Ibsen, Strindberg, and Telegony

PMLA ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 100 (5) ◽  
pp. 774-782
Author(s):  
Marvin Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Physical Interpretation ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
August Weismann ◽  
Scientific Materialism

During the nineteenth century the phenomenon of heredity was of great interest to artists as well as biologists, but its actual dynamics remained mysterious to both. Some felt that the inheritance of characteristics was to be explained on physiological grounds, some on psychic, and some on a combination of the two. A writer inclined toward scientific materialism like Zola naturally emphasized the physical interpretation of this phenomenon, but Ibsen and Strindberg found the possibility of heredity through psychic means, called telegony by August Weismann, more useful for their aesthetic concerns. Their plays show many varieties of this phenomenon, using telegony in ways related both to contemporary scientific speculation and to a long literary tradition, in which a key work was Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften.

Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth-Century Germany

1979 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Arthur P. Molella ◽  
Frederick Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Materialism

Life Is Elsewhere

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Lounsbery
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
European Standard ◽  
European Model ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Symbolic Geography ◽  
Literary Regionalism ◽  
Western European ◽  
Enduring Power

This book shows how nineteenth-century Russian literature created an imaginary place called “the provinces”—a place at once homogeneous, static, anonymous, and symbolically opposed to Petersburg and Moscow. The book looks at a wide range of texts, both canonical and lesser-known, in order to explain why the trope has exercised such enduring power, and what role it plays in the larger symbolic geography that structures Russian literature's representation of the nation's space. The book brings to light fundamental questions that have long gone unasked: how to understand, for instance, the weakness of literary regionalism in a country as large as Russia? Why the insistence, from Herzen through Chekhov and beyond, that all Russian towns look the same? In a literary tradition that constantly compared itself to a western European standard, the book argues, the problem of provinciality always implied difficult questions about the symbolic geography of the nation as a whole. This constant awareness of a far-off European model helps explain why the provinces, in all their supposed drabness and predictability, are a topic of such fascination for Russian writers—why these anonymous places are in effect so important and meaningful, notwithstanding the culture's nearly unremitting emphasis on their nullity and meaninglessness.

The Materialism Controversy

After Hegel ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Shock Waves ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Modern Natural Science ◽  
Scientific Materialism ◽  
Reason And Faith

This chapter examines the so-called “materialism controversy,” one of the most important intellectual disputes of the second half of the nineteenth century. The dispute began in the 1850s, and its shock waves reverberated until the end of the century. The main question posed by the materialism controversy was whether modern natural science, whose authority and prestige were now beyond question, necessarily leads to materialism. Materialism was generally understood to be the doctrine that only matter exists and that everything in nature obeys only mechanical laws. If such a doctrine were true, it seemed there could be no God, no free will, no soul, and hence no immortality. These beliefs, however, seemed vital to morality and religion. So the controversy posed a drastic dilemma: either a scientific materialism or a moral and religious “leap of faith.” It was the latest version of the old conflict between reason and faith, where now the role of reason was played by natural science.

Concluding Note

2020 ◽  
pp. 309-320
Author(s):  
Maroona Murmu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Women Authors ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Feminine Ideals

The conclusion focuses upon reception-based approach to understand the significance of women authors in the social map of reading community in nineteenth-century Bengal. It demonstrates how, even after the emergence of a sizeable reading community catering to books authored by women, due to the spatial ‘respectability’ of the presses from which their books got published the reception of prohibited penmanship by women by the bhadralok society in ‘renascent’ Bengal was disappointing. Since some women flouted the norms of literary aesthetics and tutored tastes, the bhadralok critics, in their reviews of book by women, often censured the authors if their autonomous selfhood in print became threatening and praised them for imparting ‘feminine’ ideals alone. However, such sarcastic comments and caustic critique could not strip women authors of their creative foray in the literary world. By the turn of the century, they had begun creating a literary tradition of their own in Bengali.

scholarly journals Tokkelossie, “’n Boesman, outa Hendrik” en ontkennende close readings

Literator ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
H. Willemse
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Structural Refinement ◽  
Scholarly Literature

Tikoloshe, “a Bushman, outa Hendrik” and denialist close readingsThis article explores in two main sections the changing perceptions of Afrikaner folklorists and literary critics on the origins of selected indigenous Southern African oral tales. With the emergence of Afrikaner Nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century, young Afrikaner activists often incorporated indigenous folktales in the development of a nascent Afrikaans literary tradition. Initially, the origins and the authenticity of such written-down versions of performances were rarely in dispute. However, around the mid-twentieth century, a period that coincides with a more confident Afrikaner Nationalism, Afrikaner folklorists came to doubt these original explanations. One prominent scholar in particular advanced views that seemed to favour European influence and structural refinement rather than indigenous origination. The second section ties in with the first in a discussion of the tale, “Klein Riet-alleen-in-die-Roerkuil” from “Dwaalstories en ander vertellings” (1927) by Eugène N. Marais. An intinerant storyteller, Hendrik, originally performed the tale which Marais, immediately following the performance, committed to print. Lately a body of scholarly literature, mostly close readings, came about which diminishes the role of the initial performer in favour of Marais’ writerly aesthetics. The article takes issue with these interpretations and argues for the restoration and recognition of Hendrik’s role as the creator of the initial performances.

A Note on Ireland's Place in the Literary Tradition of St. Brendan

Traditio ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 397-402
Author(s):  
John Hennig
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition

Apart from thePurqaioriumS.Patrieii, theNaoiqaiio Brendani(NB) produced the most important literary tradition associated with Ireland. The accounts given by the English monk of Saltrey and the later Continental pilgrims of their experiences in Lough Derg show only indirect traces of the Irish vision literature, and the literary tradition of these accounts has been almost entirely non- Irish. In its Irish type, vision literature is more directly represented by theVisio Furseaiand theVisio TundaliThe tradition of the former, however, is also entirely non- Irish; that of the latter was Irish only in its beginning, while its ramifications down to the nineteenth century are entirely Continental.

scholarly journals BRAZILIAN LEFT-WING LITERATURE

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (41) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Fan Xing
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Brazilian Literature

Abstract: The rise and development of Left-wing literature in Brazil is closely connected to the obstacles and dilemmas encountered during the evolution of its nation, and it is also inseparable from international political movements and intellectual trends. From the abolishment of slavery and collapse of empire in the nineteenth century, to the establishment and return of dictatorship in the 30s and 60s of the twentieth century, at every moment of crisis, Brazilian left-wing literature always played a seminal role. While criticizing social injustices, it also invigorates the development of modern Brazilian literature by incorporating different forms of language, thoughts and art. It is safe to say that left-wing literature forms a kind of literary tradition in Brazil, as it not only represents a moral and ethical stand, but also innovates the form and aesthetics.

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