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Title The Evolution of Literature. : Legacies of Darwin in European Cultures
Published Editions Rodopi 2011

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Description 1 online resource (334 pages)
Series Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 0929-6999 ; 152
Internationale Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft ; 152.
Contents Preliminary Material -- Acknowledgements / Nicholas Saul and Simon J. James -- The Evolution of Literature / Nicholas Saul and Simon J. James -- The Law of Higgledy-pigglety: Charles Darwin's Inheritance, his Legacy and the Moral Order of Nature / David Knight -- 'Our Racial Friends': Disease, Poverty and Social Darwinism, 1860-1940 / Paul Weindling -- From Primate to Human in Two Easy Steps / Joseph Emonds -- Charles Darwin's Centenary and the Politics and Poetics of Parenting: Inheritance, Variation, and the Aesthetic Legacy of Samuel Butler / David Amigoni -- By An Evolutionist: Poetic Language in Chambers and Tennyson / Anna Barton -- Victorian Evolutionary Criticism and the Pitfalls of Consilience / John Holmes -- H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and the End of Literature / Simon J. James -- Mind in Modern Fiction: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives after Darwin / Patricia Waugh -- E-Volutionary Fictions: The Darwinian Algorithm in Literature and Computer Games / Alistair Brown -- Value Judgements and Functional Roles: Carroll's Quarrel With Pinker / Jon Adams -- The Book of Nature: Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Literature / Wendy Wheeler -- Men, Monkeys, Monsters and Evolution in Fiction from the Fin-de-siècle to the Present / Christopher Lloyd -- Zola and Darwin: A Reassessment / David Baguley -- On the Evolution of Humanity and the Oppressions of Darwinism in French Postwar Fiction / Louise Lyle -- Houellebecq, Genetics and Evolutionary Psychology / Douglas Morrey -- 'Once in Human Nature, a Thing Cannot be Driven Out': Evolutionary Aesthetics in Wilhelm Jensen's The Legacy of Blood (1869). An Early Response to Darwin / Nicholas Saul -- 'Live like a Man and not like a Monkey': Nietzsche's Philosophic Vitalism and Darwin's Theory of Evolution / John A. McCarthy -- 'Creative Evolution:' Bergson's Critique of Science and its Reception in the German-Speaking World / David Midgley -- Evolutionary Psychology as a Heuristic in Literary Studies / Katja Mellmann -- Contributors -- Index
Summary Daniel Dennett famously claimed for Darwinian theory the status of universal solvent: the totalising theory of theories, even of theories of literature. Yet only a few writers and critics have followed his view. This volume asks why. It examines both evolution in literature, and the evolution of literature. It looks at literary representations of Darwinism both historically and synchronically, at how a theory of literature might be derived from evolutionary theory, and indeed how evolution as a process might be regarded as itself aesthetic. It complements these theoretical and historical dimensions of enquiry with the comparative dimension. It asks in short: What have been the representations of Darwinian evolutionary theory in literature since the late nineteenth century? What are the leading paradigms in theory and in literature for renovating the evolutionary model? What were, and are, the differences in British, French, German paradigms of literary Darwinian reception? How, if at all, did Darwinian modes of thought hybridise across national borders? Last, but not least: What is the future of the Darwinian mode?
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Subject Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Influence
SUBJECT Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 fast
Subject European literature -- History and criticism
Evolution (Biology) in literature.
Literature and science -- Europe
European literature
Evolution (Biology) in literature
Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Literature and science
Europe
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
Author Edited by Nicholas Saul and Simon J. James.
ISBN 1283326388
9781283326384
9786613326386
6613326380
9401206848
9789401206846