ABSTRACT
Romola is a fascinating case study for those who want to look at George Eliot's engagement with the paradigms of realism and idealism, both as they are deployed through the characters and as contrastive ideologies encoded in her novel. Romola fascinates for the intellectual designs that show through it, among which is the triad of Savonarola the Schillerian idealist, Tito the 'realist' and Romola the intended middle ground, otherworldly young girl who learns to adapt high moral imperatives to the world in which she lives. In Savonarola, Eliot explores the destiny of the idealist, remote and awe-inspiring as long as unchallenged, oddly vulnerable and unseeing when it comes to dealing directly with the world of men and politics. In Tito, Eliot presents rather the immoral realist, an opportunist responding to changing circumstances, slowly possessed by ever-growing appetite for temporal wealth and position, and gives masterly portrayal of his slow degeneration from charming if immature young man to heartless political intriguer.
