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
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... spectacle and ( in particular ) of literature are only beginning to come into focus.3 Performance was central to the public face of earth science . Its adherents pulled off an imaginative coup — a coup de théâtre — by giving their ...
... spectacle and ( in particular ) of literature are only beginning to come into focus.3 Performance was central to the public face of earth science . Its adherents pulled off an imaginative coup — a coup de théâtre — by giving their ...
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... spectacle is the story of how a new intellectual community — the old - earth geologists and their supporters — laid exclusive claim to the term “ geology ” against the coun- terclaims of other communities promoting young - earth ...
... spectacle is the story of how a new intellectual community — the old - earth geologists and their supporters — laid exclusive claim to the term “ geology ” against the coun- terclaims of other communities promoting young - earth ...
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... spectacle of deep history : they revealed the presence of living creatures , actors within the vanished scene . The term “ palaeontology ” was coined in 1822 to denote this branch of geology , but the word “ geol- ogy ” continued to be ...
... spectacle of deep history : they revealed the presence of living creatures , actors within the vanished scene . The term “ palaeontology ” was coined in 1822 to denote this branch of geology , but the word “ geol- ogy ” continued to be ...
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... spectacle , tainted as it was with eighteenth - cen- tury cosmologies . Rebranding their science as disinterested and empiri- cal meant focusing on the structure , rather than the story , of the strata.87 Their visions of former worlds ...
... spectacle , tainted as it was with eighteenth - cen- tury cosmologies . Rebranding their science as disinterested and empiri- cal meant focusing on the structure , rather than the story , of the strata.87 Their visions of former worlds ...
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... spectacle between 1830 and 1856, by which year all but one of the authors named above were either dead or no longer interested in geology.88 These panoramic visions of the ancient earth blended human, sacred, and natural history to ...
... spectacle between 1830 and 1856, by which year all but one of the authors named above were either dead or no longer interested in geology.88 These panoramic visions of the ancient earth blended human, sacred, and natural history to ...
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