SOURCE: " Armgart—George Eliot on the Woman Artist," in Victorian Poetry, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1980, pp. 75-80.

In the following excerpt, Blake argues that the poem "Armgart" centers around the conflict between love and art that exists for female artists.

A more indefatigable and psychologically adept husband-therapist of a woman's creative drive than George Henry Lewes cannot be imagined. George Eliot dedicated her Legend of Jubai and Other Poems (1871) "To my beloved Husband, George Henry Lewes, whose cherishing tenderness for twenty years has alone made my work possible to me." And yet Jubal contains the dramatic poem "Armgart," which like Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda (1871-72, 1876) poses the incompatibility of love and art for the artist who is a woman….

"Armgart" is … very divided about the female artist who is "not a loving woman." The poem is quite resolute in supporting Armgart against the threats posed by men and motherhood...