| Description |
1 online resource |
|
text file |
| Contents |
Acknowledgments ; Introduction. Analogy under a Different Form ; Science, Literature, and History ; The New Historicism ; Thinking through Analogy ; Implications for Comparative Historicism ; Summary of Chapters ; Prelude. Thinking through Analogy; Analogy vs. Comparison ; Harmonic vs. Formal Analogy; Analogy and the "Swerve around the Literary" ; The Sign of Analogy ; Chapter One. Erasmus Darwin, Enlightenment History, and the Crisis of Analogy; The Loves of the Plants and Sexual Taxonomy ; Stadial History and The Botanic Garden ; Flattening Allegory. |
|
Zoonomia and Darwin's Insurrection Conclusion: "Philosophical Arguments of the Last Generation" ; Chapter Two. Crossing the Border with Walter Scott; The Subject of Enlightenment History ; The Forensic Antiquary ; Faking the Minstrelsy ; Linguistic Anthropology in Ivanhoe and Waverley ; Conclusion: "So Leyden were alive" ; Chapter Three. Spooky Action in Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. ; Analogical Verses ; Hallam's Perfect Danäe ; The Logic of Analogy and the Plurality of Worlds ; Comparative Anatomy and the Archetype ; Conclusion: The Higher Type. |
|
Chapter Four. Falsifying George Eliot The Westminster Review and the "Historic Imagination" ; "Higher Criticism" and the Natural History of Social Life ; Harmonic Sympathy in Middlemarch ; Form and the Entangled Word ; Conclusion: Against Origins ; Chapter Five. The Origin of Charles Darwin's Orchids; The Analogy Notebooks ; On the Origin of Species and the Curation of Analogy ; Darwin and the Novels ; Orchids in Action ; Flat Theology and Reading for Intent ; Conclusion: Epitaph for the Darwins ; Coda. Climate Science and the "No-Analog Future" ; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F. |
|
GH; I; J; K; L ; M; N; O; P ; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y; Z. |
| Summary |
"Erasmus Darwin and his grandson, Charles, were the two most important evolutionary theorists of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. Although their ideas and methods differed, both Darwins were prolific and inventive writers: Erasmus composed several epic poems and scientific treatises, while Charles is renowned both for his collected journals (now titled The Voyage of the Beagle) and for his masterpiece, The Origin of Species. |
|
"In The Age of Analogy, Devin Griffiths argues that the Darwins' writing style was profoundly influenced by the poets, novelists, and historians of their era. The Darwins, like other scientists of the time, labored to refashion contemporary literary models into a new mode of narrative analysis that could address the contingent world disclosed by contemporary natural science. By employing vivid language and experimenting with a variety of different genres, these writers gave rise to a new relational study of antiquity, or 'comparative historicism, ' that emerged outside of traditional histories. It flourished instead in literary forms like the realist novel and the elegy, as well as in natural histories that explored the continuity between past and present forms of life. Nurtured by imaginative cross-disciplinary descriptions of the past--from the historical fiction of Sir Walter Scott and George Eliot to the poetry of Alfred Tennyson--this novel understanding of history fashioned new theories of natural transformation, encouraged a fresh investment in social history, and explained our intuition that environment shapes daily life. |
|
"Drawing on a wide range of archival evidence and contemporary models of scientific and literary networks, The Age of Analogy explores the critical role analogies play within historical and scientific thinking. Griffiths also presents readers with a new theory of analogy that emphasizes language's power to foster insight into nature and human society. The first comparative treatment of the Darwins' theories of history and their profound contribution to the study of both natural and human systems, this book will fascinate students and scholars of nineteenth-century British literature and the history of science"--Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802 -- Influence.
|
|
Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802. |
|
Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802 -- Knowledge and learning -- Natural history.
|
|
Natural history. |
|
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Criticism and interpretation.
|
|
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882. |
|
Criticism and interpretation. |
|
Nature in literature.
|
|
Nature in literature. |
|
Science in literature.
|
|
Science in literature. |
|
English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
|
|
English literature. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Subject |
Literature and science -- England -- History -- 19th century.
|
|
Literature and science. |
|
England. |
|
History. |
| Chronological Term |
1800-1899 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
|
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
|
History.
|
| Other Form: |
! Print version: 9781421420769 1421420767 |
| ISBN |
1421420775 (electronic book) |
|
9781421420776 (electronic book) |
|
9781421420769! (hardcover ; ! alkaline paper) |
|
1421420767! (hardcover ; ! alkaline paper) |
|
