Worm work : recasting Romanticism / Janelle A. Schwartz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwartz, Janelle A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romanticism--Europe.

Romanticism.

Nature in literature.

Literature and science--Europe--History--18th century.

Literature and science.

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

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxv, 277 p.) : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From antiquity to today, the ubiquitous and multiform worm provokes an immediate discomfort and unconscious distancing: it remains us against them in anthropocentric anxiety. So there is always something muddled, or dirty, or even offensive when talking about worms. Rehabilitating the lowly worm into a powerful aesthetic trope, this book proposes a new framework for understanding such a strangely animate nature.

Contents:

Transitional tropes: the nature of life in European romantic thought

"Unchanging but in form": the aesthetic episteme of Erasmus Darwin

"Not without some repugnancy, and a fluctuating mind": Trembley's polyp and the practice of eighteenth-century taxonomy

"Art thou but a worm?": Blake and the question concerning taxonomy

A diet of worms; or, Frankenstein and the matter of a vile romanticism.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4529-4708-2

0-8166-8295-X

OCLC:

815383359