The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856At the turn of the nineteenth century, geology—and its claims that the earth had a long and colorful prehuman history—was widely dismissedasdangerous nonsense. But just fifty years later, it was the most celebrated of Victorian sciences. Ralph O’Connor tracks the astonishing growth of geology’s prestige in Britain, exploring how a new geohistory far more alluring than the standard six days of Creation was assembled and sold to the wider Bible-reading public. Shrewd science-writers, O’Connor shows, marketed spectacular visions of past worlds, piquing the public imagination with glimpses of man-eating mammoths, talking dinosaurs, and sea-dragons spawned by Satan himself. These authors—including men of science, women, clergymen, biblical literalists, hack writers, blackmailers, and prophets—borrowed freely from the Bible, modern poetry, and the urban entertainment industry, creating new forms of literature in order to transport their readers into a vanished and alien past. In exploring the use of poetry and spectacle in the promotion of popular science, O’Connor proves that geology’s success owed much to the literary techniques of its authors. An innovative blend of the history of science, literary criticism, book history, and visual culture, The Earth on Show rethinks the relationship between science and literature in the nineteenth century. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 79
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... drama of survival and extinction” or, with pardonable exaggeration, as “the most magnificent play ever enacted in the universe”.1 But this story was not always familiar; nor was it always so theatrical. In fact, these two qualities go ...
... drama of survival and extinction” or, with pardonable exaggeration, as “the most magnificent play ever enacted in the universe”.1 But this story was not always familiar; nor was it always so theatrical. In fact, these two qualities go ...
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... drama Cain.23 Bringing extinct monsters to life was difficult and dangerous work , liable to be criticized as fantasy . This situation led to a persistent conservatism in depictions of the ancient earth : the words and authority of ...
... drama Cain.23 Bringing extinct monsters to life was difficult and dangerous work , liable to be criticized as fantasy . This situation led to a persistent conservatism in depictions of the ancient earth : the words and authority of ...
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... drama — and something very different after 1820 ( the restricted category of imaginary genres we know today ) ” . 46 this debate led ultimately to a perception of a still. The question is , to whom did this word “ literature ” mean ...
... drama — and something very different after 1820 ( the restricted category of imaginary genres we know today ) ” . 46 this debate led ultimately to a perception of a still. The question is , to whom did this word “ literature ” mean ...
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... dramatic techniques and poetic images flooded in to give life to the bare bones. My aim is not to expose scientific truth-claims as illusory, or to assert that science can be somehow “explained” in purely literary or narrative terms ...
... dramatic techniques and poetic images flooded in to give life to the bare bones. My aim is not to expose scientific truth-claims as illusory, or to assert that science can be somehow “explained” in purely literary or narrative terms ...
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... drama of earth history owed much of its force to the providential historicism of sacred chronology and universal history , an- other parent discipline from which many early geologists were quick to distance themselves.64 So , while the ...
... drama of earth history owed much of its force to the providential historicism of sacred chronology and universal history , an- other parent discipline from which many early geologists were quick to distance themselves.64 So , while the ...
Contents
PART II STAGING THE SHOW | |
New Mythologies of the Ancient Earth | |
Currencies and Sizes of Books | |
Works Cited | |
Credits | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 Ralph O'Connor No preview available - 2008 |
The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 Ralph O'Connor No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic ancient earth animals Anon antediluvian audience authority Bakewell biblical bones Bridgewater Treatise British Buckland Byron Cain Cambridge cave Creation culture Cuvier Deluge diorama display drama earth history Edinburgh edition Eidophusikon engravings extinct fiction fossil frontispiece Genesis genres geologists geology geology’s Gideon Mantell guidebook Hawkins Hugh Miller hyaenas ichthyosaur Iguanodon imagination John landscape lectures literal literalist literary literature London Lyell Lyme Regis mammoth Mantell Mantell's Martin Megalosaurus Miller Milton monsters Museum narrative Natural History natural theology nineteenth century ODNB Old Red Sandstone Oxford panorama Paradise Lost past period philosophical pictorial picture plesiosaur poem poet poetic poetry popular present prose pterodactyle quotation quoted readers Rennie reptiles restorations rhetoric romance Rudwick Rupke saurians scene scientific Secord Sommer spectacle story sublime theatre theatrical theories tion title-page Topham treatise University Press verse Victorian virtual tourism vision visual William William Buckland words writing