Thanks, Google Books.
The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction
by Dorothy Scarborough
"No supernaturalism is incredible if it is expressed in technical terminology, and no miracle will be rejected if its setting be in a laboratory. One peculiar thing about modern scientific thought in its reaction upon fiction is that it is equally effective in realism, such as shown in teh naturalisti novels of Zola, the plays of Brieux and others, and in supernaturalism, as in the work of H.G. Wells, for instance, where the ghostly is grafted on to cold realism" (Scarborough 252).
She lists a bunch more texts that use the Fourth Dimension, if I need to add to that section of Chapter 2.
She calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde "chemical supernaturalism" (Scarborough 268). She refers to what he drinks as "the magic drug."
""The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, shows an unusual application of chemistry to ghostly fiction that gives a peculiar effect of reality because its style is that of scientific realism. By experimentation with drugs a man finds a combination that will render living tissue absolutely invisible...This modern method of transferring to science the idea of invisibilty so prominent in connection with ghosts, showing the invisibility as the result of a chemical compound, not of supernatural intervention, affecting a living man not a spirit, makes the effect of supernaturalism more vivid even than in the case of ghosts" (Scarborough 269).
"This type shows a strange effect of realism in supernaturalism, because of the scientific methods, for supernaturalism imposed on material things produces an effect of verisimilitude not gained int eh realm of pure spirit. Too intellectually cold for the purposes of poetry, too abstract and elusive for presentation in drama, and too removed by its association with the fantastic aspects of investigation and the curiosities of science to be very appropriate tragedy, which has hitherto been the chief medium of expressing the dramatic supernatural, science finds its fitting expression in prose fiction" (Scarborough 280).
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
General update.
I'm nearly finished with a draft of Chapter 2 (the H.G. Wells chapter). I skipped Chapter 1 for now because I haven't read Two on a Tower yet. Once the draft is finished (and by finished I mean in complete sentences...completely), I'll post it here.
Onward!
Onward!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A quote for the introduction
From In Pursuit of a Scientific Culture: Science, Art, and Society in the Victorian Age
Peter Allan Dale
Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
"Science....leads to the imaginary": Vaihinger's point (from The Philosophy of "As If," 1911) nicely summarizes some 75 years of intesne speculation on the method and meaning of science. The point, as Vaihinger argues it, is safely epistemological. Nineteenth-century scientific philosophers, although they might have begun by setting themselves the task of overthrowing the unreal, the imaginary constructions of metaphysics, repeatedly came back, in one way and another, to the realization that the initial move in the development of any scientific knowledge, whether of the natural or the human world, must be some sort of imaginary projection" (280).
Peter Allan Dale
Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
"Science....leads to the imaginary": Vaihinger's point (from The Philosophy of "As If," 1911) nicely summarizes some 75 years of intesne speculation on the method and meaning of science. The point, as Vaihinger argues it, is safely epistemological. Nineteenth-century scientific philosophers, although they might have begun by setting themselves the task of overthrowing the unreal, the imaginary constructions of metaphysics, repeatedly came back, in one way and another, to the realization that the initial move in the development of any scientific knowledge, whether of the natural or the human world, must be some sort of imaginary projection" (280).
Monday, June 28, 2010
"Wells and the Novel"
by J. R. Hammond
from H.G. Wells Under Revision. Edited by Patrick Parrinder and Christopher Rolfe. London: Associated University Presses, 1990.
While discussing Wells' status as a novelist, J.R. Hammond touches briefly on the fact that Wells might make moves in his fiction that engage what he calls "the nineteenth-century realist tradition." While he does not mention The Time Machine or The Invisible Man in this particular section, he does describe such a move as making the reader "continually aware of a blurring of the distinction between the fiction one is reading and the world beyond the text" (Hammond 76).
He goes on to cite a passage from an early "realistic" novel by Wells called The Wheels of Chance, but the statement can apply to his more fantastic work, such as The Time Machine and The Invisible Man as well. He says, "This reminder that what the reader has before him is a novel destroys the illusion of reality: an illusion that the author is at pains to erode at several points in the story" (Hammond 76). There are similar reminders throughout The Time Machine, and, contrary to Hammond's claim, such reminders don't actually destroy the illusion of reality; they merely cause the reader to pause and question how reality might be represented in a novel. How are representations determined to be real or unreal? How do representations reflect or change the real?
This reference to novel writing or storytelling as fact or fiction within a novel is, course, not a new or innovative narrative technique by Wells. In fact, it is one that has been in existence and actually, for many scholars, defines the birth of the novel in the eighteenth century. The hyperbolic insistence on truth that actually emphasizes the fictionality of a novel such as Moll Flanders even more is one that is unique to the novel as a form or genre.
from H.G. Wells Under Revision. Edited by Patrick Parrinder and Christopher Rolfe. London: Associated University Presses, 1990.
