Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity

About this book

At the turn of the eighteenth century, selfhood was defined by the idea of a "tabula rasa" to be imprinted in the course of an individual's life. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the individual had become defined as determined by heredity already from birth. Examining novels, studies on plant hybridization, treatises on animal breeding, and collections of anatomical monstrosities, Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity delineates how romantic authors imagined the ramifications of emerging notions of heredity for the conceptualization of selfhood.

Focusing on three fields of biological inquiry – inbreeding and incest, cross-breeding and bastardization, evolution and autopoiesis, Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity proposes that the kind of emphatic notion of selfhood for which Romanticism has become known was not threatened by considerations of determinism and evolution, but was in fact already a result of these very considerations. Discussing texts by authors such as Kant, Goethe, Jean Paul Richter, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity will be of interest for literary scholars, historians of science, and all readers fascinated by the long duree of subjectivity and evolutionary thought.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Notes on Translations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Between Freedom and Determination
One The Discovery of Heredity
Two Incest and Inbreeding
Three Cross-breeding and Hybridization
Four From Blood to Trauma

Bibliography
About the Author
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Christine Lehleiter is assistant professor of German at the University of Toronto.