In this article I will examine how Erasmus and Charles Darwin responded to the epic tradition in their writings, and how the legacy of epic was worked into their respective evolutionary visions. Erasmus Darwin formulated a brief sketch of his evolutionary theory in prose in his medical textbook Zoonomia, but when he came to flesh out his conception of evolution in imaginative and empirical detail he turned to verse. His poem The Temple of Nature, published posthumously in 1803, self-consciously evokes epic conventions and engages intertextually with Milton, Lucretius and Ovid in particular. One of the poems that Erasmus Darwin replied to in his verse – Paradise Lost – was by Charles Darwin’s account his constant companion during his voyage on the Beagle. Through exploring how both Darwins responded to Milton’s vision of Creation, and to the counter-visions offered by other epic poets and by Satan within Milton’s own poem, it is possible to see how fundamental epic poetry was to the generation of evolutionary theory and the forms it came to take.
{"title":"Epic Poetry and the Origins of Evolutionary Theory","authors":"J. Holmes","doi":"10.7202/1069961AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1069961AR","url":null,"abstract":"In this article I will examine how Erasmus and Charles Darwin responded to the epic tradition in their writings, and how the legacy of epic was worked into their respective evolutionary visions. Erasmus Darwin formulated a brief sketch of his evolutionary theory in prose in his medical textbook Zoonomia, but when he came to flesh out his conception of evolution in imaginative and empirical detail he turned to verse. His poem The Temple of Nature, published posthumously in 1803, self-consciously evokes epic conventions and engages intertextually with Milton, Lucretius and Ovid in particular. One of the poems that Erasmus Darwin replied to in his verse – Paradise Lost – was by Charles Darwin’s account his constant companion during his voyage on the Beagle. Through exploring how both Darwins responded to Milton’s vision of Creation, and to the counter-visions offered by other epic poets and by Satan within Milton’s own poem, it is possible to see how fundamental epic poetry was to the generation of evolutionary theory and the forms it came to take.","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114977558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adam Potkay. The Story of Joy: From the Bible to Late Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 9780521879118. Price: $99.00","authors":"S. Prickett","doi":"10.7202/038770AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/038770AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115473023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Carolyn Betensky. Feeling for the Poor: Bourgeois Compassion, Social Action and the Victorian Novel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8139-3061-9. Price: US$39.50","authors":"Carolyn Vellenga Berman","doi":"10.7202/1006544AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1006544AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116935667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jaffe, Audrey. The Affective Life of the Average Man: The Victorian Novel and the Stock-Market Graph. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-8142-5171-3. Price: US $24.95 (paper)","authors":"Grace Kehler","doi":"10.7202/1026010AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1026010AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121963164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"David Lloyd. Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity. Dublin: Field Day in association with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, 2008. ISBN: 9780946755400. Price: US$30/£25","authors":"Mary L. Mullen","doi":"10.7202/1001127AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1001127AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"30 6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128656723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anne-Lise François. Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0804752534. Price: US$65.00","authors":"Margaret E. Cohen","doi":"10.7202/039584AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/039584AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128001602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"James H. Donelan. Poetry and the Romantic Musical Aesthetic Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521130165. Price: US$34.99","authors":"Colin Benert","doi":"10.7202/1001108AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1001108AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132745822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ron Broglio. Technologies of the Picturesque: British Art, Poetry, and Instruments, 1750-1830. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8387-5700-0. Price: US$50","authors":"J. J. Jones","doi":"10.7202/029907AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/029907AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123665142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rebecca Stern. Home Economics: Domestic Fraud in Victorian England. Columbus: The Ohio State Press, 2008. ISBN: 139780814210901. Price: US$39.95","authors":"Susan Zlotnick","doi":"10.7202/029917AR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/029917AR","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":429435,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124453921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：