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| Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Bender, Bert. Descent of love. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1996 (OCoLC)605361308 |
|---|---|
| Named Person: | Charles Darwin; Charles Darwin; Charles Darwin |
| Document Type: | Book |
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Bert Bender |
| ISBN: | 0812233441 9780812233445 |
| OCLC Number: | 33440929 |
| Description: | xvi, 440 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. |
| Contents: | The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex: The Darwinian Unknown in American Literary History -- Sexual Selection -- The Descent of Love -- Recurrent Problems, Themes, and Scenes in the Courtship Novels -- 1871-1926 -- 1. Evolutionary Anthropology and Sexual Selection in William Dean Howells's Their Wedding Journey -- 2. Courting Design: Chance, Choice, and Sexual Difference in Howells's Courtship Novels of the 1870s -- 3. Darwinian Problems in A Modern Instance: Heredity, Primitive Marriage, and Male Sexual Aggression -- 4. Henry James and The Descent of Man: "The Loves of the Quadrupeds" in "The Madonna of the Future" and Roderick Hudson -- 5. Psychological Darwinism in The Portrait of a Lady -- 6. Darwin and "The Natural History of Doctresses": The Sex War Between Howells, Phelps, Jewett, and James -- 7. Kate Chopin's Quarrel with Darwin before The Awakening -- 8. The Teeth of Desire: The Awakening and The Descent of Man |
| Responsibility: | Bert Bender. |
Abstract:
These authors embraced and incorporated Darwin's theories, insights, and language, creating an increasingly dark and violent view of sexual love in American realist literature.
In The Descent of Love, Bender carefully rereads the works of William Dean Howells, Henry James, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Harold Frederic, Charles W. Chesnutt, Edith Wharton, and Ernest Hemingway, teasing from them a startling but utterly convincing preoccupation with questions of sexual selection.
Competing for readership as novelists who best grasped the "real" nature of human love, these writers also participated in a heated social debate over racial and sexual differences and the nature of sex itself.
Influenced more by The Descent of Man than by the Origin of Species, Bender's novelists built upon Darwin's anthropological and zoological materials to anatomize their characters' courtship behavior, returning consistently to concerns with physical beauty, natural dominance, and the power to select a mate.
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Related Subjects:(26)
- American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
- Love stories, American -- History and criticism.
- American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
- Literature and science -- English-speaking countries.
- Darwin, Charles, -- 1809-1882 -- Influence.
- American fiction -- English influences.
- Evolution (Biology) in literature.
- Mate selection in literature.
- Courtship in literature.
- Love in literature.
- Sex in literature.
- Roman américain -- 19e siècle -- Histoire et critique.
- Histoires d'amour américaines -- Histoire et critique.
- Roman américain -- 20e siècle -- Histoire et critique.
- Littérature et sciences -- États-Unis -- Histoire.
- Relations entre hommes et femmes dans la littérature.
- Roman américain -- Influence anglaise.
- Évolution (Biologie) dans la littérature.
- Choix du conjoint dans la littérature.
- Amours dans la littérature.
- Amour dans la littérature.
- Sexualité dans la littérature.
- Darwin, Charles -- The descent of man and selection in relation to sex
- Roman
- Evolution
- USA

