Human Tissue in the Realist Novel, 1850-1895

Description

This Pivot engages with current debates about anthropocentrism and the Anthropocene to propose a reappraisal of the realist novel in the second half of the nineteenth century. Through three case studies, it argues for ‘human tissue’ as a conceptual tool for reading that brings together biology, literature and questions of layering. This new approach is shown to be especially salient to the Victorian period, when the application of ‘tissue’ to biology first emerges. The book is distinctive in bringing together theoretical concerns around realism and the Anthropocene – two major topics in literary criticism – and presenting a new methodology to approach this conjunction, demonstrated through original readings of Charles Kingsley, George Eliot, and Emile Zola and two English-language writers he influenced (George Moore and Vernon Lee). Acknowledgements Contents About the Author Chapter 1: Introduction: Human Tissue Human Nature, Fragility and Belatedness Human Tissue: A Concept for Reading Human Tissue in the Nineteenth Century Chapter Outline Chapter 2: Becoming-evolutionary?: Animal Transformations in Alton Locke Alton’s Dream: The Collapse and Restoration of Self Deleuze and Guattari I: Series, Structure and Desire Deleuze and Guattari II: Becoming-animal and Becoming-molecular Evolutionary Progress vs Death and Disruption Machines, Assemblages and Haeccities Becoming-Evolutionary Conclusion Chapter 3: Allegorical Realism and the Figure of the Human in The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch The Passions of the River The Natural History of the Anthropocene The Externalised Essence of Humanity: Feuerbach Fragments, Strings and Scratches Threads, Tissues and Layers Conclusion Chapter 4: Zola, Moore, Lee and the Vivisectional Novel Zola’s Nauseating Kitchen Le Ventre de Paris: The Fat and the Thin The Market as Slaughterhouse George Moore: The Outer Skin of Naturalism Vernon Lee: The Moral Miasma of Zola Conclusion Chapter 5: Conclusion: The Primitive Tissue of Realism Index