Walter Pater and non-Darwinian science

Kistler, Jordan (2023) Walter Pater and non-Darwinian science. Journal of Victorian Culture. vcac080. ISSN 1750-0133 (https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac080)

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Abstract

Walter Pater's engagement with nineteenth-century science has long been acknowledged, but it is largely characterised by critics in negative terms. This essay demonstrates that while Pater viewed Darwinian evolutionary theory negatively, insisting that it 'stealthily withdraws the apparently solid earth itself from beneath one's feet' (Plato and Platonism, 1893), he embraced non-Darwinian theories of development, which emphasised directed design rather than random chance. In these theories, like the transcendental morphology propounded by Richard Owen, Pater finds a physical manifestation of his own particular philosophic blend of materialism and idealism. The lens of non-Darwinian science, therefore, helps to explicate Pater's philosophic beliefs, which have often been viewed as frustratingly inconsistent. Viewed through transcendental morphology, Pater's discussion of the 'limitations' of sculpture, too, become clearer. Far from a denigration of sculpture as the art form furthest from the ideal, this essay demonstrates that Pater viewed sculpture in terms of the archetype of transcendental morphology: something both material and immaterial, simple and yet also ideal. Far from retreating from the spectre of contemporary science, as many critics suggest Pater does, Pater views science and the humanities as complementary disciplines, or homologues, sharing an underlying structure.

  • Item type:Article
    ID code:83019
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    2 February 2023
    Published
    14 January 2023
    Published Online
    23 August 2022
    Accepted
    Keywords:Walter Pater, Richard Owen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, transcendental morphology, aestheticism, archetype, evolution, Darwinism, Language and Literature, Cultural Studies, Literature and Literary Theory, Visual Arts and Performing Arts, History
    Subjects:Language and Literature
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Humanities > English
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:01 Nov 2022 12:02
    Last modified:05 Mar 2023 03:14
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/83019
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