Contemporary Reviews of Eliot's Middlemarch

Summary - 
The Contemporary Reviews featured in the Norton Critical Edition were written as reviews to the novel upon its first release. The Saturday Review titled "Middlemarch" (573) praises Eliot for a beautiful use of characterization. It then goes on to look carefully at the characters of Dorothea, Celia, and Causabon while noting flaws in Eliot's portrayals and what those flaws amount to. Sidney Colvin also wrote a review titled "Middlemarch" (575) in which pure excitement and adoration for the novel by the reviewer is shown. Words like "extraordinary" and "ripe" are used in its description  The descriptors as well as portrayal of human nature are claimed to be impeccable in taste and use. Both of these reviews respect the novel but Colvin definitely shows more enthusiasm for it than the Saturday Review who is cautious in its praise and heavy in its critique. Henry James in his essay "George Eliot's Middlemarch" (578) jumps into the conversation being more harsh than the others. He calls it a "treasure house of details, but is an indifferent whole" (578). He then goes on to describe how there is a let down in the plot of the overall text. The reviews each do a good job of respecting the novel while noting how their preferences effect their reading of the novel.

I agree most with Henry James in his agreement that Middlemarch is a great novel in its creativity, depiction, and use of literature. In his words, it is "vast, swarming, deep-colored, crowded with episodes, with vivid images, with lurking master-strokes, with brilliant passages of expression" (578). The novel does beautifully depict the world of Middlemarch and its inhabitants. However, I also side with James in his argument that there are moments of let down in the plot and unfolding of the novel. James states "Dorothea was altogether too superb a heroine to be wasted" (579). He notices how her sudden marriage and inability to truly transcend into a great heroine is a letdown. She is began with a beautiful characterization but ultimately is semi abandoned in the novel. James notes how Eliot's novel "with its abundant and massive ingredients Middlemarch ought somehow to have depicted a weightier drama" (579). It seems like each character is created beautifully without any sort of massive climax. Several characters pass away throughout the novel without any sort of large impact for the survivors and so much time is spent on a broad view, unlike Mary Barton, that the drama seems to never really speed up.