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Darwin, literature and Victorian respectability /Gowan Dawson

By: Gowan DawsonContributor(s): Gowan DawsonMaterial type: Text

TextPublisher number: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd. | ;7/22,Ansari Road ,Darya Ganj,New Delhi-110002Series: Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture, 57Publication details: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007. : Cambridge University Press , 2007Description: xii, 282 pages ; 24 cmISBN: 9780521128858Subject(s): English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticismGenre/Form: Literature and science -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.DDC classification: 820.9353 DAW

Contents:

1. Introduction : Darwinian science and Victorian respectability -- 2. Charles Darwin, Algernon Charles Swinburne and sexualized responses to evolution -- 3. John Tyndall, Walter Pater and the nineteenth-century revival of paganism -- 4. Darwinism, Victorian freethought and the Obscene Publications Act -- 5. The refashioning of William Kingdon Clifford's posthumous reputation -- 6. T.H. Huxley, Henry Maudsley and the pathologization of aestheticism.

Summary: The success of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories in mid-nineteenth-century Britain has long been attributed, in part, to his own adherence to strict standards of Victorian respectability, especially in regard to sex. Gowan Dawson contends that the fashioning of such respectability was by no means straightforward or unproblematic, with Darwin and his principal supporters facing surprisingly numerous and enduring accusations of encouraging sexual impropriety. Integrating contextual approaches to the history of science with recent work in literary studies, Dawson sheds new light on the well-known debates over evolution by examining them in relation to the murky underworlds of Victorian pornography, sexual innuendo, unrespectable freethought and artistic sensualism. Such disreputable and generally overlooked aspects of nineteenth-century culture were actually remarkably central to many of these controversies. Focusing particularly on aesthetic literature and new legal definitions of obscenity, Dawson reveals the underlying tensions between Darwin's theories and conventional notions of Victorian respectability.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Books	SNU LIBRARY	820.9353 DAW (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan		27102

Total holds: 0

1. Introduction : Darwinian science and Victorian respectability --
2. Charles Darwin, Algernon Charles Swinburne and sexualized responses to evolution --
3. John Tyndall, Walter Pater and the nineteenth-century revival of paganism --
4. Darwinism, Victorian freethought and the Obscene Publications Act --
5. The refashioning of William Kingdon Clifford's posthumous reputation --
6. T.H. Huxley, Henry Maudsley and the pathologization of aestheticism.

The success of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories in mid-nineteenth-century Britain has long been attributed, in part, to his own adherence to strict standards of Victorian respectability, especially in regard to sex. Gowan Dawson contends that the fashioning of such respectability was by no means straightforward or unproblematic, with Darwin and his principal supporters facing surprisingly numerous and enduring accusations of encouraging sexual impropriety. Integrating contextual approaches to the history of science with recent work in literary studies, Dawson sheds new light on the well-known debates over evolution by examining them in relation to the murky underworlds of Victorian pornography, sexual innuendo, unrespectable freethought and artistic sensualism. Such disreputable and generally overlooked aspects of nineteenth-century culture were actually remarkably central to many of these controversies. Focusing particularly on aesthetic literature and new legal definitions of obscenity, Dawson reveals the underlying tensions between Darwin's theories and conventional notions of Victorian respectability.

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