This dissertation examines the relationship between literature and zoology in early twentieth-century Britain, arguing that modernist literatures representations of animals drew on and revised zoological understandings of animals and vice versa. Recovering a network of zoological modernistswriters, biologists, and filmmakers who knew and read each otherthis dissertation reveals the biographical and textual points of intersection between such figures as H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, Charles Elton, and the creators of the Secrets of Nature film series. Against the dominant critical understanding of modernisms animal representations as symbols of human pre-history or the Freudian unconscious, I suggest that at least one strand of modernist writers found real, material animals, the kind studied by zoologists, aesthetically and intellectually compelling. Meanwhile zoologists, challenged by modernisms destabilization of realism and representation, developed in their texts self-conscious, modernist strategies for writing about animals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07022013-113128 |
| Date | 23 July 2013 |
| Creators | Hovanec, Caroline Louise |
| Contributors | Jay Clayton, Mark Wollaeger, Rachel Teukolsky, Kelly Oliver |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07022013-113128/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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