Charles Darwin And The Church Of Wordsworth

Author : Robert M. Ryan
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191074667
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Charles Darwin and the Church of Wordsworth written by Robert M. Ryan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth is a study of the cultural connections between two of the nineteenth century's most influential figures, Charles Darwin and William Wordsworth. When Darwin presented On the Origin of Species, his reading public's affective response to the natural world had already been profoundly influenced by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth presented nature as benign, harmonious, a source of moral inspiration and spiritual blessing, and a medium through which one might enter into communion with the Divine. Long after his death, he continued to be revered throughout the English-speaking world, not only as a great poet, but as a theologian with a broader following than any prelate and an appeal that transcended or ignored sectarian differences. For believers and sceptics alike, Wordsworth's poetry offered a readily accessible and intellectually respectable counterweight to Darwin's vision of a material universe evolving by fixed laws in which Divinity played no discernible role and where concepts like beauty and harmony were material conditions to be explained in scientific terms. Wordsworth's theology of nature became for many readers a more effective counterforce to Darwin's ideas than Biblical orthodoxy, but it also provided an enriching context for the reception of evolutionary theory, aiding theists in their effort to reach an accommodation with the new science. As the nineteenth century's two most prominent theoreticians of nature's life, Wordsworth and Darwin competed for attention among those seeking to understand humanity's relationship with the natural world, and their disciples engaged in a productive, mutually transformative dialogue in which the poet's cultural authority influenced the way Darwin was received, and Darwinian science adjusted interpretation and evaluation of the poetry. Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth explores the broad cultural relationship between Wordsworth, Darwin, and their disciples, contextualising them within wider discussions about the relationship between religion and science in the nineteenth century.

Author : Robert M. Ryan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780191817274
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Charles Darwin and the Church of Wordsworth written by Robert M. Ryan and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin presented On the Origin of Species to a reading public whose affective response to the natural world had been profoundly influenced by Wordsworth's understanding of nature as benign, harmonious, a source of moral inspiration and spiritual blessing, and a medium through which one might enter into communion with the Divine. As the 19th century's two most prominent theoreticians of nature's life, Wordsworth and Darwin competed for attention among those seeking to understand humanity's relationship with the natural world, and their disciples engaged in a productive, mutually transformative dialogue in which the poet's cultural authority influenced the way Darwin was received, and Darwinian science adjusted interpretation and evaluation of the poetry.

Author : Robert M. Ryan
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198757352
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Charles Darwin and the Church of Wordsworth written by Robert M. Ryan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth is a study of the cultural connections between two of the nineteenth century's most influential figures, Charles Darwin and William Wordsworth. When Darwin published On the Origin of Species, his reading public's affective response to the natural world had already been profoundly influenced by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth presented nature as benign, harmonious, a source of moral inspiration and spiritual blessing, and a medium through which one might enter into communion with the Divine. Long after his death, he continued to be revered throughout the English-speaking world, not only as a great poet, but as a theologian with a broader following than any prelate and an appeal that transcended or ignored sectarian differences. For believers and skeptics alike, Wordsworth's poetry offered a readily accessible and intellectually respectable counterweight to Darwin's vision of a material universe evolving by fixed laws in which Divinity played no discernible role and where concepts like beauty and harmony were material conditions to be explained in scientific terms. Wordsworth's theology of nature became for many readers a more effective counterforce to Darwin's ideas than Biblical orthodoxy, but it also provided an enriching context for the reception of evolutionary theory, aiding theists in their effort to reach an accommodation with the new science. As the nineteenth century's two most prominent theoreticians of nature's life, Wordsworth and Darwin competed for attention among those seeking to understand humanity's relationship with the natural world, and their disciples engaged in a productive, mutually transformative dialogue in which the poet's cultural authority influenced the way Darwin was received, and Darwinian science adjusted interpretation and evaluation of the poetry. Charles Darwin and the Church of William Wordsworth explores the broad cultural relationship between Wordsworth, Darwin, and their disciples, contextualizing them within wider discussions about the relationship between religion and science in the nineteenth century.

