"The quicker cripple at Bethesda": Hardy's parables of Darwinian entanglement, election and selection.
Item
-
Title
-
"The quicker cripple at Bethesda": Hardy's parables of Darwinian entanglement, election and selection.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9732918
-
identifier
-
9732918
-
Creator
-
Garlock, David.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Michael Timko
-
Date
-
1997
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, English | History of Science
-
Abstract
-
This study explores ways in which the fictive imaginations of Thomas Hardy and Charles Darwin register their century's transition from the traditional essentialism that was their philosophical heritage toward the view which came to dominate in the century that followed theirs, a materialistic and rationalistic perception of biological life Ernst Mayr and other architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis have labeled "population thinking." Chapter One proposes a reading of Hardy's major narrative fiction in tandem with Darwin's major works, contextualizing Hardy's Darwinism within the framework of nineteenth-century scientific writers whose advocacy of "natural theology" inevitably recurred to an essentialist model. Through close readings of selected passages, Chapter Two details the language of conflict and its significance in the world of Darwin's Voyage, Origin and Descent and the world of Hardy's Wessex; Darwin's sanguine acceptance of "nature's polity" is contrasted with Hardy's ambivalent Darwinism. Chapter Three deals with the theme of plasticity, indeterminacy and constructs of sexuality in Hardy and Darwin. An examination of Darwin's treatment of sexual characteristics delineates ways in which his focus on the plasticity of all life forms lends impetus to reevaluation of sex-role stereotyping and the implications of Darwinian relativism on gender typologies. Chapter Four examines the active role accorded physical surroundings in Darwin and Hardy, exploring examples of ways in which human will and desire are subordinated to the dominating "personality" of an incursive landscape or environment. Chapter Five contrasts Hardyan Darwinism with the essentialist view of social and cultural antagonisms. Chapter Six reassesses ways in which Hardy's novels and poetry register the stages of shock, denial and ambivalence with which his age assimilated the Darwinian revolution. The final chapter offers a concluding discussion of geological impermanence and morphological plasticity as defining characteristics of the sensible world celebrated in the works of both Darwin and Hardy.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
