Literature and science in the nineteenth century : an anthology / edited with an introduction and notes by Laura Otis.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Otis, Laura, 1961-

Series:

Oxford world's classics (Oxford University Press)

Oxford world's classics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century.

English literature.

Science--Literary collections.

Science.

American literature--19th century.

American literature.

Science--History--19th century--Sources.

History.

Genre:

Sources.

Literary collections.

Literature.

Physical Description:

xlii, 575 pages ; 20 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.

Summary:

Although we are used to thinking of science and the humanities as separate disciplines, in the nineteenth century that division was not recognized. As the scientist John Tyndall pointed out, not only were science and literature both striving to better 'man's estate', they shared a common language and cultural heritage. The same subjects occupied the writing of scientists and novelists: the quest for 'origins', the nature of the relation between society and the individual, and what it meant to be human. This anthology brings together a generous selection of scientific and literary material to explore the exchanges and interactions between them. Fed by a common imagination, scientists and creative writers alike used stories, imagery, style, and structure to convey their meaning, and to produce work of enduring power. Introductions and notes guide the reader through the topic's many strands.

Contents:

Prologue: Literature and Science

/ Edgar Allan Poe

Sonnet

To Science (1829) 3

/ John Tyndall

The Belfast Address (1874) 3

/ Thomas Henry Huxley

from Science and Culture (1880) 4

/ Matthew Arnold

Literature and Science (1882) 6

Mathematics, Physical Science, and Technology 9

Mathematics

/ Ada Lovelace

Sketch of the Analytical Engine (1843) 15

/ Augustus de Morgan

from Formal Logic (1847) 19

/ George Boole

From An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) 24

/ John Venn

from The Logic of Chance (1866) 27

/ Lewis Carroll

from Through the Looking-Glass (1871) 29

from The Game of Logic (1886) 32

/ George Eliot

from Daniel Deronda (1876) 35

/ H. G. Wells

from The Time Machine (1895) 40

Physical Science

/ Sir William Herschel

from On the Power of Penetrating into Space by Telescopes (1800) 43

/ Thomas Carlyle

from Past and Present (1843) 47

/ Sir John Herschel

from Outlines of Astronomy (1849) 51

/ Michael Faraday

from Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839-55) (1852) 55

/ William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

On the Age of the Sun's Heat (1862) 60

On Chemical Rays, and the Light of the Sky (1869) 63

On the Scientific Use of the Imagination (1870) 68

/ James Clerk Maxwell

from Theory of Heat (1871) 70

To the Chief Musician upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode (1874) 74

Professor Tait, Loquitur (1877) 76

Answer to Tait 77

To Hermann Stoffkraft (1878) 78

The Sorting Demon of Maxwell (1879) 79

/ Thomas Hardy

from Two on a Tower (1882) 81

/ Richard A. Proctor

The Photographic Eyes of Science (1883) 84

/ Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen

On a New Kind of Rays (1895) 88

Telecommunications

/ Samuel F. B. Morse

Letter to Hon. Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the US Treasury, 27 September 1837 91

