
Energy Forms
Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics
Bruce Clarke(Author)
The University of Michigan Press
Published on 8. November 2001
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-472-11174-9 (ISBN)
Description
This book follows the interplay between allegory and physics in Europe from the inception of the laws of thermodynamics in the 1850s to the cultural acceptance of the theory of relativity in the 1920s. Bruce Clarke delves into the cultural poetics of this emergence, as well as using allegory theory to link the literature of that era to the consolidation of modern physics in England. In his examination of these correlating topics the author displays not only an impressive grasp on the scientific climate of that era, but also comprehensive knowledge of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature.
The book begins with an overview of the interconnections between allegory in literature and allegory in science, then analyzes the interaction between energy and entropy and their personification in the literature of the times. Energy Forms draws on the writing of well-known literary and scientific authors including H. G. Wells, Camille Flammarion, Charles Howard Hinton and D. H. Lawrence, among others. The focus then shifts to the broad cultural tension between thermodynamic malaise and electromagnetic aspiration. Energy Forms uncovers the works of important but overlooked authors in the fields of science and literature and will appeal especially to those who are intrigued by interdisciplinary studies.
Bruce Clarke is Professor of English,Texas Tech University. He is the author of Dora Marsden and Early Modernism: Gender, Individualism, Science; Allegories of Writing: The Subject of Metamorphosis; and editor of The Body and the Text: Comparative Essays in Literature and Medicine.
The book begins with an overview of the interconnections between allegory in literature and allegory in science, then analyzes the interaction between energy and entropy and their personification in the literature of the times. Energy Forms draws on the writing of well-known literary and scientific authors including H. G. Wells, Camille Flammarion, Charles Howard Hinton and D. H. Lawrence, among others. The focus then shifts to the broad cultural tension between thermodynamic malaise and electromagnetic aspiration. Energy Forms uncovers the works of important but overlooked authors in the fields of science and literature and will appeal especially to those who are intrigued by interdisciplinary studies.
Bruce Clarke is Professor of English,Texas Tech University. He is the author of Dora Marsden and Early Modernism: Gender, Individualism, Science; Allegories of Writing: The Subject of Metamorphosis; and editor of The Body and the Text: Comparative Essays in Literature and Medicine.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
13 drawings, 2 B&W photographs, 1 table
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-472-11174-9 (9780472111749)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Introduction Part One: Form, Ideology, Social History Chapter 1. Allegory and Science Models of Energy The Parable of the Cave Entropy as Allegory Ether and Hyperspace Allegorical Construction Chapter 2. Phantasmagorias of Energy Cosmos and Commodity Benjamin's Dialectical Image Energy as Capital Masters of Energy: The Coming Race Phantasmagoric Speculations: La Fin du Monde Chapter 3. Technoscientism Technoscientism as Cultural Allegory Thermodynamic Scientisms Energetics and Vitalism Modernist Scientisms Ursula and the Physics Professor Revolution versus Entropy Part Two: Allegories of Thermodynamics Chapter 4. Maxwell's Daemonic Science Maxwell in The Crying of Lot 49 Maxwell's Poetic Works Allegory and Analogy Maxwell's Electromagnetic Ether The Demon Chapter 5. Dark Stars Thermodynamic Dimensions in The Persian King Allegorical Mechanics in the Time Machine Dark Star Crashes: ""The Star"" and La Fin du Monde Chapter 6. A Different Sun Order and Chaos in We Lawrence's Cosmological Fantasia Part Three: Allegories of Dimensionality Chapter 7. The Ether of Space The Ether Solution John Tyndall's Imagination The Ether and the Fourth Dimension Platonic Dimensions Hinton's Gramophone Lawrence's Ether Chapter 8. Literary Relativity Concepts of Physical Relativity Edward Carpenter's ""Modern Science: A Criticism"" Dimensionality in Zamyatin Lawrence Encounters Einstein Lawrence's Fourth Dimension Notes Bibliography Index \to come\