries to
“repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory to recall snatches of
hymns” (Eliot 615). When she meets Philip in the Red Deeps for the
first time, she tells him that she cannot be his friend even if she
wanted to, but sooner she starts to imagine the goodness and
happiness that might happen if she decides to meet him and talk to
him every now and then. She knows that it is not right to meet with
Philip, but another sound like music in her persuades her to do so.

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Even when she renounces everything, music is still irresistible for her.
Eliot describes Maggie’s inner conflict between reason and emotions
as favoring the latter:
Perhaps she might really help [Philip] to find contentment,
as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet
music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent
monotonous warning from another voice which she had
been learning to obey: the warning that such interviews
implied secrecy, –implied doing something she would
dread to be discovered in –something that, if discovered,
must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of
anything so near doubleness would act as a spiritual blight.
Yet the music would swell out again, like chimes borne
onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the
wrong lay all in the faults and weakness of others… (Eliot
619)
Maggie’s desires keep arising causing her a struggle between
her inner aspirations and fantasies and her ideal world that she created.
The fact that her father and Tom refuse her friendship with Philip
makes it more desirable for her to speak to him and be his friend. The
conflicts between her emotions and ideals start to clash at this point in
the novel, causing her struggle with every decision and sacrifice that
she makes, and music’s disadvantages and dangers become more than
its advantages for her in that it threatens her self-consciousness and
judgment.
Yet Maggie’s indulgence with music increases over the time,
and she is never satisfied with little anymore. She mentions to Philip
her love for music and singing, and says, “I was never satisfied with a
little of anything. That is why it is better for me to do without earthly
happiness altogether… I never felt that I had enough music –I wanted
more instruments playing together –I wanted voices to be fuller and
deeper.” (Eliot 638). Her need for emotions and love is larger than
what she can find in the “earthly happiness”, therefore she decides to
leave it all and finds herself a satisfaction with inner love and self-
reliance. By this, she creates for herself an imaginary world in which
she can have as much music as she wants and as much love as she can
get. But what she does not realize is that she is creating a world of
self-denial in order to escape from the pains and dissatisfactions of her
life; a life in which Tom does not return her love, her father becoming
more absent everyday after losing his job, and her mother who is
never satisfied with the way Maggie wants to be.

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In chapter 3 of Book V in the novel, Maggie and Philip meet for
the second time at the Red Deeps and he sings for her “Lover in her
eyes sits playing”. It is at this point of the novel that Maggie realizes
the effect of music on her, and soon she decides to end their meeting
and walk away from Philip, because if she stays, she will ask him to
sing more for her, and then she will fall for the temptation of keeping
their secret meetings. She states that music will “haunt” (Eliot 639)
therefore she must leave him. Eliot might indicate here that Maggie is
still in control of her psychological and emotional situation, and that
music is not showing its negative effect on Maggie still. Nevertheless,
the other reason she refuses to stay with Philip is that he cannot
provide her with everything she needs, she is “never satisfied with a
little of anything”, and meeting Philip is secret in one of those little
things. However, this situation will not last as the effect of music will
grow larger and stronger on Maggie as she meets Stephen Guest and
fall for his bass voice.
For some time in the novel, Maggie tries to run away from
everything worldly and find her happiness within her own self and
without the help of others. However, music’s effects are sensual as
well as emotional on her, and she finds herself unable to suppress her
feelings of love and affection in front of Lucy’s fiancé, Stephen Guest,
and his talented voice in the third stage of her development. Music’s
effect starts to sweep her away from the surrounding world and makes
her unable to control her emotions and desires. Moreover, when he
realizes the effect of his voice and music on Maggie, he starts singing
deliberately in order to arouse her feelings for him, hence she finds
herself in a situation that she was trying to avoid for a long time:
finding love from another being, which opposes her ideal world of
self-satisfaction and self-reliance.
The night Maggie hears Stephen sing for the first time is a night
that marks her change and her dwelling in a dreamy world of emotions
and music. Eliot describes Maggie’s state at this night as filled with
excitement and a new feeling of happiness:
When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it
appeared that she was not all inclined to undress. She set
down her candle on the first table that presented itself,
and began to walk up and down her room, which was a
large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid step,
which showed that the exercise was the instinctive vent of
strong excitement. Her eyes and cheeks had an almost
feverish brilliancy; her head was thrown backward, and
her hands were clasped with the palms outward, and with

