Science and Literature

Victorian Literature and Darwin's Origin of Species

In this course, Dr Will Abberley (University of Oxford) explores the influence of Charles Darwin's 'Origin of Species' on contemporary works of Victorian literature: 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens, 'The Coming Race' by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' by Robert Louis Stephenson. The course also includes an introduction to the study of science alongside literature.

Science and Literature

In this module, Will explores the link between science and literature, explaining how the two genres were much more closely related in the nineteenth century than there are today; both could be said to be about 'story-telling'. In the case of the Origin of Species, Darwin was telling a story about where man had come from that was radically different from the accepted version found in the Book of Genesis (and hinted at in the Anglican hymn 'All Things Bright and Beautiful').