Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture: Nature, Science and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination

In Victorian Literary Culture,Mimicry and Display explores how scientific and cultural discourses of appearance influenced each other,biologizing appearance and reimagining imitation,concealment, and self-presentation as evolutionary adaptations. This science complicated religious views of nature,inspiring literary authors to rethink human appearances and perceptions through a Darwinian lens.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 309 pages
Publication date: 22 June 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

In his groundbreaking work, Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture, Matthew Abberley delves into the intricate web of mutual influences between nineteenth-century scientific and cultural discourses of appearance. Through a comprehensive analysis, he argues that Victorian science and culture biologized appearance, reimagining imitation, concealment, and self-presentation as evolutionary adaptations. Abberley's exploration of how studies of animal crypsis and visibility drew on artistic theory and techniques to reconceptualize nature as a realm of signs and interpretation is particularly insightful. He demonstrates how this science complicated religious views of nature as a text of divine meanings, inspiring literary authors to rethink human appearances and perceptions through a Darwinian lens.

By examining writers such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Abberley reveals how the biology of appearance generated new understandings of deception, identity, and creativity. He shows how it reacted upon narrative forms such as crime fiction and the pastoral, and how it infused the rhetoric of cultural criticism and political activism. Through his meticulous research, Abberley provides fresh insights into the complex interplay between science, culture, and literature in the Victorian era, shedding light on the ways in which the study of appearance shaped not only artistic expression but also societal attitudes and beliefs.

This work is a valuable contribution to the field of Victorian studies, offering a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between science, culture, and appearance in the nineteenth century. It will be of interest to scholars and students of literature, history, and science, as well as anyone with an interest in the evolution of human perception and the role of biology in shaping cultural ideas.

ISBN-13: 9781108725767