Transcript Folie 1 - uni

A.S. Byatt
Angels and Insects
Science and Society in
Morpho Eugenia
A.S. Byatt (1936-)
 Broad literary and scientific
interests
 Bridges Victorian and
contemporary writing
 ‚self-conscious realist‘
 Often merges naturalism, realism and
fantasy
Byatt on the siginificance of
science:
“We read science out of concern for our own
health and environment. But I think we also
read scientific books because they are the best
way we now have of answering the perennial
human need for understanding, contemplation
of our place in the order of things, a sense of
complexity and mystery, an inkling perhaps of
the order of those things which are not
ourselves.” (New Statesman, 10 April 200)
Science in the Victorian
Period
 Cultural dominance of the life sciences
developing
 Natural history most prominent
 Theories still argued from historical
record
 Devoted to moral development
 Closely connected with general
philosophical interest
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
(1744-1829)
 ‘Transformist’:
believed that living organisms
develop into more complex
forms through the inheritance
of aquired characteristics
Robert Chambers: The
Vestiges of Creation (1844)
 ‘Law of development’
 Mankind has evolved
from the lower animals
Darwinism
 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
(1859): Evolution by natural selection
 Links geological record with a theory of
species change
 Evidence of shaping time-consciousness
in Victorian Period
 A hypothesis  no scientific verification!
Idea of Natural Selection
1. organisms vary
2. their offspring can inherit these
variations
3. variations may operate to the
benefit of individuals
Implications for 19th
century belief system
 No divine creator
 Man is put back into nature
 Humans are no longer superior
Feeling of ‘disinheritance’
Loss of certainty
Reception
 Was easily absorbed
 Demonstration of how the mind of a
scientist worked
 Helped to establish science as a culture
 Imaginative narrative: comparable to
other forms of narrative
Social Darwinism
 Biological Theories to interpret human
communities
 Biologist is concerned with general,
philosophical explanation of the world
 Used to legitimate the superiority of ‚the
fittest‘
T H Huxley (1876)
„Biology is the study of all
phenomena exhibited by
living things.“
 licenses biologist's exploration of
politics, philosophy or education
Herbert Spencer: ‘The
Social Organism’ (1860)
"A social organism,like an
individual organism,
undergoes modifications until
it comes into equilibrium with
environing conditions; and
thereupon continues without further
change of structure."
Degeneration
 Pessimistic outlook for the future of
Western civilization
 A class of degenerate people may attack
social norms
 Justifications for attacks on modern art
and for eugenic programs
Eugenics
 Usual social policies interfere with natural
selection
 Human reproduction must be monitored
 ‚genius‘ and ‚talent‘ are hereditary
 Selective breeding must be considered
for human reproduction
Science and Literature in
the Victorian Period
 Increasing market for popularized
versions of scientific knowledge
 Mutual creative exchange of scientists
and novelists
 Imagination occupies a crucial role for
knowledge
‘Two cultures’ debate
 Struggle to establish science in education
 Huxley: Only life science reveals truth
 Arnold: Knowledge must refer to
Classical Literature