乔治·艾略特（1819-1880），是19世纪英国著名的女作家，卓越的现实主义大师。本书以乔治·艾略特的5部代表作品《亚当·比德》《揭起的面纱》《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》《米德尔马契》《丹尼尔·德隆达》为研究对象，将作家对同情概念的认识置入人类思想史的发展进程中加以考察，研究同情美学与人文关怀力量在构建认知与道德体验时所展现的相对性。将同情视为生命体验与情感解释的媒介，并通过美学途径阐释进化论因果关系，是乔治·艾略特的一独特贡献，其作品中同情美学成为解释自我、恢复内在秩序的手段，借助个体自我认知的提升达成维护传统、增强共同体凝聚之目的，表达了作者现实主义书写的伦理关怀。乔治·艾略特的文学努力，尤其现实主义书写的开放性与包容性，在高度发展的现代社会有着深刻的现实意义，在“命运共同体”新视角下，对于寻求全人类的共同利益并构建情感共同体具有典型的启发意义。

Introduction
Chapter 1Sympathy as a Continuous Historical Concept
1.1 Sympathy as the Embryo "Pity” in Aristotelian Tragedy
1.2 Sympathy as the "Secret Operation of Feeling” in theAge of Sensibility
1.3 Sympathy as the “Sympathetic Imagination”in theRomantic Aesthetics
1.4 Sympathy as the "Extension of Sympathies” in theVictorian Novel Theory
Chapter 2 The Realism-cum-sympathy Aesthetics in Adam Bede
2.1 The Realism-cum-sympathy Aesthetic and an EnlargedMoral Awareness
2.2 Adam Bede and Adam's Inarticulate Suffering
2.3 Sympathy Transformed and the Growth of HigherFeelings
2.4 Realism and the Humbly Faithful Dutch Painting
Chapter 3 Sympathy and the Epistemological Relativism in The Lifted Veil
3.1 The Lifted Veil and Latimer's Nightmare
3.2 The Other People's Mind and the Epistemological Rela
3.3 Sympathy Transformed and the Growth of Mind
3.4 Realism and the Cultural Schizophrenia
Chapter 4 Sympathy and the Sublime Enquiry in The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch
4.1 Maggie Tulliver's Anger and Dorothea Brooke's Terror
4.2 The Divisive Social Body and the Sublime Enquiry
4.3 Sympathy Transformed and the Emergence of theSovereign Self
4.4 Realism and the Panoramic View of the Organic Whole
Chapter 5. Sympathy and the Political Vision in Daniel Deronda
5.1 Daniel Deronda and Daniel's “Sabine Warrior”
5.2 Community Lost and Individual Socialized
5.3 Sympathy Transformed and Restoration of the Communal Consensus
5.4 Realism and the Myth-making
Conclusion
Bibliography