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that tension of the arms which is apt to accompany
mental absorption. (Eliot 679)
This description makes it very clear to the reader that music’s
effect is reaching its strongest point at this time and it controls
everything in Maggie’s life, and prevents from reasoning her reactions
to Stephen’s intentional gazes at her. Eliot states that Maggie “had
been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass voice –but then it
was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as would have left
your critical ear much to desire, in rather a furtive manner, from
beneath a pair of well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance that
seemed somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the voice.”
(Eliot 679). When Stephen becomes aware of his singing’s influence
on Maggie, he tries to control her emotions even more by attempting
to gain her gaze and have her look back at him all the time. He
seduces her with musical love and he tries to influence her reasoning
by having her giving up all the morals she has learned in the past for
the sake of his love, and succeeds in doing so at the beginning when
Maggie starts to feel “the half-remote presence of a world of love and
beauty and delight, made up of vague, mingled images from all the
poetry and romance she had ever read, or had ever woven in her
dreamy reveries.” (Eliot 680)
Maggie admits that she has “no other mortal wants, if [she]
could always have plenty of music” (Eliot 680), it is so overwhelming
for her that she feels she can have everything she wants just because
there is music, which in this case, it is Stephen’s voice. This music
creates a fantasy world for her in which everything is possible and in
which she can accept Stephen’s love without caring about her other
duties and responsibilities towards her family. And she almost falls in
this mistake because of the negative influence of music on her. I
would like to remind about Correa’s argument here that I presented
earlier in this paper that music provides women with sensual feelings
that distracts them from their domestic duties. But it is Maggie’s
sudden awakening of her consciousness that saves her from falling in
the negative side of music, she remembers Lucy and Philip who trust
her, and Tom whom she always wanted to please and be with,
therefore, she makes her decision of leaving Stephen and rejecting his
forbidden love.
Maggie’s stay at Lucy’s house for several weeks is supposed to
be a relief for her and an escape from her sorrows and her father’s
death. Lucy plans all the music evenings in order to create a kind of
paradise for Maggie in whom she can be happy, but an unplanned
temptation happens at this paradise, and with the effect of music,

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Maggie falls for the temptation that is approached by Stephen. I would
like to argue here that Eliot entails the story of Eve’s temptation in
Paradise. Like Eve when she was tempted by Satan in Paradise with
something that she was seeking (knowledge), Maggie is tempted by
Stephen with something that she been looking for all her love
(unconditional love and passion). Only here, Stephen uses music
because he notices its effect on Maggie’s emotional state, but once the
music is gone when Maggie and Stephen are eloping, she realizes her
responsibilities towards her cousin Lucy and Philip, and she decides to
leave Stephen and go back to her family.
However, even though Stephen’s love seems to be the kind of
emotion that Maggie had been looking for, she leaves him because it
is still not enough with the moral restrictions that it has, and it is
against all the ideals and norms of her society. It is at this time that
Maggie seems to break free from the negative effect of music. She
realizes that neither one of them is free to give or accept this kind of
love because of the restrictions and boundaries that it stands against.
Eliot points to this struggle between the internal desire and
external reality that Maggie goes through in her decisions of between
accepting Stephen’s love or responding to her responsibilities and
trust that Lucy and Philip gave to her. And this shows once again that
Maggie is not in control of her desires and fantasies, but music is
rather in control. Nevertheless, she soon rejects this worldly love
because she knows it is not going to bring her the love and peace that
she is longing for, and that it will actually destroy her relationship
with her cousin Lucy and Philip Wakem.
Reading the narrative of the novel, it becomes clear to notice
the difference between Tom, Philip, and Stephen on one hand and the
difference between Philip and Stephen on the other hand. Each man
plays a major role in Maggie’s life at a certain stage: Tom is the
brother whom we see at all stages of the novel, but he is replaced by
Philip in Maggie’s adolescent years for a short time because Maggie
cannot associate with her brother like she wishes to. Philip provides
her with memories of her childhood that was erased by her increasing
sorrows, and he also gives her music and books. However, his music
is limited, which plays a role in her decision of rejecting him. Later
on, Stephen displaces Philip with his ongoing music and charming
voice that bewitches Maggie and takes her to a magical place full of
passion that makes her feel that she has no other needs or duties
anymore. Nevertheless, Tom comes back to Maggie’s life at the end
of the novel and they both live the memories of their childhood in a
moment of deadly bounding.

