Interrogations of Evolutionism in German Literature 1859-2011

Nicholas Saul, Ph.D. Cambridge (1982), is Professor of German at the University of Durham. He has published several monographs and many essays on modern German literature and ideas, including Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century (Legenda, 2007).

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsIntroduction. Two Cultures?1 Realism. Darwinism into Literature: First Responses by Raabe and Jensen1 Narrative Threads and Literary Anthropology in the Service of Life: Raabe’s Drei Federn2 Writing Inheritance and Change in Jensen’s Das Erbtheil des Blutes2 Fin de siècle. Darwinism and Literature, or Literature and Darwinism? Nordau, Haeckel, Bölsche1 Darwinism Overwrites Art: Nordau’s ‘Evolutionistische Ästhetik’, Entartung and Krankheit des Jahrhunderts2 Nature as Artist: Haeckel’s ‘Darwinism’ in the Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte3 Darwin as Poet in the Great Chain of Genius: Bölsche’s Aesthetic Relecture of Darwinism3 Weimar I. Ernst Jünger’s Evolutionism between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa1 Introduction: Biography and Research2 In Stahlgewittern: War, Nature, Technology, Writing3 Sturm: War, Darwinism, Vitalism, Writing Again4 Publicistic Writing as Action. Spengler: Life as Politics, Vitalistic Fascism5 Das Abenteuerliche Herz: Vitalistic Science6 Der Arbeiter: Life Is Politics. The Whole and the Parts. Freedom and Necessity7 Retreat into Contemplation: Literature. Continuities8 Darwin and Spengler Evolved. Legacies4 Weimar II. Evolutionism and Space in Hans Grimm1 ‘… ein beseligter Aufnehmer’: Cornelius Friebott’s Poetic-Homiletic Education as National Seer2 Darwin, Space, Word: Anthropogeography from Malthus, Ratzel, Naumann, Haushofer and Hildebrand to Grimm5 Postmodernism. Time’s Arrow, System and Aesthetic Redemption: Evolutionism in Botho Strauß1 Introduction. Biography and Research2 Literature and/as Evolution. Copying and Rewriting the Script in Rumor3 Evolutionist Aesthetics, Culture and Society: Copying and Rewriting in Paare, Passanten and Der junge Mann4 System Theory, Evolutionary Aesthetics and Self: Der junge Mann, Beginnlosigkeit, and Die Fehler des Kopisten6 Wende und Ecoliterature. Gradualism and Saltationism: The Uses of Evolutionism in Judith Schalansky and Franz Hohler1 ‘Was waren schon Romane?’ Darwinian Gradualism in Der Hals der Giraffe2 ‘… niemand weiß, wie es weitergehen soll’. Saltationism and Emergence in ‘Die Rückeroberung’ and Der neue Berg7 Posthumanism. Failure and Reinvention of the Human in Dietmar DathConclusionBibliographyIndex