The Literary Imagination From Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells : Science, Evolution, and Ecology

At the close of the eighteenth century, Erasmus Darwin declared that he would 'enlist the imagination under the banner of science,' beginning, Michael Page argues, a literary narrative on questions of evolution, ecology, and technological progress that would extend from the Romantic through the Victorian periods. Examining the interchange between emerging scientific ideas-specifically evolution and ecology-new technologies, and literature in nineteenth-century Britain, Page shows how British writers from Darwin to H.G. Wells confronted the burgeoning expansion of scientific knowledge that was radically redefining human understanding and experience of the natural world, of human species, and of the self. The wide range of authors covered in Page's ambitious study permits him to explore an impressive array of topics that include the role of the Romantic era in the molding of scientific and cultural perspectives; the engagement of William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley with questions raised by contemporary science; Mary Shelley's conflicted views on the unfolding prospects of modernity; and how Victorian writers like Charles Kingsley, Samuel Butler, and W.H. Hudson responded to the implications of evolutionary theory. Page concludes with the scientific romances of H.G. Wells, to demonstrate how evolutionary fantasies reached the pinnacle of synthesis between evolutionary science and the imagination at the close of the century. Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction: “The Banner of Science”: Science and the Nineteenth-Century British Literary Imagination 10 1 “Beautiful and Sublime Images of the Operations of Nature”: Erasmus Darwin 26 2 “Mirrors of the Gigantic Shadows of Futurity”: Wordsworth and Shelley 48 3 “A New Species”: Mary Shelley’s Science Fiction Novels 80 4 “A Tangled Bank”: Darwinian Science Fictions 120 5 “Dim Outlines on a Desolate Beach”: H.G. Wells 158 Conclusion: “Where Do We Go from Here?” 202 Works Cited 212 Index 228 Page argues that Erasmus Darwin's call to 'enlist the imagination under the banner of science' began a literary narrative on questions of evolution, ecology and technological progress that would extend from the Romantic through the Victorian periods. Examining a range of writers, including William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Charles Kingsley, Samuel Butler and W.H. Hudson, Page shows the synthesis of evolutionary science with the imagination, which reached its pinnacle with the romances of H.G. Wells