Title Reimagining dinosaurs in late Victorian and Edwardian literature : how the 'terrible lizard' became a transatlantic cultural icon / Richard Fallon

Published Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021 ©2021

Click on the following:
Cambridge Core

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xi, 283 pages) : illustrations Series Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 132 Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 132. Summary "When 'dinosaur' was coined in 1842, it referred to a series of poorly known British fossils conceived as bulky lizards. Subsequent American discoveries like Brontosaurus, unearthed later in the century, proved that dinosaurs were far stranger than British experts had imagined. By the early twentieth century, in an age of opulent museums, 'dinosaur' was a household word. Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature approaches a vital but hitherto largely unexplored aspect of this rise to fame: the fiction and popular science writing that made this scientific term a meaningful one to huge transatlantic readerships. Unlike previous scholars, who have focused on the fossil displays in American museums, Fallon argues that literature, and especially British literature, was a key site for turning these extinct animals into cultural icons. Popular authors made dinosaurs relevant by relating them to wider concerns of the period, including empire, evolutionary progress, and romance. Controversial writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Neville Hutchinson, and J. J. Astor IV also used dinosaurs to disparage elitist scientific practices and undermine distinctions between 'scientific writing', 'popular science', and 'literature'. As a result, the rise of the dinosaurs generated heated transatlantic discussions about the textual form of scientific authority"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on November 05, 2021) Subject Dinosaurs in literature. English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. American literature Dinosaurs in literature English literature Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Literary criticism Literary criticism. Critiques littéraires. Form Electronic book LC no. 2021017230 ISBN 9781108996570 1108996574 9781108989008 1108989004

  Permalink