Description
Book SynopsisBiological Time, Historical Time presents a new approach to 19th century thought and literature: by focussing on the subject of time, it offers a new perspective on the exchanges between French and German literary texts on the one hand and scientific disciplines on the other. Hence, the rivalling influences of the historical sciences and of the life sciences on literary texts are explored, texts from various scientific domains – medicine, natural history, biology, history, and multiple forms of vulgarisation – are investigated. Literary texts are analysed in their participation in and transformation of the scientific imagination. Special attention is accorded to the temporal dimension: this allows for an innovative account of key concepts of 19th century culture.
Table of ContentsThe Authors Introduction Niklas Bender and Gisèle Séginger Part 1: Rethinking the Order of Time From Biblical Time to Darwinian Time: Discourses on the Living World in the 18th and 19th Centuries Pascal Duris Memory Strata, Geology and Change of Historical Paradigm in France around 1830 Paule Petitier Devilish Words: Pierre Boitard, “maître Georges” and the Advance of Nature Claude Blanckaert From Biological Time to Historical Time: the Category of “Development” (Entwicklung) in the Historical Thought of Herder, Kant, Hegel, and Marx Christophe Bouton “O man! wilt thou never conceive that thou art but an ephemeron?”: the Reception of Geological Deep Time in the Late 18th Century David Schulz Part 2: Atavism and Heredity The Law of Progress, Atavism, and Prehistory in the Belle Époque Arnaud Hurel Nietzsche, or Culture Put to the Test at the Timescale of Heredity Emmanuel Salanskis Zola, Hereditability of Character and Hereditability of Deviation: After a Remark by Bergson in L’Évolution Créatrice Arnaud François Life, Sex and Temporality in Zola’s La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret Rudolf Behrens Part 3: Nature and Culture Time of History and Time of Nature in the Historical Novels of Victor Hugo Niklas Bender Historical Time, Cultural Time, and Biological Time in Baudelaire Thomas Klinkert Evolution and Time in the Chants de Maldoror Frank Jäger Memory of the Body in Proust: Historical Time and Biological Time Edward Bizub Part 4: Poetics of Time The Poetics of Restored Time: Balzac, His Age and the Figure of Cuvier Hugues Marchal The Evolution of Social Species in Balzac’s Comédie humaine Sandra Collet Time as Imagined in the Evolutionary Epic Nicolas Wanlin Evolutionism and Successivity in Antediluviana, Poème géologique by Ernest Cotty (1876) Yohann Ringuedé End of the World, End of Time: the Theory of Evolution and Its Fate in the Novel of Anticipation Claire Barel-Moisan A Biologist Literary History: August Wilhelm Schlegel and the Franco-German Natural Sciences Stefan Knödler Part 5: Biology and Ideology Evolutionary Time and Revolutionary Time (Michelet, Flaubert, Zola) Juliette Azoulai Michelet and La Mer: Biology and the Philosophy of History Gisèle Séginger “Il faut manger et être mangé pour que le monde vive”: the Zolian Belly amidst Evolution, Revolution, and Convolutions Carine Goutaland Gobineau’s Heroes Are Ageless Pierre-Louis Rey Darwinus anarchistus explodens: Science and the Legend of the Struggle for Life (Louise Michel) Claude Rétat Index
