The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels: An Entangled BankAshgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007 M01 1 - 225 pages Dominated by Darwinism and the numerous guises it assumed, evolutionary theory was a source of opportunities and difficulties for late Victorian novelists. Texts produced by Wells, Hardy, Stoker, and Conrad are exemplary in reflecting and participating in these challenges. Not only do they contend with evolutionary complications, John Glendening argues, but the complexities and entanglements of evolutionary theory, interacting with multiple cultural influences, thoroughly permeate the narrative, descriptive, and thematic fabric of each. All the books Glendening examines, from The Island of Doctor Moreau and Dracula to Heart of Darkness, address the interrelationship between order and chaos revealed and promoted by evolutionary thinking of the period. Glendening's particular focus is on how Darwinism informs novels in relation to a late Victorian culture that encouraged authors to stress, not objective truths illuminated by Darwinism, but rather the contingencies, uncertainties, and confusions generated by it and other forms of evolutionary theory. |
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The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels: An Entangled Bank John Glendening Limited preview - 2013 |
The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels: An Entangled Bank John Glendening Limited preview - 2016 |
The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels: An Entangled Bank John Glendening Limited preview - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
Almayer's Folly Angel animals appears argues becomes behavior biological chance chaotic Chapter character civilization complexity complicated condition confusion connection Conrad contingency D'Urbervilles Darwin Darwin's entangled bank death decay degeneration Descent disorder Doctor Moreau dominant Dracula environment evolutionary theory evolved existence experience expresses fear fiction forest Fuegians Galapagos Green Mansions Hardy Hardy's Harker Heart of Darkness human Huxley Huxley's idea imagination implications indeterminacy individual influence interpretations Island of Doctor jungle Kurtz Lamarckian Lamarckism late Victorian leopard-man lives Marlow mental modern moral narrative narrator natives natural selection nature and culture negative Nevertheless novel order and chaos Origin Origin of Species particular pattern perceived physical positive Possession postmodern potential Prendick primitive progress psychological reality represents romance savage scientific seems sense sexual selection social society species story struggle suggests survival sympathy tangled Tess Tess's Thomas Hardy Thomas Huxley Tierra del Fuego Transylvania truth understanding universe vampire Wells's wilderness