Name any two Victorian literary texts which reflect the influence of Charles Darwin
Answers
Answer:
In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Evolutionary theory, or the theory of “transmutation” as it was more commonly referred to in the 19th century, was already a live topic in Victorian (and broader Western) intellectual culture, as Darwin explains in the “Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species,” published with the third edition of the Origin in 1861. For this and other reasons, Darwin’s work became conflated with theories of development, change, and competition more generally, and the mantle of “Darwinism” was co-opted by (and in some cases imposed upon) social theorists, psychologists, as well as other biologists who were in many instances doing work quite different from Darwin’s. Darwin’s most broadly acknowledged contributions to the evolutionary conversation are the theories of natural selection and common descent. His theory of natural selection is an account of the process by which particular traits become more or less common within a population. As Darwin himself puts it: “any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected.” The individual that has a better chance of surviving, writes Darwin, “will tend to propagate its new and modified form.” The theory of common descent argues for the shared ancestry of different individuals, varieties, subspecies, species, and genera. Darwin offered many more ideas to biological theory. He coined the concept of sexual selection, developed a now superannuated account of heredity (dubbed “pangenesis”) that describes how parents’ characteristics are transmitted to offspring, and he published discoveries on subjects as diverse as the formation of coral reefs, the movement of plants, and the action of earthworms. To what extent these different endeavors can be characterized as “Darwinism” is no simple question. In many cases, Darwinism signals both more and less than Charles Darwin actually claimed. For instance, although Darwin did not offer a convincing account of how variation was induced, Darwinism is widely supposed to explicate how biological difference and innovation come about. This explanation was in fact provided by genetic theory, which was attached to Darwinism in the 1930s, to form what is known as the “modern evolutionary synthesis.” While Darwinism has obviously long been of interest to scholars in the sciences, it has also attracted the attention of social scientists, historians of ideas, literary and other textual critics, philosophers, and cultural commentators. The disciplinary breadth represented in this article is a testament to the cultural importance and intellectual reach of Darwinism.
Answer:
Charles Darwin's On the origin of the species influenced Victorian writers such as Thomas Hardy, Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Beckett, George Eliot and Bernard Shaw.
The theory of evolution became not just a scientific debate but a part of the Victorian imagination, shaping literature and culture.
The influence of Darwinism can be seen in Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. and George Eliot’s Middlemarch.
Explanation:
(also in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters).