ABSTRACT
Middlemarch as a novel of vocation The prelude and the first book of Middlemarch set up two rather different sets of expectations for the novel. The seriousness of tone of the prelude and its outline of StTeresa's religious vocation seem to prepare the reader for a narration about vocation on a heroic, even an epic scale. The book's subtitle, and the first chapters of book 1, however, seem to suggest that the novel will deal with something rather more mundane. Yet there is a sense in which Middlemarcb can be described as a novel about vocation. Not only does it explore how its two major protagonists, Lydgate and Dorothea, strive towards scientific, intellectual and emotional fulfilment, but, as with so many other strands of the novel, the idea of vocation is illustrated through a range of issues which confront some of the other inhabitants of the fictional provincial community.
