Gillian Beer's landmark book demonstrates how Darwin overturned fundamental cultural assumptions in his narratives, how George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and other writers pursued and resisted their contradictory implications, and how the stories he produced about natural selection and the struggle for life now underpin our culture. This second edition of Darwin's Plots incorporates a new preface by the author and a foreword by the distinguished American scholar George Levine.
Table of contents:
Foreword George Levine; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. Darwin's Language: 1. 'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world; 2. Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order; Part II. Darwin's Plots: 3. Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin; 4. Darwinian myths; 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch; 6. George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life; 7. Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative; 8. Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels; Select bibliography of primary works.
This second edition of Professor Dame Gillian Beer's highly acclaimed book incorporates a new preface by the author and a foreword by the distinguished American scholar George Levine. '... a work of criticism that takes its modest place among the other 'cloudy triumphs' of English genius.' Michael Neve, Sunday Times
New edition of highly acclaimed book examining Darwin's work in a literary/cultural context.
Table of contents:
Foreword George Levine; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. Darwin's Language: 1. 'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world; 2. Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order; Part II. Darwin's Plots: 3. Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin; 4. Darwinian myths; 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch; 6. George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life; 7. Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative; 8. Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels; Select bibliography of primary works.
This second edition of Professor Dame Gillian Beer's highly acclaimed book incorporates a new preface by the author and a foreword by the distinguished American scholar George Levine. '... a work of criticism that takes its modest place among the other 'cloudy triumphs' of English genius.' Michael Neve, Sunday Times
New edition of highly acclaimed book examining Darwin's work in a literary/cultural context.