Natural History's Hypothetical Moments: Narratives of Contingency in Victorian Culture
This essay focuses on the ways in which works by Robert Chambers, Charles Darwin, and George Eliot encouraged readers to imagine the future as contingent. But where Chambers alludes to Charles Babbage's computational engine and the period's life insurance industry to hint at the role of co...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | Victorian studies 2009-12, Vol.51 (2), p.275-297 |
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| description | This essay focuses on the ways in which works by Robert Chambers, Charles Darwin, and George Eliot encouraged readers to imagine the future as contingent. But where Chambers alludes to Charles Babbage's computational engine and the period's life insurance industry to hint at the role of contingency in natural history, Darwin insists on the importance of contingently determined outcomes to speciation. The "Origin" consistently exercises the reader's speculative energies by generating conditional statements, causal hypotheses, adn diverging alternatives. "Adam Bede" constitutes its characters' interior lives around the proliferation of such contingent narratives. To reflect on the future or on the past, these works suggest, demands a temporal, moral, and narrative complexity in one's thinking. |
| doi_str_mv | 10.2979/vic.2009.51.2.275 |
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education</subject><subject>Natural History - history</subject><subject>Social Behavior</subject><subject>Social Class</subject><subject>Social Conditions - economics</subject><subject>Social Conditions - history</subject><subject>Victorian period literature, 1832-1901</subject><subject>Whewell, William</subject><issn>0042-5222</issn><issn>1527-2052</issn><fulltext>true</fulltext><rsrctype>article</rsrctype><creationdate>2009</creationdate><recordtype>article</recordtype><sourceid>EIF</sourceid><sourceid>8G5</sourceid><sourceid>ABUWG</sourceid><sourceid>AFKRA</sourceid><sourceid>AIMQZ</sourceid><sourceid>AVQMV</sourceid><sourceid>AZQEC</sourceid><sourceid>BEC</sourceid><sourceid>BENPR</sourceid><sourceid>CCPQU</sourceid><sourceid>DWQXO</sourceid><sourceid>GNUQQ</sourceid><sourceid>GUQSH</sourceid><sourceid>K50</sourceid><sourceid>M1D</sourceid><sourceid>M2O</sourceid><sourceid>PAF</sourceid><sourceid>PQHSC</sourceid><sourceid>PQLNA</sourceid><sourceid>PROLI</sourceid><recordid>eNqNk02P0zAQhiMEYsvCD-ACEQcQhwR7bOeD2yqCbaVu97BQjlbiToqrJO7azor-e1y1gi1aoZUlWx4972g070wUvaYkhTIvP91plQIhZSpoCink4kk0oQLyBIiAp9GEEA6JAICz6IVzGxL-nPDn0RktC-DhmkTLRe1HW3fxVDtv7O6Di6e7rfE_0WsVwlemx8G7z_Gitrb2-g5dbNq4MoPXwxoHtYv1EC-1CmJdD3E1diEfvoyetXXn8NXxPY--f_3yrZom8-vLWXUxT1TGM58wpnIQrMmIoEVLec4FI03bZpyIplBZowAbtsJyxUHxAoiipGRUtaLIc4bAzqP3h7xba25HdF722insunpAMzqZ5VlJgecBfPcPuDGjHUJtEigtwwEWoLcHaF13KDur1vXonLwASkKZnGSBSO4RemiNt7UKfcDQQzNgq0P4hE8f4MNZYa_Vg4KPJ4LAePzlD4XMbhaPZ69-PJ6dzh7NFpfz_zXkyCrTdbhGGcyurk95euCVNc5ZbOXW6r62O0mJ3A-1XM4quR9qKagEGYY6aN4cvRubHld_FccpDgD_Y-4Gle9Hh_f8zXLGubzZb8Z-MUgZ0hNG2G8Fwvny</recordid><startdate>20091222</startdate><enddate>20091222</enddate><creator>Choi, Tina Young</creator><general>Indiana University Press</general><scope>CGR</scope><scope>CUY</scope><scope>CVF</scope><scope>ECM</scope><scope>EIF</scope><scope>NPM</scope><scope>AAYXX</scope><scope>CITATION</scope><scope>8GL</scope><scope>IHI</scope><scope>IMW</scope><scope>ISN</scope><scope>ILR</scope><scope>3V.</scope><scope>7XB</scope><scope>8FK</scope><scope>8G5</scope><scope>ABUWG</scope><scope>AFKRA</scope><scope>AIMQZ</scope><scope>AVQMV</scope><scope>AZQEC</scope><scope>BEC</scope><scope>BENPR</scope><scope>CCPQU</scope><scope>CLO</scope><scope>DWQXO</scope><scope>GB0</scope><scope>GNUQQ</scope><scope>GUQSH</scope><scope>K50</scope><scope>LIQON</scope><scope>M1D</scope><scope>M2O</scope><scope>MBDVC</scope><scope>PAF</scope><scope>PPXUT</scope><scope>PQEST</scope><scope>PQHSC</scope><scope>PQLNA</scope><scope>PQQKQ</scope><scope>PQUKI</scope><scope>PROLI</scope><scope>Q9U</scope><scope>7X8</scope></search><sort><creationdate>20091222</creationdate><title>Natural History's Hypothetical Moments: Narratives of Contingency in Victorian Culture</title><author>Choi, Tina Young</author></sort><facets><frbrtype>5</frbrtype><frbrgroupid>cdi_FETCH-LOGICAL-c646t-33c7253b60518f1474530bff6405b8c6bc2eb3de9d42c4820c10931cf58773e23</frbrgroupid><rsrctype>articles</rsrctype><prefilter>articles</prefilter><language>eng</language><creationdate>2009</creationdate><topic>Anthropology, Cultural - 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| subjects | Anthropology, Cultural - education Anthropology, Cultural - history Authorship Babbage, Charles (1791-1871) Contingencies Criticism and interpretation Cultural Characteristics Darwin, Charles (1809-1882) England - ethnology English literature, 1837-1901 (Victorian age) Forecasting History of medicine History, 19th Century History, 20th Century Hypotheses Language Literature, Modern - history Metaphor Narration - history Narratives Natural history Natural History - education Natural History - history Social Behavior Social Class Social Conditions - economics Social Conditions - history Victorian period literature, 1832-1901 Whewell, William |
| title | Natural History's Hypothetical Moments: Narratives of Contingency in Victorian Culture |
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