عنوان

Victorian Natural History and the Discourses of Nature in Charles Kingsleys Glaucus

Number

LA129636

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Victorian Natural History and the Discourses of Nature in Charles Kingsleys Glaucus

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

Francis O'Gorman

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

This essay argues that Victorian natural history, as a form of knowledge more accessible in the culture than the increasingly professionalised languages of empirical science, deserves more prominence in accounts of the formation and transmission of ideas about nature's value and human beings' relationship with it in Victorian England. The essay examines the constitutive discourses of a particular and popular example of such writing: Charles Kingsley's Glaucus (1854-55). It analyses the claims made by the text for the morally improving nature of natural history and the discourse of chivalry appropriated to express that claim. It discusses aspects of the text's construction of the natural world in theological, political and aesthetic terms, and looks particularly at its deployment of imperial discourses in configuring the naturalist's relationship with nature. The essay sites Glaucus's attitude to the morality of specimen collecting within the wider context of moral debate in Victorian natural history and concludes with some reflections on natural history's place in relation to the values of professionalised empirical science in the culture. This essay argues that Victorian natural history, as a form of knowledge more accessible in the culture than the increasingly professionalised languages of empirical science, deserves more prominence in accounts of the formation and transmission of ideas about nature's value and human beings' relationship with it in Victorian England. The essay examines the constitutive discourses of a particular and popular example of such writing: Charles Kingsley's Glaucus (1854-55). It analyses the claims made by the text for the morally improving nature of natural history and the discourse of chivalry appropriated to express that claim. It discusses aspects of the text's construction of the natural world in theological, political and aesthetic terms, and looks particularly at its deployment of imperial discourses in configuring the naturalist's relationship with nature. The essay sites Glaucus's attitude to the morality of specimen collecting within the wider context of moral debate in Victorian natural history and concludes with some reflections on natural history's place in relation to the values of professionalised empirical science in the culture.

Date of Publication

1998

Physical description

21-35

Title

Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

Volume Number

2/1

International Standard Serial Number

1568-5357

Francis O'Gorman

Call Number

10.1163/156853598X00037

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y