Why Genoa? The Significance of Genoa in Daniel Deronda

Genoa, the old Italian crusading port, is the hometown of Deronda from which he will set out on his Zionist quest to liberate Palestine. Genoa in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda is a place of revelation and judgement. Through the his- tory and traditions of the city, the major events and themes of the book are uni- fied. Perhaps Eliot was refering to this vast web of metaphor and allusion that she has spun around the old city when she asserted that she •meant "everything in the book to be related to everything else there. " Only the reputation of Genoa is rather tarnished, and the associations Eliot makes between the city and the characters in the novel are basically negative. By relating Gneoa so closely to Daniel and his quest, the novelist cannot be very positive about the Zionist aspi- rations of the characters in the novel.