Staff upheld over articles identifying George’s heroine (8)
I believe the answer is:
dorothea
'staff upheld' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'over articles identifying george's heroine' is the wordplay.
'over' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'articles' becomes 'the a' (two grammatical articles).
'identifying george's heroine' becomes 'doro' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'thea' put after 'doro' is 'DOROTHEA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dorothea that I've seen before include "gift from God" , "Girl" , "Mrs Casaubon" , "Woman" .)