THE DISCREPANCIES OF THE ‘ANTHROPOZOIC AGE’ IN ERNST HAECKEL'S INDISCHE REISEBRIEFE (1882)

Abstract

In Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (1866), Ernst Haeckel systematised the biological study of morphology along evolutionary lines and proposed that the ‘Anthropozoic Age’ should be considered the most recent paleontological time period. This article first examines Haeckelʼs early concept of the Anthropozoic Age in relation to his ambiguous use of the words ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’ in his life's work. It then illustrates how his later travel narrative, Indische Reisebriefe (1882), projects notions of the Anthropozoic Age onto landscapes from his journey to British‐governed Ceylon. Haeckel presents two diverging paleontological timescales: a deep and interconnected past of the island's organisms and the currently escalating consequences of human cultivation of the land. Lending different scientific and aesthetic attention to the depiction of the two environmental developments, discrepant images are fused in his hopes and visions of a new and better ‘Age of Culture’. The travel report is thus a very early literary response to the scientific concept of living during a time in which humanity dominates the world's environments. From today's perspective, the text raises familiar questions regarding how humans should conceive their own agency in the Anthropocene. At the same time, it highlights the concept's entanglement with contemporary philosophical and socio‐political discourses.