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But the difference between Philip and Stephen lies in their
musical outcome on Maggie’s emotions. Eliot depicts this difference
in chapter seven of Book VI when Lucy asks of both Stephen and
Philip to sing so that Maggie can enjoy some music. Eliot narrates,
“Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when music
began. She tried harder than ever to-day; for the thought that Stephen
knew how much she cared for his singing was one that no longer
roused a merely playful resistance; and she knew, too, that it was his
habit always to stand so that he could look at her […] her intentions
were lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet
–emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak: strong for
all enjoyment, weak for all resistance” (Eliot 704). She is the happiest
when Stephen sings, and she knows that he is sending deliberate
flirting messages through his choice of songs and his gazes at her, and
the influence here is very strong that she cannot resist it anymore.
However, this is not the case with Philip’s influence on Maggie.
He decides to sing “I love thee still” from the Somnambula which was
deliberately chosen by Eliot to depict the progress of the novel and the
emotional state of Maggie at this stage. Philip explains that the tenor
in this song is telling his beloved that he will keep his love for her
even though she forsakes him for someone else of for any other
reason. He tries here to arouse Maggie’s emotions by reminding her of
his love, but it does not create the kind of emotions that he hoped to
arouse, the narrator states that “[Maggie’s] had been open to what he
was saying, and when he began to sing, she understood the plaintive
passion of the music. That pleading tenor had no very fine qualities as
a voice, but it was not quite new to her […] She was touched, not
thrilled, but the song: it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and
brought quite regret in the place of excitement.” (Eliot 705)
The fact that Maggie is not creating music herself might sound
problematic in the novel. Eliot’s protagonists in other novels create
music themselves instead of just enjoying it, and they also accomplish
their self-consciousness and authorship, but in The Mill on the Floss,
Maggie does not create music, which implies that music’s power is
larger and stronger that her own will and authorship. Maggie does not
rule music, but music rules her. This might indicate the fact that
women were not able to obtain self-authorship in their societies, and
there was often the implication that they were weak, highly emotional,
and underestimated. Thus, Maggie is ruled or dominated by music and
by her emotions that were continuously surfing up by the effect of
music.

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Alias Marie Clapp4 remarks that “In The Mill on the Floss, the
idyllic pastoral musician Maggie is contained by a middle-class, music
making community bent on reducing women to the objects of male
gazes […]. Eliot’s fiction depicts the struggle between female agency
in musical expression and the feminine positivity expected of
Victorian audiences.” Maggie is rather the object of music and is
controlled by it, which symbolizes the role of women in the society of
St. Ogg’s. She cannot control music because she is a woman and she
has no chance of controlling anything, and music itself plays the role
of the society that objectifies women and limits them to the role of
domesticity and men’s desires. Maggie herself, even though she has a
strong character, does not seem to have a dream of her own, but she
rather wishes to stay with her brother Tom for the rest of their lives
and be his housekeeper. Music’s influence reinforces the dominating
powers of the society over women, it resigns them to being the object
of men and emotions, and it indulges them in world of fantasies that
makes them weak and vulnerable and in no control of their own
emotions.
Books and reading often liberate women and inspire them with
ideas and overwhelming power to take control of their own lives and
destiny, but Maggie does not seem to be in control of any of that
because the power of the word is not as strong as the power of the
voice over her psychological and emotional being. And because of
this, she represents the image of the old woman who is unable to set
herself free from the powers of her society symbolized by music. Her
reaction to books is musical, and she hears the words rather than reads
them until there are no more books but only music all around her that
fills her every being and sweeps her away from the real world. Clapp
states that “Maggie is inwardly inspired my music and thus immune to
the outward, worldly concepts of technique, class, and visibility which
are a part of the aesthetic experience of those around her.” (144)
Adding to this, books can be described as a means of a real
world and fruitful inspiration, and because Maggie gets further away
from the real world of St. Ogg’s in the third stage, we do not see
books anymore and their effects fades away. This implies that
Maggie’s imaginative world does not associate with the real world
around her because it is not realistic and it is ruled by powers of
musical and sensual magic that stands against Maggie’s ideals and
morals of responsibility and domestic duty.
Percy M. Young5 makes the link between George Eliot and
Maggie by noting Eliot’s deliberate “self-portrayal” of Maggie, he
implies that “In Maggie Tulliver self-portrayal was deliberate, and it is

