Edith Wharton's ' Evolutionary Conception' : Darwinian Allegory in Her Major Novels (Studies in Major Literary Authors)

232 Pages·2006·1.11 MB·English

by  Paul Ohler

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S M
TUDIES IN AJOR
L A
ITERARY UTHORS
Edited by
William E. Cain
Professor of English
Wellesley College
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
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STUDIES IN MAJOR LITERARY AUTHORS
WILLIAME. CAIN, General Editor
FREDERICKDOUGLASS’SCURIOUSAUDIENCES QUEERIMPRESSIONS
Ethos in the Age of the Consumable Subject Henry James’s Art of Fiction
Terry Baxter Elaine Pigeon
THEARTIST, SOCIETY& SEXUALITYIN “NOIMAGETHEREANDTHEGAZEREMAINS”
VIRGINIAWOOLF’SNOVELS The Visual in the Work of Jorie Graham
Ann Ronchetti Catherine Sona Karagueuzian
T. S. ELIOT’SCIVILIZEDSAVAGE “SOMEWHATONTHECOMMUNITY-SYSTEM”
Religious Eroticism and Poetics Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel
Laurie J. MacDiarmid Hawthorne
Andrew Loman
WORLDINGFORSTER
The Passage from Pastoral COLONIALISMANDTHEMODERNIST
Stuart Christie MOMENTINTHEEARLYNOVELSOF
JEANRHYS
WILLIAMDEANHOWELLSANDTHE
Carol Dell’Amico
ENDSOFREALISM
Paul Abeln MELVILLE’SMONUMENTALIMAGINATION
Ian S. Maloney
WHITMAN’SECSTATICUNION
Conversion and Ideology in Leaves of Grass WRITING“OUTOFALLTHECAMPS”
Michael Sowder J. M. Coetzee’s Narratives of Displacement
Laura Wright
READYTOTRAMPLEONALLHUMANLAW
Financial Capitalism in the Fiction of Charles HEREANDNOW
Dickens The Politics of Social Space in D. H. Lawrence
Paul A. Jarvie and Virginia Woolf
Youngjoo Son
PYNCHONANDHISTORY
Metahistorical Rhetoric and Postmodern “UNNOTICEDINTHECASUALLIGHT
Narrative Form in the Novels of Thomas OFDAY”
Pynchon Philip Larkin and the Plain Style
Shawn Smith Tijana Stojkovic´
A SINGINGCONTEST QUEERTIMES
Conventions of Sound in the Poetry of Christopher Isherwood’s Modernity
Seamus Heaney Jamie M. Carr
Meg Tyler
EDITHWHARTON’S“EVOLUTIONARY
EDITHWHARTONASSPATIALACTIVIST CONCEPTION”
ANDANALYST Darwinian Allegory in Her Major Novels
Reneé Somers Paul J. Ohler
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E W ’
DITH HARTON S
“E C ”
VOLUTIONARY ONCEPTION
Darwinian Allegory in Her Major Novels
Paul J. Ohler
Routledge
New York & London
RT77913_Discl Page 1 Monday, April 17, 2006 1:15 PM
Published in 2006 by Published in Great Britain by
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For Patricia and Sophia
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Contents
List of Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Chapter One
Metaphors of “Instinct and Tradition” 1
Chapter Two
“Blind Inherited Scruples”: Lily Bart’s Evolutionary Ethics 39
Chapter Three
The Incoherence of “Progress” in The Custom of the Country 89
Chapter Four
Newland Archer’s “Hieroglyphic World” 139
Conclusion
The Limits of Wharton’s “Objective Faculty” 183
Notes 187
Works Cited 201
Index 207
vii
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List of Abbreviations
Descent Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation
to Sex. (1871). Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981.
Letters R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis, eds.,The Letters of Edith Wharton.
New York: Collier Books, 1988.
Lewis R. W. B. Lewis, Edith Wharton: A Biography. (1975). New York:
Fromm, 1985.
Origin Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
for Life.(1859). Ed. John Burrow. New York: Penguin, 1968.
Reviews James Tuttleton, Kristin O. Lauer, and Margaret P. Murray,
eds. Edith Wharton: The Contemporary Reviews. New York:
Cambridge UP, 1992.
Page references to Wharton’s published works are indicated
in the text using the following abbreviations, which refer to the
listed editions.
AI The Age of Innocence(1920) (New York: Collier, 1993)
BG A Backward Glance(New York: Appleton-Century, 1934)
CC The Custom of the Country(1913) (New York: Simon, 1997)
DH The Decoration of Houses (1897) (with Ogden Codman, Jr.)
(New York: Norton, 1997)
DM “The Descent of Man” (The Collected Short Stories of Edith
Wharton, Vol. 1. Ed. R. W. B. Lewis. New York: Scribner’s 1968)
ix