ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

Princess Casamassima. The former is an individual scene, while the latter takes place
between the volumes of the New York Edition of the novel. In both of these cases, a
single event in the center of the text re-shapes the novel’s plot and plays a key role in
shaping the meaning of the entire novel. However, the narrative middle does not
necessarily comprise a single event, but may also comprise a large set of events. In
Middlemarch, for example, the text late in Part 3 and early in Part 4 (of six parts)
largely concerns Casaubon’s illness, the terms of his will, and his death in Chapter 48
of 86 numbered chapters. This represents a significant transformation in Dorothea’s
circumstances, as she is simultaneously released from a stifling marriage, yet
forbidden to marry Will Ladislaw. During this middle, too, Dorothea increasingly
concentrates on charitable endeavors. That is, in addition to moving the plot forward
in arguably unexpected ways, this middle creates for Dorothea an independent space
to pursue her goals and identity outside of the marriage plot. In all of these Victorian
narrative middles, there is a plot development that plays a key role in structuring the
novel as a whole and serves as a plausible transition between beginning and ending.
The existence of key, central narrative middles in many texts suggests that
these middles might deserve attention similar to that afforded beginnings and endings.
It might be noted that even a quick perusing of the internet turns up multiple lists of
famous beginnings and endings of novels. These concepts hold sway, hold our
memories, well beyond the walls of academia. Kermode and Said are both, in this
sense, certainly right: meaning is generally formed, or created, from beginnings and
endings. If we are, as Miller argues and Kermode implies, to take the middle
seriously as more than a by-product of beginning and ending, it would perhaps be
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