Science and Religion in Neo-Victorian Novels: Eye of the Ichthyosaur

272 Pages·2013·2.814 MB·English

by  John Glendening

Science and Religion in
Neo-Victorian Novels
Criticism about the neo-Victorian novel—a genre of historical fi ction that
re-imagines aspects of the Victorian world from present-day perspectives
—has expanded rapidly in the last fi fteen years but given little attention to
the engagement between science and religion. Of great interest to Victori-
ans, this subject often appears in neo-Victorian novels including those by
such well-known authors as John Fowles, A. S. Byatt, Graham Swift, and
Mathew Kneale. This book discusses novels in which nineteenth-century
science, including geology, paleontology, and evolutionary theory, interacts
with religion through accommodations, confl icts, and crises of faith. In
general, these texts abandon conventional religion but retain the ethical
connectedness and celebration of life associated with spirituality at its best.
Registering the growth of nineteenth-century secularism and drawing on
aspects of the romantic tradition and ecological thinking, they honor the
natural world without imagining that it exists for humans or functions in
reference to human values. In particular, they enact a form of wonderment:
the capacity of the mind to make sense of, creatively adapt, and enjoy the
world out of which it has evolved—in short, to endow it with meaning.
Protagonists who come to experience reality in this expansive way release
themselves from self-anxiety and alienation. In this book, Glendening
shows how, by intermixing past and present, fact and fi ction, neo-Victorian
narratives, with a few instructive exceptions, manifest this pattern.
John Glendening is Professor in the Department of English at The Univer-
sity of Montana, US.
Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature
1 Nineteenth-Century Narratives 9 Science and Religion in
of Contagion Neo-Victorian Novels
‘Our Feverish Contact’ Eye of the Ichthyosaur
Allan Conrad Christensen John Glendening
2 Victorian Servants, Class, and
the Politics of Literacy
Jean Fernandez
3 Christian and Lyric Tradition in
Victorian Women’s Poetry
F. Elizabeth Gray
4 Class, Culture and Suburban
Anxieties in the Victorian Era
Lara Baker Whelan
5 Antebellum American Women
Writers and the Road
American Mobilities
Susan L. Roberson
6 Domesticity and Design in
American Women’s Lives
and Literature
Stowe, Alcott, Cather, and
Wharton Writing Home
Caroline Hellman
7 The Textual Condition of
Nineteenth-Century Literature
Josephine Guy and Ian Small
8 Narrative Hospitality in Late
Victorian Fiction
Novel Ethics
Rachel Hollander
Science and Religion in
Neo-Victorian Novels
Eye of the Ichthyosaur
John Glendening
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of John Glendening to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Glendening, John.
Science and religion in neo-Victorian novels : eye of the ichthyosaur /
by John Glendening.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in nineteenth-century literature ; 9)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Science in literature. 2. Religion in literature. 3. English
fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 4. English fiction—21st
century—History and criticism. 5. Historical fiction, English—History
and criticism. 6. Natural history in literature. 7. Scientific expeditions
in literature. 8. Literature and science—Great Britain. 9. Religion and
science—Great Britain—History—19th century. 10. Great Britain—
History—Victoria, 1837–1901—Historiography. I. Title.
PR888.S34G58 2013
823'.9109356—dc23
2012046649
ISBN13: 978-0-415-81943-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-38323-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
For Kelly
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 1
2 Reconstructing History: “The World-Renowned Ichthyosaurus” 31
3 Fossils and Faith: Remarkable Creatures, Ever After, and
The Bone Hunter 55
4 Paradises Lost: The Voyage of the Narwhal and
English Passengers 79
5 Evolution and the Uncrucifi ed Jesus: The French
Lieutenant’s Woman 109
6 True Romance: A. S. Byatt’s Possession and “Morpho Eugenia” 136
7 Devil’s Chaplain: This Thing of Darkness and
Mr. Darwin’s Shooter 163
8 Victorians and Other Apes: Monkey’s Uncle and Ark Baby 186
9 Conclusion: Confessing a Murder and Love and the Platypus 213
Notes 229
Works Cited 245
Index 253
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Acknowledgments
For their suggestions and support I thank my colleagues and friends Robert
Pack, Christopher Knight, Salah el Moncef, and Sean O’Brien. As always,
I thank my wife, Jeanne, for her love and support.
Most of section two of Chapter 6 is excerpted by permission of the pub-
lishers from The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels by
John Glendening (Farnham: Ashgate, 2007). Copyright © 2007.
The bulk of Chapter 2 is taken from my article “‘The World Renowned
Ichthyosaurus’: A Nineteenth-Century Problematic and Its Represen-
tations” (Journal of Literature and Science 2 [2009]: 23–47; http://
literatureandscience.research.glam.ac.uk/media/files/documents/
2009-09-30/JLS2.1GlendeningPDF.pdf). I thank JLS, which is part of the
open access movement of academic and intellectual property, for its ready
agreement to republish.