Evolution and imagination in Victorian children's literature / Jessica Straley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Straley, Jessica L., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 103.

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 103

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children's literature, English--History and criticism.

Children's literature, English.

Evolution (Biology) in literature.

Imagination in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 252 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Summary:

"Evolutionary theory sparked numerous speculations about human development, and none was so ardently embraced as the idea that children are animals recapitulating the ascent of the species. After Darwin's Origin of Species, scientific, pedagogical, and literary works featuring beastly babes and wild children interrogated how our ancestors evolved and what children must do in order to repeat this murky course to humanity. Exploring fictions by Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Kingsley, and Margaret Gatty, Jessica Straley argues that Victorian children's literature not only adopted this new taxonomy of the animal child, but also suggested ways to complete his/her evolution. In the midst of debates about elementary education and the rising dominance of the sciences, children's authors plotted miniaturized evolutions for their protagonists and readers, and, more pointedly, proposed that the decisive evolutionary leap for both our ancestors and ourselves is the advent of the literary imagination"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The child's view of nature: Margaret Gatty and the challenge to natural theology

Amphibious tendencies: Charles Kingsley, Herbert Spencer, and evolutionary education

Generic variability: Lewis Carroll, scientific nonsense, and literary parody

The cure of the wild: Rudyard Kipling and evolutionary adolescence at home and abroad

Home grown: Frances Hodgson Burnett and the cultivation of feminine evolution.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 190-247) and index.

ISBN:

9781107127524

1107127521

OCLC:

920446885

Online:

Cover image