Are Jane Austen and Charles Darwin the two great English empiricists of the nineteenth century? This book shows that while the one is generally termed a naturalist and the other a novelist, these characterizations are at least partially interchangeable, as each author possessed skills that would serve well in either arena.
Are Jane Austen and Charles Darwin the two great English empiricists of the nineteenth century? Peter W. Graham poses this question as he brings these two icons of nineteenth-century British culture into intellectual conversation in his provocative new book. Graham shows that while the one is generally termed a naturalist (Darwin's preferred term for himself) and the other a novelist, these characterizations are at least partially interchangeable, as each author possessed skills that would serve well in either arena. Both Austen and Darwin are naturalists who look with a sharp, cold eye at the concrete particulars of the world around them. Both are in certain senses novelists who weave densely particularized and convincingly grounded narratives that convey their personal observations and perceptions to wide readerships. When taken seriously, the words and works of Austen and Darwin encourage their readers to look closely at the social and natural worlds around them and form opinions based on individual judgment rather than on transmitted opinion. Graham's four interlocked essays begin by situating Austen and Darwin in the English empirical tradition and focusing on the uncanny similarities in the two writers' respective circumstances and preoccupations. Both Austen and Darwin were fascinated by sibling relations. Both were acute observers and analysts of courtship rituals. Both understood constant change as the way of the world, whether the microcosm under consideration is geological, biological, social, or literary. Both grasped the importance of scale in making observations. Both discerned the connection between minute, particular causes and vast, general effects. Employing the trenchant analytical talents associated with his subjects and informed by a wealth of historical and biographical detail and the best of recent work by historians of science, Graham has given us a new entree into Austen's and Darwin's writings.
'In his eloquent comparative analysis of Austen's novels and Darwin's ideas, Peter Graham combines techniques of scientific exploration and literary analysis to dissect the acute powers of observation that enabled these writers to produce works that illuminate social and collective behavior. Jane Austen and Charles Darwin emerge as intellectual kindred not only in their reliance on empiricism and serendipity, but in their relevance for the twenty-first century.' Laurie Kaplan, The George Washington University England Study Center (London) 'In his four interlocking essays, Peter Graham creates a delicious conversation between Jane Austen as novelist, Charles Darwin as naturalist"and himself as critic.' Janet Todd, University of Aberdeen, UK '...all readers can appreciate this nuanced comparison that keeps Austen's and Darwin's differences in full view.' Times Literary Supplement 'Graham is a fine writer, and it is indeed a pleasure to join him in his "thought experiment". His readings of Austen are wide-ranging, confident and perceptive throughout, while in building up his account of the "character of Darwin's mind" (p. 145), he offers up some welcome readings of manuscripts and less well-known books which have not tended to draw much literary critical attention.' History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences '... a valuable addition to recent scholarship that applies Darwin's theories to literary texts as well as to the growing body of work showing Austen engaged in her times.' JASNA News
