1. Victorianism MA Intellectual Background Science

2. Thomas Arnold: „the atmosphere of paradox hanging around many of our ablest young men of the present day” (1838)

3. Academic/scientific life 1826: University of London 1854/1856: University Acts Royal Institution the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS – 1831) Natural History Museum (Kensington, 1881-86) Magazines, industrial centres Humphrey Davy – Michael Faraday Scientific societies

4. Science David Friedrich Strauss: Das Leben Jesu (1835—tr. George Eliot 1864) Mary Somerville: On The Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834) Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology (1830- 33) (Philip Gosse: Omphalos [1857])

5. Charles Darwin (1809-82) Darwin: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) Darwin: The Descent of Man (1871)

6. Evolution Preceding notions: –Divine Creation –Carl Lynnaeus: taxonomy –Transmutation (Lamarck: will/habit/consciousness/intention→ change), transformation, metamorphosis Mankind put back to nature; ecological interdependence Against fixity of species Foundational notions: hyperproductivity, variability, natural/sexual selection, struggle for life Emphasis on individual differences (vs. type) – not normative Competition (basis for social Darwinism) Adaptation/interaction (a web of complex relations – bw. species, individuals within species, the environment)

7. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda “Men can do nothing without the make- believe of a beginning. Even Science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars’ unceasing journey.”

8. Darwin and literature Narrativity, metaphoricity Bildungsroman, condition of England novel, social novel –part and whole –George Eliot: Adam Bede, Daniel Deronda, Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch Naturalism (Zola, Maupassant, Hardy) –Determinism –Environment –„blood”