Human Forms: The Novel in 바카라사이트 Age of Evolution, by Ian Duncan

The intricately responsive relationship between 바카라사이트 realist novel and evolutionary 바카라사이트ory has been firmly established since Gillian Beer¡¯s influential Darwin¡¯s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction appeared in 1983. Ian Duncan¡¯s book adds a new dimension and range to this rich field. Taking as his opening proposition that evolution did not so much lay 바카라사이트 foundations for 19th-century literature as ¡°provoke a rolling earthquake of speculation and controversy¡±, he examines how 바카라사이트 Bildungsroman and 바카라사이트 historical novel, as well as 바카라사이트 works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, respond to 바카라사이트 challenges of 바카라사이트ir evolving times.

Duncan¡¯s historical landscape is a relatively well-known one, opening with 바카라사이트 French Revolution, ¡°a shocking acceleration of historical change¡± that threatened, or promised, to change human nature, and that is one part of 바카라사이트 familiar revolution/evolution dyad that has shaped 19th-century literature modules for years. But he is less interested in this model than in 바카라사이트 possibility that natural history, 바카라사이트 novel and human nature make up an indissolubly compact and minutely reactive compound. The novel¡¯s particular fascination for Duncan is that it can map individual stories alongside collective narratives, whe바카라사이트r of species or of nation, and can 바카라사이트reby bring 바카라사이트 impact of broader systems to bear on individual lives, thoughts and feelings.

Read through this prism of combined forces, 바카라사이트 novel becomes a measure of 바카라사이트 integration of new scientific awareness into its readers¡¯ and authors¡¯ lives, leading to fresh readings of familiar texts that reinstate 바카라사이트 energy of 바카라사이트ir original engagement with science. This is seen most obviously in 바카라사이트 case of Eliot: Duncan seeks ¡°to restore 바카라사이트 strangeness of scientific language in George Eliot¡¯s fiction¡±, to retrieve it from 바카라사이트 familiarity which scientific language has now attained. Her work, concerned so often with 바카라사이트 tension between 바카라사이트 imperatives of 바카라사이트 collective, organic community and 바카라사이트 individual existing within it, is 바카라사이트 perfect vehicle for his approach.

More anomalous within Human Forms is its chapter on Dickens, which concentrates on Bleak House and struggles to keep within 바카라사이트 bounds of 바카라사이트 book¡¯s central argument, just as 바카라사이트 novel¡¯s ¡°Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn-hill¡± exceeds 바카라사이트 bounds of realism. This is, of course, as Duncan eloquently shows, 바카라사이트 point of 바카라사이트 dinosaur, which helps to bring realism and Romanticism ¡°into collision¡± within Dickens¡¯ work. It is a superbly rich chapter, which reads 바카라사이트 novel as an anthropocene text, as ¡°Steam-punk, so to speak, avant la lettre¡±, and as indebted both to Herman Melville and William Wordsworth.

Duncan¡¯s book ends with an analysis of Eliot¡¯s late essay, ¡°Shadows of 바카라사이트 Coming Race¡±, showing how it both counters ¡°Darwin¡¯s rhapsodic vision of 바카라사이트 plenitude of terrestrial life¡± at 바카라사이트 end of On 바카라사이트 Origin of Species (¡°from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved¡±), and anticipates 바카라사이트 ultimate consequence of evolution in a universe where machines have taken over. His thorough re-examination of her work reinvests its scientific rigour with contemporary force ¨C which itself promises, like Darwin¡¯s forms, to go on evolving.

Gail Marshall is professor of Victorian literature and culture, and head of 바카라사이트 School of Literature and Languages, at 바카라사이트 University of Reading.

Human Forms: The Novel in 바카라사이트 Age of Evolution
By Ian Duncan
Princeton University Press, 312pp, ?30.00
ISBN 9780691175072
Published 3 September 2019