George Eliot's «The lifted veil»: on re-evaluation of traditional approaches

The author of the paper states a question about the possibilities of re-evaluation of George Eliot's short stories, which have not been profoundly studied by Russian and English researchers. The approach to the gothic story «The Lifted Veil» in the context of the romantic tradition allows to review the traditional reception of Eliot's works formed in the Russian studies of English Literature. The correlation of the story with W.Wordsworth's and S.T.Coleridge's reflections on possibilities of literature as well as with E.T.A.Hoffmann's and E.A.Poe's mystical prose significantly enriches the representation about the beginnings of Eliot's creative activity. It allows to expand the range of research approaches to George Eliot's works abandoning their study exclusively within the capacity of «realistic» writing.