Literature After Darwin: Human Beasts in Western Fiction 1859-1939

268 Pages·2011·1.349 MB·English

by  Virginia Richter (auth.)

Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
General Editor: Joseph Bristow, Professor of English, UCLA
Editorial Advisory Board: Hilary Fraser, Birkbeck College, University of London; Josephine
McDonagh, Kings College, London; Yopie Prins, University of Michigan; Lindsay Smith,
University of Sussex; Margaret D. Stetz, University of Delaware; Jenny Bourne Taylor,
University of Sussex
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture is a new monograph series that
aims to represent the most innovative research on literary works that were produced in the
English- speaking world from the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the fin de siècle. Attentive
to the historical continuities between ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’, the series will feature stud-
ies that help scholarship to reassess the meaning of these terms during a century marked
by diverse cultural, literary, and political movements. The main aim of the series is to look
at the increasing influence of types of historicism on our understanding of literary forms
and genres. It reflects the shift from critical theory to cultural history that has affected not
only the period 1800–1900 but also every field within the discipline of English literature. All
titles in the series seek to offer fresh critical perspectives and challenging readings of both
canonical and non-canonical writings of this era.
Titles include:
Eitan Bar-Yosef and Nadia Valman (editors)
‘THE JEW’ IN LATE-VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CULTURE
Between the East End and East Africa
Heike Bauer
ENGLISH LITERARY SEXOLOGY
Translations of Inversions, 1860–1930
Laurel Brake and Julie F. Codell (editors)
ENCOUNTERS IN THE VICTORIAN PRESS
Editors, Authors, Readers
Luisa Calè and Patrizia Di Bello (editors)
ILLUSTRATIONS, OPTICS AND OBJECTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERARY AND
VISUAL CULTURES
Colette Colligan
THE TRAFFIC IN OBSCENITY FROM BYRON TO BEARDSLEY
Sexuality and Exoticism in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture
Dennis Denisoff
SEXUAL VISUALITY FROM LITERATURE TO FILM, 1850–1950
Stefano Evangelista
BRITISH AESTHETICISM AND ANCIENT GREECE
Hellenism, Reception, Gods in Exile
Margot Finn, Michael Lobban and Jenny Bourne Taylor (editors)
LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LAW, LITERATURE AND
HISTORY
Laura E. Franey
VICTORIAN TRAVEL WRITING AND IMPERIAL VIOLENCE
Lawrence Frank
VICTORIAN DETECTIVE FICTION AND THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE
The Scientific Investigations of Poe, Dickens and Doyle
Yvonne Ivory
THE HOMOSEXUAL REVIVAL OF RENAISSANCE STYLE, 1850–1930
Colin Jones, Josephine McDonagh and Jon Mee (editors)
CHARLES DICKENS, A TALE OF TWO CITIES AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Jarlath Killeen
THE FAITHS OF OSCAR WILDE
Catholicism, Folklore and Ireland
Stephanie Kuduk Weiner
REPUBLICAN POLITICS AND ENGLISH POETRY, 1789–1874
Kirsten MacLeod
FICTIONS OF BRITISH DECADENCE
High Art, Popular Writing and the Fin de Siècle
Diana Maltz
BRITISH AESTHETICISM AND THE URBAN WORKING CLASSES, 1870–1900
Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham (editors)
VERNON LEE
Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics
Muireann O’Cinneide
ARISTOCRATIC WOMEN AND THE LITERARY NATION, 1832–1867
David Payne
THE REENCHANTMENT OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot and Serialization
Julia Reid
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, SCIENCE, AND THE FIN DE SIÉCLE
Virginia Richter
LITERATURE AFTER DARWIN
Human Beasts in Western Fiction 1859–1939
Anne Stiles (editor)
NEUROLOGY AND LITERATURE, 1860–1920
Caroline Sumpter
THE VICTORIAN PRESS AND THE FAIRY TALE
Sara Thornton
ADVERTISING, SUBJECTIVITY AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL
Dickens, Balzac and the Language of the Walls
Ana Parejo Vadillo
WOMEN POETS AND URBAN AESTHETICISM
Passengers of Modernity
Phyllis Weliver
THE MUSICAL CROWD IN ENGLISH FICTION, 1840–1910
Class, Culture and Nation
Paul Young
GLOBALIZATION AND THE GREAT EXHIBITION
The Victorian New World Order
Also by Virginia Richter:
GEWALTSAME LEKTÜREN: Gender-Konstitution und Geschlechterkonflikt in Clarissa, Les
Liaisons Dangereuses und Les Infortunes de la vertu
DIE GLEIßENDE WELT: Annotated translation of Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World
REVOLUTION UND EMANZIPATION: Geschlechterordnungen in Europa um 1800
(edited with Kathatina Rennhak)
THEATER IM AUFBRUCH: Anfänge des europäischen Dramas in der Frühen Neuzeit.