While discussing Wells' status as a novelist, J.R. Hammond touches briefly on the fact that Wells might make moves in his fiction that engage what he calls "the nineteenth-century realist tradition." While he does not mention The Time Machine or The Invisible Man in this particular section, he does describe such a move as making the reader "continually aware of a blurring of the distinction between the fiction one is reading and the world beyond the text" (Hammond 76).
He goes on to cite a passage from an early "realistic" novel by Wells called The Wheels of Chance, but the statement can apply to his more fantastic work, such as The Time Machine and The Invisible Man as well. He says, "This reminder that what the reader has before him is a novel destroys the illusion of reality: an illusion that the author is at pains to erode at several points in the story" (Hammond 76). There are similar reminders throughout The Time Machine, and, contrary to Hammond's claim, such reminders don't actually destroy the illusion of reality; they merely cause the reader to pause and question how reality might be represented in a novel. How are representations determined to be real or unreal? How do representations reflect or change the real?
This reference to novel writing or storytelling as fact or fiction within a novel is, course, not a new or innovative narrative technique by Wells. In fact, it is one that has been in existence and actually, for many scholars, defines the birth of the novel in the eighteenth century. The hyperbolic insistence on truth that actually emphasizes the fictionality of a novel such as Moll Flanders even more is one that is unique to the novel as a form or genre.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Yesterday's reading.
Haynes, Roslynn D. From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Haynes breaks down the latter half of the nineteenth century into three pieces - realist novels of the 50s and 60s, adventure novels of the 80s, and the fin de siecle novels of the 90s. Her argument basically identifies historical shifts in how scientists were represented on two poles, positive and negative. In the romantic period they were romanticized, in the realist novels after that they were bleakly represented, in adventure novels after that they were idealistic heroes, and then towards the turn of the century they were scrutinized once again. H.G. Wells appears as a significant portion of this last chapter as an author who, along with Stevenson, portrays scientists as villains or morally compromised.
Haynes chooses to give "the scientist as adventurer" a separate chapter from characters created by Wells and Stevenson. The Time Traveller is certainly an adventurer, and despite having his hopes for humanity dashed upon seeing the future, he still starts out as an idealist.
Haynes has a very reductive and anachronistic conception of realism, as she actually makes the argument that since so few authors practiced science, they could not identify with a scientist's "concerns, motivation, and language" (Haynes 108) and therefore could not realistically represent scientists in literature. Haynes goes on to say that unfortunately "most novelists were quite ignorant of what scientists did or said when they were not present at social gatherings or giving public lectures" (Haynes 108).
Haynes does, however, compare realism to scientific materialism, albeit briefly. The only definition of realism provided, however, is one sentence in a footnote, saying that "As Zola argued in his Roman Experimental (Paris 1880) realism is essentially concerned with the study of man's relation to the material world, that is, with his physical, social, and psychological interactions rather than with an idealist, transcendental or allegorical picture" (Haynes 341).
Other important factoids that can go into my introduction of the scientist figure:
-Within the scientific community, biology and astronomy became favored over chemistry and physics. So even though the scientist as a learned profession would have come into its own and gained legitimacy by the 1890s (a legitimacy it did not enjoy a few decades before), the scientist figures studied here still might be seen as radical or on the fringes of the field, with Griffin being a chemist and the Time Traveller being a physicist.
- The term scientist was first coined by William Whewell in a review he wrote for the Quarterly Review in 1834, but the budding profession, despite becoming more legitimate halfway through the century, would continue to be considered derogatory or ill-favored (much like the contemporary use of dentists as inferior to medical doctors) because practicing science for money was considered tacky or of lower class.
-Science was not recognized by institutions, governmental or educational, but rather developed as a popular form, via scientific societies and public lectures sponsored by them.
Haynes breaks down the latter half of the nineteenth century into three pieces - realist novels of the 50s and 60s, adventure novels of the 80s, and the fin de siecle novels of the 90s. Her argument basically identifies historical shifts in how scientists were represented on two poles, positive and negative. In the romantic period they were romanticized, in the realist novels after that they were bleakly represented, in adventure novels after that they were idealistic heroes, and then towards the turn of the century they were scrutinized once again. H.G. Wells appears as a significant portion of this last chapter as an author who, along with Stevenson, portrays scientists as villains or morally compromised.
Haynes chooses to give "the scientist as adventurer" a separate chapter from characters created by Wells and Stevenson. The Time Traveller is certainly an adventurer, and despite having his hopes for humanity dashed upon seeing the future, he still starts out as an idealist.
Haynes has a very reductive and anachronistic conception of realism, as she actually makes the argument that since so few authors practiced science, they could not identify with a scientist's "concerns, motivation, and language" (Haynes 108) and therefore could not realistically represent scientists in literature. Haynes goes on to say that unfortunately "most novelists were quite ignorant of what scientists did or said when they were not present at social gatherings or giving public lectures" (Haynes 108).
Haynes does, however, compare realism to scientific materialism, albeit briefly. The only definition of realism provided, however, is one sentence in a footnote, saying that "As Zola argued in his Roman Experimental (Paris 1880) realism is essentially concerned with the study of man's relation to the material world, that is, with his physical, social, and psychological interactions rather than with an idealist, transcendental or allegorical picture" (Haynes 341).
