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Download The GENIUS, WOMANHOOD AND THE STATISTICAL IMAGINARY: 1890s HEREDITY THEORY IN THE BRITISH SOCIAL NOVEL by ZOE GRAY BEAVIS B.A. Hons., La Trobe University, 2006 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2014 © Zoe Gray Beavis, 2014 Abstract The central argument of this thesis is that several tropes or motifs exist in social novels of the 1890s which connect them with each other in a genre, and which indicate a significant literary preoccupation with contemporary heredity theory. These tropes include sibling and twin comparison stories, the woman musician’s conflict between professionalism and domesticity, and speculation about biparental inheritance. The particulars of heredity theory with which these novels engage are consistent with the writings of Francis Galton, specifically on hereditary genius and regression theory, sibling and twin biometry, and theoretical population studies. Concurrent with the curiosity of novelists about science, was the anxiety of scientists about discursive linguistic sharing. In the thesis, I illuminate moments when science writers (Galton, August Weismann, William Bates, and Karl Pearson) acknowledged the literary process and the reading audience. I have structured the thesis around the chronological appearance of heredity themes in 1890s social novels, because I am arguing for the existence of a broader cultural curiosity about heredity themes, irrespective of authors’ primary engagement with scientific texts. Finally, I introduce the statistical imaginary as a framework for understanding human difference through populations and time, as evidenced by the construction of theoretical population samples – communities, crowds, and peer groups – in 1890s social fictions. ii Preface This thesis is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Zoe Gray Beavis, under the committee supervision of Dr. Suzy Anger and Dr. Deanna Kreisel. No part of this thesis has been published elsewhere. No ethics approval was required for the research of this thesis. iii Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... ii Preface...................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. vi Chapter One: On the Eve of the Century of the Gene: Influential Figures in 1890s Heredity Theory ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 Francis Galton........................................................................................................................ 5 August Weismann................................................................................................................ 10 Karl Pearson ........................................................................................................................ 16 Conclusion: Decentralising Darwin..................................................................................... 19 Chapter Two: “Rare Exceptions”: The Hereditary Misfortune of the Woman Genius .......... 21 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 21 Music as Heredity Metaphor: Duty and Failure in Mona Caird’s The Daughters of Danaus ............................................................................................................................................. 26 The Pathology of Female Genius: Vocation and Morbidity in George Gissing’s The Whirlpool ............................................................................................................................. 32 Conclusion: Heredity, Vocation, Duty ................................................................................ 40 iv Chapter Three: Choice and Chance: Biparental Inheritance, Women, and Eugenic Probability ................................................................................................................................................. 42 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 42 Choosing the Right Partner: Women and “Rational Reproduction” in Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did .................................................................................................................. 42 Choosing the Wrong Partner: Women and Eugenic Abstinence in Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins.................................................................................................................... 51 A Corrective Influence: Women and Moral-Behavioural Modeling in Olive Schreiner’s From Man To Man .............................................................................................................. 56 Conclusion: The Inexorability of Paternal Influence .......................................................... 61 Chapter Four: The Statistical Imaginary: A Biometric Approach to Heredity in Fiction ...... 63 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 63 Sibling Biometry and Twin Studies ..................................................................................... 67 Peer Biometry and Sample Populations .............................................................................. 77 Statistical Frequency in Theoretical Populations ................................................................ 82 Conclusion: Biometrika and the Beginnings of Big Data.................................................... 86 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 88 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 90 v Acknowledgements I am very grateful for the inspiration and support of the faculty, staff, and my fellow students in the Department of English, UBC. In particular, I give my warm and enduring thanks to my supervisory committee, Dr. Suzy Anger and Dr. Deanna Kreisel, for their strong direction and constant support, and for sharing their meticulous knowledge of and enthusiasm for Victorian literature. Special thanks to my spouse, Matthew Beavis, who has supported me emotionally and financially through the years of this degree. I was able to conduct this research with generous financial support from the UBC Faculty of Arts. vi Chapter One: On the Eve of the Century of the Gene: Influential Figures in 1890s Heredity Theory Introduction In the 1890s human heredity science underwent developments in method, theory, and practice. Scientists such as Francis Galton (1822-1911), August Weismann (1834-1914), William Bateson (1861-1926), Karl Pearson (1857-1936), and others refined Darwinian understandings of how human traits, behaviours and potential for biological and social success were transmitted across generations, and distributed in family and population samples. At the end of the nineteenth century three broad methodological trends dominated heredity science: studies of non-human species applied to human-specific theory; large-scale human data collection categorised by morally- and aesthetically-charged typologies (anthropometry); and increasingly complex statistical modeling (biometry). Speculation about human heredity was not, however, restricted to scientific discourse. As Gregory Radick writes, Beyond the medical scientific literature, the topic [of heredity] became an object of public fascination, with a particular surge of interest in the 1890s. Of the hundred plus entries cataloged under “heredity” in the SciPer index (http://www.sciper.org) covering science content within general British periodicals in the nineteenth century, more than half come from the final decade. (717) Reading key scientific texts alongside contemporary British social novels exhibits that specific refinements made to heredity theory emerge in fin de siècle fiction as well. In my readings of 1890s British novels, I demonstrate that the implications of this scientific work, which sought to explain and also predict heredity across generations, manifested in fictional 1 tropes: in plots emphasising chance, genius, and duty in marital, vocational and medical choices for individual characters. In this thesis I trace in popular fiction literary expressions of late-nineteenth-century refinements in models of heredity and related statistical techniques, linking fictional representations of social and psychological allegories to ideas in contemporary heredity science. The novels I have chosen (popular works by Grant Allen, Mona Caird, George Gissing, Sarah Grand, and Olive Schreiner) collectively exhibit a conception of and curiosity about hereditary processes and probability-based ideations of
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