Rereading Darwin’s Origin of Species

Rereading Darwin’s Origin of Species PDF Author: Richard G. Delisle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350259594
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Widely seen as evolution's founding figure, Charles Darwin is taken by many evolutionists to be the first to propose a truly modern theory of evolution. Darwin's greatness, however, has obscured the man and his work, at times even to the point of distortion. Accessibly written, this book presents a more nuanced picture and invites us to discover some neglected ambiguities and contradictions in Darwin's masterwork. Delisle and Tierney show Darwin to be a man who struggled to reconcile the received wisdom of an unchanging natural world with his new ideas about evolution. Arguing that Darwin was unable to break free entirely from his contemporaries' more traditional outlook, they show his theory to be a fascinating compromise between old and new. Rediscovering this other Darwin – and this other side of On the Origin of Species – helps shed new light on the immensity of the task that lay before 19th century scholars, as well as their ultimate achievements.

Rereading Darwin’s Origin of Species

Rereading Darwin’s Origin of Species PDF Author: Richard G. Delisle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350259594
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Get Book Here

Book Description
Widely seen as evolution's founding figure, Charles Darwin is taken by many evolutionists to be the first to propose a truly modern theory of evolution. Darwin's greatness, however, has obscured the man and his work, at times even to the point of distortion. Accessibly written, this book presents a more nuanced picture and invites us to discover some neglected ambiguities and contradictions in Darwin's masterwork. Delisle and Tierney show Darwin to be a man who struggled to reconcile the received wisdom of an unchanging natural world with his new ideas about evolution. Arguing that Darwin was unable to break free entirely from his contemporaries' more traditional outlook, they show his theory to be a fascinating compromise between old and new. Rediscovering this other Darwin – and this other side of On the Origin of Species – helps shed new light on the immensity of the task that lay before 19th century scholars, as well as their ultimate achievements.

Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers

Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers PDF Author: Valerie Purton
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783083484
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
‘Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers: Explorations in Victorian Literature and Science’ is an edited collection of essays from leading authorities in the field of Victorian literature and science, including Gillian Beer and George Levine. Darwin, Tennyson, Huxley, Ruskin, Richard Owen, Meredith, Wilde and other major writers are discussed, as established scholars in this area explore the interaction between Victorian literary and scientific figures which helped build the intellectual climate of twenty-first century debates.

Natural Magic

Natural Magic PDF Author: Renée Bergland
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691235287
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
A captivating portrait of the poet and the scientist who shared an enchanted view of nature Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls. The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was exploring the Pacific aboard the Beagle and Dickinson was a student in Amherst, Massachusetts. Poetry and science started to grow apart, and modern thinkers challenged the old orthodoxies, offering thrilling new perspectives that suddenly felt radical—and too dangerous for women. Natural Magic intertwines the stories of these two luminary nineteenth-century minds whose thought and writings captured the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time strove to preserve the magic of nature. Just as Darwin’s work was informed by his roots in natural philosophy and his belief in the interconnectedness of all life, Dickinson’s poetry was shaped by her education in botany, astronomy, and chemistry, and by her fascination with the enchanting possibilities of Darwinian science. Casting their two very different careers in an entirely fresh light, Renée Bergland brings to life a time when ideas about science were rapidly evolving, reshaped by poets, scientists, philosophers, and theologians alike. She paints a colorful portrait of a remarkable century that transformed how we see the natural world. Illuminating and insightful, Natural Magic explores how Dickinson and Darwin refused to accept the separation of art and science. Today, more than ever, we need to reclaim their shared sense of ecological wonder.

Darwin's Bards

Darwin's Bards PDF Author: John Holmes
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748687777
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A comprehensive study of Darwin's legacy for religion, ecology and the arts. Includes over 50 complete poems and long extracts with an interpretative framework and close readings. Poets examined include Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, Frost, Ted Hughes, Pattia

In Praise of Darwin

In Praise of Darwin PDF Author: J. David Pleins
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1623565545
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
George John Romanes, close friend and colleague of Darwin, remains a misunderstood figure in the history of evolutionary science. Although his scientific contributions have been values, his religious journey has been either neglected or misjudged. The recent discovery of the original typescript of his 'Memorial Poem' to Darwin, lost for more than a century and reprinted here for the first time, allows us to enter the mind of a major Darwinian as we watch him struggle to put together faith and science on a positive basis. (Back cover).