Other important factoids that can go into my introduction of the scientist figure:
-Within the scientific community, biology and astronomy became favored over chemistry and physics. So even though the scientist as a learned profession would have come into its own and gained legitimacy by the 1890s (a legitimacy it did not enjoy a few decades before), the scientist figures studied here still might be seen as radical or on the fringes of the field, with Griffin being a chemist and the Time Traveller being a physicist.
- The term scientist was first coined by William Whewell in a review he wrote for the Quarterly Review in 1834, but the budding profession, despite becoming more legitimate halfway through the century, would continue to be considered derogatory or ill-favored (much like the contemporary use of dentists as inferior to medical doctors) because practicing science for money was considered tacky or of lower class.
-Science was not recognized by institutions, governmental or educational, but rather developed as a popular form, via scientific societies and public lectures sponsored by them.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Science Fiction of H.G. Wells
by Frank McConnell
New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
"His "realistic" novels of this period, in other words, should be read along with his more explicitly scientific romances, since they explore many of the same themes with only a slight change of tone" (McConnell 35).
New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
"His "realistic" novels of this period, in other words, should be read along with his more explicitly scientific romances, since they explore many of the same themes with only a slight change of tone" (McConnell 35).
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Two things learned from a mediocre HG Wells biography.
From H.G. Wells by Brian Murray
New York: Continuum, 1990.
1.) I actually found the letter Joseph Conrad wrote in which he calls Wells the "realist of the fantastic" (other sources had previously only mentioned the letter). Conrad, in response to reading The War of the Worlds, writes,
"I suppose you'll have the common decency to believe me when I tell you I am always powerfully impressed by your work. Impressed is THE word, O Realist of the Fantastic! whether you like it or not. And if you want to know what impresses me it is to see how you contrive to give over humanity to the clutches of the Impossible and yet manage to keep it down (or up) to its humanity, to its flesh, blood, sorrow, folly. THAT is the achievement. In this little book you do it with an appalling completeness." (Murray 39)
Murray cites this as being from Parrinder's H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage, p. 60.
2.) Critics of The Time Machine criticized the novel for its holes in logic. Mostly trying to disprove time travel as a possibility, as if Wells were presenting a real scientific theory rather than offering a mere fictional adventure.
"The book impressed several reviewers with the power of its descriptions and the vitality of its prose; but one, Israel Zangwill, himself a novelist, pointed out that the tale does present lapses in logic that some readers have always found hard to ignore. As Zangwill observes, it never occurs to Wells's "Time Traveller" that he will have to repeat "these painful experiences of his, else his vision of the future will have falsified itself - though how the long dispersed dust is to be vivified again does not appear." Moreover, writes Zangwill, had the Time Traveller "travelled backwards, he would have reproduced a Past which, insofar as his own appearance in it with his newly invented machine was concerned, would have been ex hypothesi unveracious." For of course had he "recurred to his own earlier life, he would have had to exist in two forms simultaneously, of varying ages." These "absurdities," writes Zangwill, "illustrate the absurdity of any attempt to grapple with the notion of Time"' they prove too that "there is no getting into the Future, except by waiting." (Murray 37)
New York: Continuum, 1990.
1.) I actually found the letter Joseph Conrad wrote in which he calls Wells the "realist of the fantastic" (other sources had previously only mentioned the letter). Conrad, in response to reading The War of the Worlds, writes,
"I suppose you'll have the common decency to believe me when I tell you I am always powerfully impressed by your work. Impressed is THE word, O Realist of the Fantastic! whether you like it or not. And if you want to know what impresses me it is to see how you contrive to give over humanity to the clutches of the Impossible and yet manage to keep it down (or up) to its humanity, to its flesh, blood, sorrow, folly. THAT is the achievement. In this little book you do it with an appalling completeness." (Murray 39)
Murray cites this as being from Parrinder's H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage, p. 60.
2.) Critics of The Time Machine criticized the novel for its holes in logic. Mostly trying to disprove time travel as a possibility, as if Wells were presenting a real scientific theory rather than offering a mere fictional adventure.
"The book impressed several reviewers with the power of its descriptions and the vitality of its prose; but one, Israel Zangwill, himself a novelist, pointed out that the tale does present lapses in logic that some readers have always found hard to ignore. As Zangwill observes, it never occurs to Wells's "Time Traveller" that he will have to repeat "these painful experiences of his, else his vision of the future will have falsified itself - though how the long dispersed dust is to be vivified again does not appear." Moreover, writes Zangwill, had the Time Traveller "travelled backwards, he would have reproduced a Past which, insofar as his own appearance in it with his newly invented machine was concerned, would have been ex hypothesi unveracious." For of course had he "recurred to his own earlier life, he would have had to exist in two forms simultaneously, of varying ages." These "absurdities," writes Zangwill, "illustrate the absurdity of any attempt to grapple with the notion of Time"' they prove too that "there is no getting into the Future, except by waiting." (Murray 37)
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