Connecting Literature and Science

The conclusion returns to some of the ideas raised in the Introduction, specifically Gillian Beer’s suggestion that literature and science ‘share the moment’s discourse’. It argues for the relevance of this model to different periods and disciplines, while also suggesting some specific potential areas for further development in relation to the present study, including generalist periodicals. It also considers some of the evaluative criteria that have previously been suggested for studies in the field of literature and science, and raises some questions as to the direction in which that field of research should now move. The study concludes finally by suggesting that literature and science, as well as a range of other disciplines, some of which are included here, do more than share the moment’s discourse—they share in the creation, development, and modification of that discourse because they share the moment itself.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780198815976.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Rachel Crossland

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Virginia Woolf ◽

New Physics ◽

Literature And Science ◽

Direct Influence ◽

Cultural Impact ◽

Early Twentieth Century ◽

Scientific Ideas

Drawing on Gillian Beer’s suggestion that literature and science ‘share the moment’s discourse’, the Introduction sets out the approach adopted across this study as a whole as one which will combine, but also distinguish between, the two standard approaches within the field of literature and science: direct influence and the zeitgeist. Rejecting the previous critical focus on 1919 in studies of Albert Einstein’s cultural impact in favour of 1905, it argues for a more precise engagement with the scientific ideas, as well as a clearer acknowledgement of similar ideas across a broader range of disciplines in the early twentieth century. It also highlights Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence as particularly apt literary figures for such a study, given their complicated individual relationships with the science of their day, relationships which combine a dislike of science in general with more positive responses to the new physics.

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