Interpretation as Ethical Life: From Scriptural Hermeneutics to Tragic Responsibility in Adam Bede

Abstract: This essay discusses the role of interpretation in George Eliot's social ethics. In her first novel, Adam Bede , Eliot gives considerable space to matters of scriptural interpretation, especially Methodist hermeneutics. For Eliot, steeped in the Left Hegelian criticism of religion, these issues of interpretation are not limited to textual practice but are ultimately social in nature. This article claims that Eliot's narrative technique, her model of a "knowable" community, her conception of sympathy, and her tragic notion of social ethics should be reconsidered in light of the interpretive problems raised by religious hermeneutics.