Author : Trenton B. Olsen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429640641
Total Pages : 182 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wordsworth and Evolution in Victorian Literature written by Trenton B. Olsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influences of William Wordsworth’s writing and evolutionary theory—the nineteenth century’s two defining visions of nature—conflicted in the Victorian period. For Victorians, Wordsworthian nature was a caring source of inspiration and moral guidance, signaling humanity's divine origins and potential. Darwin’s nature, by contrast, appeared as an indifferent and amoral reminder of an evolutionary past that demanded participation in a brutal struggle for existence. Victorian authors like Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy grappled with these competing representations in their work. They turned to Wordsworth as an alternative or antidote to evolution, criticized and altered his poetry in response to Darwinism, and synthesized elements of each to propose their own modified theories. Darwin’s account of a material, evolutionary nature both threatened the Wordsworthian belief in nature’s transcendent value and made spiritual elevation seem more urgently necessary. Victorian authors used Wordsworth and Darwin to explore what form of transcendence, if any, could survive an evolutionary age, and reevaluated the purpose of literature in the process.

Author : Eliza Borkowska
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000263908
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Presence of God in the Works of William Wordsworth written by Eliza Borkowska and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching Wordsworth’ writings from perspectives which have not been considered in critical literature, this book offers a multiangled reflection on the technicalities of the poet’s religious discourse, including the methodology of The Prelude revision, or Wordsworth’s patent art of "pious postscripts." The book constitutes a self-contained whole and can be read independently. Simultaneously, it creates an unusual duet with The Absent God in The Works of William Wordsworth, whose six chapters follow this book’s eight chapters like a sestet which complements the octave—becoming, thus, a tribute to Wordsworth as one of the most prolific sonneteers in history. Both monographs build their theses on Wordsworth’s entire oeuvre and embrace the whole of his wide lifespan. Their completion in 2020 coincides with several round anniversaries: the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth, the 200th anniversary of The River Duddon, and the 170th anniversary of the publication of his autobiographical masterpiece, The Prelude.

Author : Arthur Davis Martin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 116 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Religion of Wordsworth written by Arthur Davis Martin and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Samuel Parkes Cadman
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Charles Darwin and Other English Thinkers written by Samuel Parkes Cadman and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : William E. Phipps
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 9781563383847
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Darwin's Religious Odyssey written by William E. Phipps and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Draws on newly available material to consider Darwin's personal religious beliefs, profiling him as a man from a specific time in history struggling to harmonize his spiritual worldviews with his scientific findings. Original.

Author : J. David Pleins
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1623568676
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Evolving God written by J. David Pleins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take root, affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his Descent of Man. Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. The Evolving God concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon.

Author : David N. Livingstone
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421413272
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dealing with Darwin written by David N. Livingstone and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-05-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was Darwin’s work discussed and debated among the same religious denomination in different locations? Using place, politics, and rhetoric as analytical tools, historical geographer David N. Livingstone investigates how religious communities sharing a Scots Presbyterian heritage engaged with Darwin and Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. His findings, presented as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, transform our understandings of the relationship between science and religion. The particulars of place—whether in Edinburgh, Belfast, Toronto, Princeton, or Columbia, South Carolina—shaped the response to Darwin’s theories. Were they tolerated, repudiated, or welcomed? Livingstone shows how Darwin was read in different ways, with meaning distilled from Darwin's texts depending on readers' own histories—their literary genealogies and cultural preoccupations. That the theory of evolution fared differently in different places, Livingstone writes, is "exactly what Darwin might have predicted. As the theory diffused, it diverged." Dealing with Darwin shows the profound extent to which theological debates about evolution were rooted in such matters as anxieties over control of education, the politics of race relations, the nature of local scientific traditions, and challenges to traditional cultural identity. In some settings, conciliation with the new theory, even endorsement, was possible—demonstrating that attending to the specific nature of individual communities subverts an inclination to assume a single relationship between science and religion in general, evolution and Christianity in particular. Livingstone concludes with contemporary examples to remind us that what scientists can say and what others can hear in different venues differ today just as much as they did in the past.