The age of analogy : science and literature between the Darwins / Devin Griffiths.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Griffiths, Devin, 1978- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882--Criticism and interpretation.

Darwin, Charles.

Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802--Knowledge and learning--Natural history.

Darwin, Erasmus.

Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802.

Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.

Natural history.

Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802--Influence.

Literature and science--England--History--19th century.

Literature and science.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Science in literature.

Nature in literature.

Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.).

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

England.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

x, 339 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.

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.

Contents:

Prelude Thinking through Analogy 27

Chapter 1 Erasmus Darwin, Enlightenment History, and the Crisis of Analogy 51

The Loves of the Plants and Sexual Taxonomy 57

Stadial History and The Botanic Garden 62

Flattening Allegory 68

Zoonomia and Darwin's Insurrection 73

Conclusion: "Philosophical Arguments of the Last Generation" 80

Chapter 2 Crossing the Border with Walter Scott 83

The Subject of Enlightenment History 90

The Forensic Antiquary 95

Faking the Minstrelsy 103

Linguistic Anthropology in Ivanhoe and Waverley 111

Conclusion: "So Leyden were alive" 121

Chapter 3 Spooky Action in Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam A. H. H. 129

Analogical Verses 134

Hallam's Perfect Danäe 138

The Logic of Analogy and the Plurality of Worlds 147

Comparative Anatomy and the Archetype 157

Conclusion: The Higher Type 162

Chapter 4 Falsifying George Eliot 166

The Westminster Review and the "Historic Imagination" 173

"Higher Criticism" and the Natural History of Social Life 184

Harmonic Sympathy in Middlemarch 189

Form and the Entangled Word 198

Conclusion: Against Origins 205

Chapter 5 The Origin of Charles Darwin's Orchids 211

The Analogy Notebooks 218

On the Origin of Species and the Curation of Analogy 221

Darwin and the Novels 230

Orchids in Action 237

Flat Theology and Reading for Intent 245.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421420769

1421420767

OCLC:

945121150