/ Anonymous

The Telephone from Westminster Review (1878) 95

/ Mark Twain

Mental Telegraphy (1891) 99

/ Rudyard Kipling

The Deep-Sea Cables (1896) 104

/ Henry James

In the Cage (1898) 104

Bodies and Machines

/ Charles Babbage

from On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832) 109

/ Charles Dickens

From Dombey and Son (1847-8) 116

/ Hermann Von Helmholtz

On the Conservation of Force (1847) 121

/ Samuel Butler

from Erewhon (1872) 124

/ Walt Whitman

To a Locomotive in Winter (1876) 128

Sciences of the Body 130

Animal Electricity

/ Luigi Galvani

From De Viribus Electricitatis (1791) 135

/ Sir Humphry Davy

from Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1802) 140

/ Mary Shelley

from Frankenstein (1818) 144

I Sing the Body Electric [1855] (1867) 148

Cells and Tissues and Their Relation to the Body

/ Xavier Bichat

from General Anatomy (1801) 150

/ Rudolf Virchow

from Cellular Pathology (1858) 152

from Middlemarch (1871-2) 153

/ George Henry Lewes

from The Physical Basis of Mind (1877) 161

Hygiene, Germ Theory, and Infectious Diseases

from The Last Man (1826) 163

/ Sir Edwin Chadwick

An Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1842) 167

The Mask of the Red Death (1842) 171

/ Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever (1843) 177

/ Louis Pasteur

On the Organized Bodies Which Exist in the Atmosphere (1861) 181

/ Sir Joseph Lister

Illustrations of the Antiseptic System (1867) 187

Dr Koch on the Cholera (1884) 192

The Stolen Bacillus (1895) 197

Experimental Medicine and Vivisection

/ Claude Bernard

from An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865) 203

/ Sir James Paget

Vivisection: Its Pains and Its Uses (1881) 209

/ Frances Power Cobbe

Vivisection and Its Two-Faced Advocates (1882) 215

/ Wilkie Collins

from Heart and Science (1883) 220

from The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) 229

Evolution 235

The Present and the Past

/ Jean Baptiste De Lamarck

from Zoological Philosophy (1809) 240

/ Sir Charles Lyell

from Principles of Geology (1830-3) 246

/ William Whewell

from Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840) 252

/ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

from The Princess (1847) 255

/ Charles Darwin

from The Origin of Species (1859) 258

from The Mill on the Floss (1860) 267

On the Physical Basis of Life (1869) 273

/ Olive Schreiner

from The Story of an African Farm (1883) 276

/ George John Romanes

from Mental Evolution in Man (1888) 279

The Individual and the Species

from In Memoriam, LIII-LV, CXVIII (1850) 283

/ Herbert Spencer

from Principles of Biology (1864-7) 285

Hap (1866) 289

from A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) 290

/ Ernst Haeckel

from The Evolution of Man (1874) 293

from Unconscious Memory (1880) 297

/ Emily Pfeiffer

Evolution (1880) 299

To Nature 299

/ August Weismann

from Essays on Heredity (1881-5) 300

/ May Kendall

Lay of the Trilobite (1885) 303

/ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nature is a Heraclitean Fire (1888) 305

Sexual Selection

/ Jane Austen

from Pride and Prejudice (1813) 306

from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) 308

/ Henry Rider Haggard

from She (1887) 312

/ Constance Naden

Natural Selection (1887) 317

from Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) 318

Sciences of the Mind 325

The Relationship between Mind and Body

/ Thomas De Quincey

from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822) 331

/ Marshall Hall

On the Reflex Function (1833) 334

/ James Cowles Prichard

from A Treatise on Insanity (1835) 337

/ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Birthmark (1846) 341

/ Herman Melville

from Bartleby the Scrivener (1856) 346

/ Thomas Laycock

from Mind and Brain (1860) 349

/ Mary Elizabeth Braddon

from Lady Audley's Secret (1862) 353

/ S. Weir Mitchell

The Case of George Dedlow (1866) 358

/ Henry Maudsley

from Body and Mind (1870) 364

/ William B. Carpenter

from Principles of Mental Physiology (1874) 369

/ William James

from Principles of Psychology (1890) 373

Physiognomy and Phrenology

/ George Combe

from Elements of Phrenology (1824) 377

/ Johann Gaspar Spurzheim

from Phrenology in Connection with the Study of Physiognomy (1826) 382

/ Charlotte Bronte

from Jane Eyre (1847) 386

from The Lifted Veil (1859) 389

Mesmerism and Magnetism

/ Chauncey Hare Townsend

from Facts in Mesmerism (1840) 391

/ John Elliotson

From Surgical Operations without Pain in the Mesmeric State (1843) 396

Mesmeric Revelation (1844) 401

/ Harriet Martineau

from Letters on Mesmerism (1845) 406

/ James Esdaile

from Mesmerism in India (1847) 410

/ Robert Browning

Mesmerism (1855) 415

From The Moonstone (1868) 419

Dreams and the Unconscious

When Thou Sleepest (1837) 422

Unconscious Cerebration: A Psychological Study (1871) 424

/ Robert Louis Stevenson

from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) 428

/ August Kekule

Address to the German Chemical Society (1890) 431

Nervous Exhaustion

from Elsie Venner (1861) 433

from Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked (1872) 436

/ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wall-Paper (1892) 438

Social Sciences 443

Creating the Social Sciences

/ Jeremy Bentham

from Panopticon (1791) 449

from Manual of Political Economy (1793) 452

/ Thomas Malthus

from An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) 453

/ J.R.

M'Culloch

from A Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical, and Historical of Commerce and Commercial Navigation (1832) 456

from Bleak House (1852-3) 458

/ Auguste Comte

from Positive Philosophy (1853) 464

from Hard Times (1854) 466

/ John Stuart Mill

from Utilitarianism (1861) 469

from Jude the Obscure (1895) 472

Race Science

/ Robert Knox

from The Races of Men (1850) 475

Sir Francis Galton

from Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883) 478

/ Arthur Conan Doyle

The Yellow Face (1894) 483

Urban Poverty

/ Friedrich Engels

from The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) 488

/ Henry Mayhew

from London Labour and the London Poor (1851) 493

/ Elizabeth Gaskell

from North and South (1855) 496

East London (1867) 501

West London 502

/ J. W. Horsley

Autobiography of a Thief in Thieves' Language (1879) 502

/ George Bernard Shaw

from Mrs Warren's Profession (1898) 506

/ Walter Besant

from East London (1899) 511

Degeneration

/ Cesare Lombroso

from The Criminal Man (1876) 516

/ George Gissing

from The Nether World (1889) 519

/ Oscar Wilde

from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) 521

/ Max Nordau

from Degeneration (1892) 525

/ Sarah Grand

from The Heavenly Twins (1893) 530

/ Bram Stoker

from Dracula (1897) 535

Epilogue: Science and Literature

Prose and Verse (1857) 538.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0192839799

OCLC:

49593855