Poetry, Fossils, and the Flesh of Time in ...
Document type :
Compte-rendu et recension critique d'ouvrage
Title :
Poetry, Fossils, and the Flesh of Time in Erasmus Darwin’s The Temple of Nature
Author(s) :
Musitelli-Laniel, Sophie [Auteur]
Institut universitaire de France [IUF]
Centre d'Études en Civilisations, Langues et Lettres Étrangères - ULR 4074 [CECILLE]

Institut universitaire de France [IUF]
Centre d'Études en Civilisations, Langues et Lettres Étrangères - ULR 4074 [CECILLE]
Journal title :
Etudes Anglaises
Pages :
83-96
Publisher :
Klincksieck
Publication date :
2019-04-30
ISSN :
0014-195X
English keyword(s) :
Poetry
Erasmus Darwin
Evolution
Biology
Erasmus Darwin
Evolution
Biology
HAL domain(s) :
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Littératures
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences
English abstract : [en]
When he looked at fossilised sea-shells, the poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) read the gradual transformation of species through “millions of ages” in their “glossy volumes.” In his poetry, fossilised shells ...
Show more >When he looked at fossilised sea-shells, the poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) read the gradual transformation of species through “millions of ages” in their “glossy volumes.” In his poetry, fossilised shells look like strange artefacts no one crafted: the original organism acts either as the mould or as the raw material of the fossil emerging out of it, as if sculpted by time from the inside. The genesis of life-forms seems to take place outside divine intervention, through a series of negligible transformations: the imperceptible substitutes itself for the Unseen. In these beautiful forms, carved by death, time generates artistic forms. Destruction writes itself into a narrative of creation, and as the work of time becomes legible in the forms of the fossil, time fleshes itself out.Show less >
Show more >When he looked at fossilised sea-shells, the poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) read the gradual transformation of species through “millions of ages” in their “glossy volumes.” In his poetry, fossilised shells look like strange artefacts no one crafted: the original organism acts either as the mould or as the raw material of the fossil emerging out of it, as if sculpted by time from the inside. The genesis of life-forms seems to take place outside divine intervention, through a series of negligible transformations: the imperceptible substitutes itself for the Unseen. In these beautiful forms, carved by death, time generates artistic forms. Destruction writes itself into a narrative of creation, and as the work of time becomes legible in the forms of the fossil, time fleshes itself out.Show less >
Language :
Anglais
Popular science :
Non
Source :