Literature and Science

Literature and Science PDF Author: Martin Willis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350309753
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
This Guide introduces literature and science as a vibrant field of critical study that is increasingly influencing both university curricula and future areas of investigation. Martin Willis explores the development of the genre and its surrounding criticism from the early modern period to the present day, focusing on key texts, topics and debates.

Unified Fields

Unified Fields PDF Author: Janine Rogers
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 077359650X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Literary form presents an important opportunity for understanding the relationship between literature and science. Through a series of close readings of poetry and prose, Unified Fields demonstrates that formal structures in literature can relate to scientific concepts through their essential interpretive functions. Janine Rogers engages with a wide range of writing from Canadian, British, and American authors, including the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and Robyn Sarah as well as prose by Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and Stephen Hawking. She employs an interdisciplinary approach combining formalist, historical, and theoretical literary practice, informed by interpretive frameworks developed in the philosophy of science. Although dedicated to contemporary texts, Rogers's analysis is frequently rooted in historical contexts of form, including Euclidean geometry and medieval romance, developed when the distinction between literature and science was not so drastic. These historical connections demonstrate that continuities of form resonate in both contemporary literature and science. Through critical analysis and engaging prose, Unified Fields bridges an important disciplinary gap by revealing how literary practice informs scientific understanding.

Darwin the Writer

Darwin the Writer PDF Author: George Levine
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191619345
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book written in English in the nineteenth century, transformed the way we looked at the world. It is usually assumed that this is because the idea of evolution was so staggeringly powerful. Prize-winning author George Levine suggests that much of its influence was due, in fact, to its artistry; to the way it was written. Alive with metaphor, vivid descriptions, twists, hesitations, personal exclamations, and humour, the prose is imbued with the sorts of tensions, ambivalences, and feelings characteristic of great literature. Although it is certainly a work of "science," the Origin is equally a work of "literature," at home in the company of celebrated Victorian novels such as Middlemarch and Bleak House, books that give us a unique yet recognisable sense of what the world is really like, while not being literally 'true'. Darwin's enormous cultural success, Levine contends, depended as much on the construction of his argument and the nature of his language, as it did on the power of his ideas and his evidence. By challenging the dominant reading of his work, this impassioned and energetic book gives us a Darwin who is comic rather than tragic, ebullient rather than austere, and who takes delight in the wild and fluid entanglement of things.

Global Spencerism

Global Spencerism PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004264000
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Today the name most closely associated with evolutionary theory is Charles Darwin. Given Darwin’s immense reputation it is easy to forget that Herbert Spencer, in his time, was just as famous as Darwin. It turns out that Spencer’s evolutionary thought was not what necessarily appealed to many of his readers, since they had their own sense of his identity and importance. By focusing on Spencer the evolutionist, scholars have tended to concentrate their attention on a rather narrow view of him that has come out of Anglo-American appropriations of his thought. Spencer was one of the first international, public intellectuals whose views on psychology, religion, sociology, ethics, education, and biology captured the imagination of readers all over the world. The chapters will cover the communication and appropriation of Spencer’s ideas in Russia, the Middle East, China, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Italy, Scandinavia, and France. Contributors are: Li Bin, Juan Manuel Rodriguez Caso, Gowan Dawson, Heloisa Maria Bertol Domingues, Marwa Elshakry, Mark Francis, G. Clinton Godart, Michael Gordon, Paola Govoni, Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, Ricardo Noguera-Solano, Adriana Novoa, Greg Radick, Nathalie Richard, Ke Zunke.

Women Poets in the Victorian Era

Women Poets in the Victorian Era PDF Author: Fabienne Moine
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134776535
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Examining the place of nature in Victorian women's poetry, Fabienne Moine explores the work of canonical and long-neglected women poets to show the myriad connections between women and nature during the period. At the same time, she challenges essentialist discourses that assume innate affinities between women and the natural world. Rather, Moine shows, Victorian women poets mobilised these alliances to defend common interests and express their engagement with social issues. While well-known poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti are well-represented in Moine's study, she pays particular attention to lesser known writers such as Mary Howitt or Eliza Cook who were popular during their lifetimes or Edith Nesbit, whose verse has received scant critical attention so far. She also brings to the fore the poetry of many non-professional poets. Looking to their immediate cultural environments for inspiration, these women reconstructed the natural world in poems that raise questions about the validity and the scope of representations of nature, ultimately questioning or undermining social practices that mould and often fossilise cultural identities.