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worth noting that music, while it was important, was a partner with
other factors in her emotional apparatus.” Like Maggie, Young states
that Eliot had a great attachment to music at an early age of her life,
but the only difference her is that Eliot had some training while
Maggie does not have any, which strengthens or reinforces her
inability to control or stop the effect of music. On this use of music,
William J. Sullivan6 draws on Eliot’s knowledge of music and her use
of the musical allusions in analyzing the psychological development
of her characters. He emphasizes that “…because music was the one
aesthetic metaphor most congenial to George Eliot in expressing the
complexities of the emotional life, it became the essential and
inevitable metaphor for the delineation of Maggie’s spirit.” Sullivan
also points out to Maggie’s excessive emotions through studying the
musical metaphors in the novel, he argues that Maggie is too
emotional to the degree that she does not recognize the rational
meaning of music and allows herself to be ruled by its magic. In
addition, his argument can be linked to Correa’s in that they both refer
to the dangers of music on Maggie’s emotional being, he declares:
In several instances in the novel, Maggie herself is made
to articulate the relationship between music and her own
psychological make-up. […] the new abundance of music
is both a pleasure and a danger to Maggie. In the first
flush of her stay with Lucy, after an evening of songs,
Maggie articulates both the affirmative joys and the
potential hazards in her response to music. (235)7
From this argument, it becomes obvious that Maggie is actually
aware of the negative effect of music, and through this, Eliot warns
against the indulgence and excessiveness of music and arts because its
consequences might be greater than its benefits. Nevertheless, this
awareness in Maggie can be viewed as the object that saves her from
an everlasting fall in the sensual fantasies. The moment she give up
Stephen the negative effect of music disappears and the deep voice
that used to influence her emotionalism is “Gone –for ever gone.”
(Eliot 753)
Stephen Guest uses music and singing to seduce and impress
Maggie, and he rather does the same with Lucy in chapter one of
Book VI when he tells her to “sing the whole duty of woman” (Eliot
667) which implies Stephen’s awareness of women’s domestic roles
in society. They seem to talk about nothing but music and their plan
for singing along with Philip when Maggie comes. This shows the
importance of music as a social activity in the Victorian houses. They
fill their evenings and visits with singing and music from popular

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opera pieces of that time, and Eliot’s use of the musical pieces is
importance as well as deliberate to show the significance of these
pieces in particular to the development of the plot and the important
role of music in general in the Victorian society.
Music also defines the social status and accomplishments of
individuals and families in the Victorian society, and Maggie realizes
this fact as she grows up. The Pullets enjoy music and buy luxuries
like the snuffbox that the Tullivers cannot buy, and this indicates the
social difference between the two families: the Pullets are considered
a high-class family because they can afford music, while the Tullivers
are a rural lower-class family. Moreover, Maggie tells Philip that
music disappeared from her life when her father faced financial
problems. Thus, the fact that Maggie does not create music indicates
her lower-class status in comparison to Lucy, Stephen and even Philip
who can sing and enjoy high-class privileges at the same time.
Towards the end of the novel, Maggie frees herself from the
musical world that she has created for herself, but she does not
accomplish her own happiness because what she wants is what she
gave up: unconditional love and magical romanticism. I would argue
that she could have become a stronger person emotionally and
psychologically had she the chance to do so, but the flood interrupted
this process and ended her life along with her brother. Sullivan
suggests, “Because Eliot would have her novelistic world correspond
as closely as possible with the real world, Maggie must cope, not with
the exotic coloration and idealized outlines of a romantic dream, but
with the exigencies of “Reality” itself.” (245)8. Therefore, Maggie
dies because death will brings her back to the real world, and this is a
way of Eliot to bring realism to the ending of the novel.

Endnotes :
1
Delia da Sousa Correa, George Eliot, Music and Victorian Culture. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
2
Phyllis Weliver, Introduction. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction, 1840-
1910: Class, Culture and Nation. By Weliver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006. 17.
3
George Eliot, The Best-Known Novels of George Eliot. New York: The
Modern Library, 1940.
4
Alisa Marie Clapp, Angelic Airs/Subversive Songs: Music as Cultural Discourse
in Victorian Literature and Society. Diss. U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
1996. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1996, pp. 138.
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5
Percy M. Young, “George Eliot and Music.” Music and Letters 24.2 (April
1943), 92-100.
6
William J. Sullivan, “Music and Musical Allusion in “The Mill on the Floss.””
Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 16.3 (Summer 1974), 232-246.
7
William J. Sullivan, “Music and Musical Allusion in “The Mill on the Floss.””
Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 16.3 (Summer 1974), 232-246.
8
William J. Sullivan, “Music and Musical Allusion in “The Mill on the Floss.””
Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 16.3 (Summer 1974), 232-246.

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