(edited with Roger Lüdeke)
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–97700–2 (hardback)
(outside North America only)
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Literature After Darwin
Human Beasts in Western Fiction,
1859–1939
By Virginia Richter
Chair of Modern English Literature, University of Berne, Switzerland
© Virginia Richter 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-27340-5
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ISBN 978-1-349-32391-3 ISBN 978-0-230-30044-6 (eBook)
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
List of Abbreviations viii
1 What Animal? Darwin’s Displacement of Man 1
Darwin’s heritage 1
Anthropological anxiety 6
2 Creating Connections: Humans, Apes and Missing Links 17
The rise of evolution theory 18
Darwin’s question of questions 30
Romancing the bones: missing links 39
3 Apes and Ape-men: The Anxiety of Simianation 62
Apes as figures of identity/alterity 62
The human–ape family romance 68
Human–simian transformations of the body 86
The civilised ape 106
4 Missing Links and Lost Worlds: The Anxiety of Assimilation 119
Cannibalism as pharmakon 119
The vicissitudes of regression 135
Strange encounters with missing links 145
5 Cultural Pessimism and Anthropological Anxiety 163
Races of the past and of the future 164
Decaying cultures and the desire for death 187
The final wars of humankind 198
Notes 216
Bibliography 239
Index 252
v
Acknowledgements
This book has been ten years in the making. I had the first inkling that
I would spend a decade thinking about Darwin when I started to browse
through a rather battered copy of The Voyage of the Beagle in a bookstore
in the Cotswolds on a wet summer day in 2000. Seeing my fascination,
the kindly owner gave me the book – which would have cost about
three pounds – as a present, thereby becoming, albeit anonymous, the
first of many persons I have to thank for their generous support during
this undertaking. The precarious relationship between human beasts
and non-human animals in the wake of Darwin’s evolution theory then
swiftly became the topic of my ‘Habilitation’, the post-doctoral thesis
every German scholar has to write to become eligible as a university
professor. On a dreary morning in November 2005, I lugged six weighty
copies of my ‘Habilschrift’ to the Dean of Humanities’ Office at the
University of Munich. It earned me the much-coveted ‘Venia legendi’,
the ‘permission to teach’ in English and Comparative Literature, but
it was utterly unpublishable, at least on the international market. If to
write the thesis cost me about five years, to ‘unwrite’ it – to get rid of
excessive displays of erudition demanded by the ‘Habilitation’ genre
and to transform it into a readable book – took almost as long. I would
not have been able to survive this lengthy gestation process without
the advice, moral support and practical help of many colleagues and
friends.
For their unfailing support and constructive feedback, I thank my
postdoctoral supervisors at the University of Munich, Hendrik Birus,
Christoph Bode and Graham Huggan, as well as the external experts
who reviewed the completed ‘Habilschrift,’ Barbara Korte and Jürgen
Schlaeger. Many thanks go to my Munich colleagues at the Institute of
Comparative Literature, especially to Roger Lüdeke for long talks about
theory and methodology, and to Sebastian Donat for pointing out the
significance of the intermaxillary bone. Many colleagues discussed
parts of the manuscript, responded to talks related to it and encouraged
me to continue. In particular, I want to thank Julika Griem (another
ape aficionada), Tobias Döring, Erika Greber, Andreas Höfele, Manfred
Pfister, Katharina Rennhak, Frank Schulze-Engler and Mark Stein. My
stay as a Visiting Fellow at the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities in 2004 was a particularly fruitful period. Special thanks go
vi
Acknowledgements vii
to Lyn Innes and Rod Edmond who made this visit possible, and to all
the colleagues at the University of Kent at Canterbury who made it so
productive and pleasurable. Last but not least, I wish to thank Harriet
Ritvo for giving me invaluable advice regarding publication.
