After rejecting Christianity and God, George Eliot continued to speak, seemingly with approval, of conversion, saints, worship, and religion. One might be tempted to write off her extensive use of religious language as mere metaphor or as vague and impotent spirituality. But before adopting this easy explanation, one must reckon with several highly suggestive facts. First, there is the utter seriousness of her moral vision. Second, it is very tempting to venerate the protagonists of her last two novels as saints. And third, she writes many stories of conversion, two of which at least are perhaps more moving than that of St. Augustine in his Confessions. In this lecture I will argue that George Eliot’s last three novels should be read as attempts to reveal that the best human life is lived with a kind of secular or natural religiousness.

Santa Fe Graduate Insitute summer lectures will be recorded and premiere on YouTube on Fridays at 7 p.m. MT/5 p.m. ET.