I have to thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for supporting
my stay in Canterbury with a travel grant, and the Equal Opportunity
Office at the University of Munich for giving me a postdoctoral scholar-
ship that allowed me to pursue my research at the British Library, as well
as awarding my research with the ‘Therese von Bayern-Preis’ 2006.
I also received generous help during the final stages of transform-
ing the manuscript into a book. I wish to thank Joseph Bristow for his
magnanimous assessment of my study, and Paula Kennedy, Benjamin
Doyle and Ann Marangos at Palgrave Macmillan for patiently answer-
ing all my questions. For help with additional research, work on the
manuscript and proofreading my warmest thanks go to Fabian Felder,
Irmtraud Huber, Marijke Kähler, Daniel Kälin, Katie Ritson and Hilary
Sharp.
I have worked on the final revisions in Berne, where I have been
teaching English Literature since 2007. There are many people at the
Department of English who from the start gave me the feeling that this
is the place where I belong, and who have become much more than col-
leagues. In particular, I want to thank Beatrix Busse, Irmtraud Huber and
Ursula Kluwick for their support and friendship. Finally, my most heart-
felt thanks go to those without whom I wouldn’t be where I am – in one
case, literally: Jiˇrina Žižkovska for inspiring me with the love for literature
and for being, in so many ways, a sublime mother, and Rudi Richter for
years of love, patience and encouragement.
Extracts from the work of H.G. Wells are reprinted by permission
of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the Literary Executors of the Estate of
H.G. Wells. Extracts from Tarzan of the Apes and The Return of Tarzan
are reprinted by permission of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. ‘Address to
the Beasts’, copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith
and Monroe K. Spears, Executors of the Estate of W.H. Auden, from
Collected Poems of W.H. Auden by W.H. Auden; used by permission of
Random House, Inc. An extract from The Woman and the Ape by Peter
Høeg is reprinted by kind permission of the Gyldendal Group Agency.
An extract from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is reprinted by permission
of The Society of Authors on behalf of the Estate of Virginia Woolf.
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BB Kipling, Rudyard. ‘Bertran and Bimi’. 1891. Life’s Handicap.
Being Stories of Mine Own People. London: Macmillan, 1952.
240–59.
CA Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. 1869. The Complete
Prose of Matthew Arnold. Vol. 5. Ed. R.H. Super. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 1965. 85–256.
CC Hatton, Joseph. Captured by Cannibals. Some Incidents in the Life
of Horace Durand. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1888.
CCC Carpenter, Edward. Civilisation. Its Cause and Cure and Other
Essays. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1889.
CHS Graham, P. Anderson. The Collapse of Homo Sapiens. London:
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923.
CI Clout, Machiavelli Colin [Frank Challice Constable]. The Curse
of the Intellect. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1895.
CR Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. The Coming Race. 1871. Stroud:
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DM Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man. 1871. Ed. H. James Birx.
New York: Prometheus Books, 1998.
EA Du Chaillu, Paul B. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial
Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People,
and of the Chace of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant,
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GF Wells, H.G. ‘The Grisly Folk’. 1921. The Short Stories of
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GM Hudson, W.H. Green Mansions. 1904. Ed. Ian Duncan. Oxford
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HG Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genius. An Inquiry into its Laws and
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viii
List of Abbreviations ix
IDM Wells, H.G. The Island of Doctor Moreau. 1896. Ed. Brian Aldiss.
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JH Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde. 1886. In: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories.
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KSM Haggard, Henry Rider. King Solomon’s Mines. 1885.
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LW Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Lost World. 1912. Ed. Ian Duncan.
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MB Kipling, Rudyard. ‘The Mark of the Beast’. 1891. Life’s
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MPN Huxley, Thomas Henry. Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature.
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MRM Poe, Edgar Allen. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’. 1841.
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and Melbourne: Dent, 1984. 411–44.
MW Collier, John. His Monkey Wife or, Married to a Chimp. 1930.
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