Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Dickens is the quintessential Victorian author and wrote epic stories with memorable characters and haunting depictions of contemporary life. • A personal rags to riches story. • After father’s economic collapse, young Dickens was sent to work in a blacking family. • Began his literary career as a journalist with The Mirror of Parliament and The True Sun. • By 1858, the most famous author in the world writing in English. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Fiction: • A Christmas Carol • A Message from the Sea • A Tale of Two Cities • All The Year Round • American Notes • Barnaby Rudge • Bleak House • David Copperfield • Dombey and Son • Great Expectations • Hard Times • Holiday Romance • Hunted Down • Little Dorrit • Martin Chuzzlewit Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Master Humphrey's Clock • Mudfog and Other Sketches • Nicholas Nickleby • Oliver Twist • Our Mutual Friend • Reprinted Pieces • Sketches by Boz • The Battle of Life • The Chimes • The Cricket on the Hearth • The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain • The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • The Mystery of Edwin Drood • The Old Curiosity Shop • The Pickwick Papers • The Uncommercial Traveller Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Social factors that influenced Dickens’ work: – Industrial Revolution – Child labor – Distressed working classes • A writer for "the people;" yet his chief public were the middle and lower-middle classes, rather than the proletarian mass. • “A man of very liberal sentiments — and an assailer of constituted wrongs and authorities — one of the advocates in the plea of Poor versus Rich” Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Long reproached for having written for money. • Schoolchildren taught that his novels are so long because he was paid by the word or the line. • Dickens proudly assumed the role of professional author and considered it part of his identity. • At odds with most Victorian conceptions that a gentleman did not live by the sweat of his brow. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • "A Preliminary Word" (Saturday, 30 March 1850) • We aspire to live in the Household affections, and to be numbered among the Household thoughts, of our readers. We hope to be the comrade and friend of many thousands of people, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, on whose faces we may never look. We seek to bring to innumerable homes, from the stirring world around us, the knowledge of many social wonders, good and evil, that are not calculated to render any of us less ardently persevering in ourselves, less faithful in the progress of mankind, less thankful for the privilege of living in this summer-dawn of time.--Charles Dickens, "A Preliminary Word," Household Words, No. 1, Page 1. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Although Dickens regularly contributed to periodicals, much of his journalistic writing first appeared in the organs he himself established, Household Words (1850-59) and All the Year Round (1859- 70). • He didn't have to report the day's news, or discuss the week's unless something happened on which he wanted to comment. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Charles Dickens, "Idiots,“ Household Words, 4 June 1853. • Who were the Idiots about whom Dickens wrote? • Was there much variety to “idiocy” around the world? • In the opening to “Idiots,” why did Dickens spend so much time describing the physical characteristics of the Idiots of the world? • When Dickens writes, “a miserable monster, whom nobody may put to death, but whom every one must wish dead, and be distressed to see alive,” to what or to whom is he referring? • Do “Idiots” ever have the hope of reform or of improvement? Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Why would the French engineer who received a letter from Robespierre be struck motionless and conveyed to an asylum? Was that idiocy? • What do the multiple tales of “Idiots’” rehabilitation tell you? • When Dickens wrote about Dr. Guggenbühl’s forlorn child, what was his intention? • Given "Idiots,“ publication date, 4 June 1853, does its sentiments bear any relationship to the precepts of The Origin of Species? Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Charles Robert Darwin’s (1809-1882) maternal grandfather was china manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood, while his paternal grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, one of the leading intellectuals of 18th century England. • Initially planned a medical career, and studied at Edinburgh University but later switched to divinity at Cambridge. • In 1831, he joined a five year scientific expedition on the survey ship HMS Beagle. • At the time, most Europeans believed that the world was created by God in seven days as described in the bible. • The breakthrough in his ideas came in the Galapagos Islands, 500 miles west of South America. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Darwin worked on his theory for 20 years. • After learning that another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had developed similar ideas, the two made a joint announcement of their discovery in 1858. • In 1859 Darwin published 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection'. • Extremely controversial, as the logical extension of Darwin's theory was that homo sapiens was simply another form of animal. • Darwin was vehemently attacked, particularly by the Church. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ The Origin of Species (6th edition) by Charles Darwin (1859) “Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor.” Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ . but we see so many strange gradations in nature, that we ought to be extremely cautious in saying that any organ or instinct, or any whole structure, could not have arrived at its present state by many graduated steps Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Scientists contributing to the Theory of Evolution: – George Cuvier – Charles Darwin – Erasmus Darwin – James Hutton – Jean Baptiste de Lamarck – George Louis Leclerc – Carl Linneus – Charles Lyell – Thomas Malthus – Alfred Russel Wallace – Alfred Wegner. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Upon its publication The Origin of Species, reactions to it varied, ranging from outright condemnation to Thomas Huxley's famous exclamation, "How stupid of me not to have thought of that.“ • The Anglican establishment was opposed to Darwin and prevented him from receiving royal honors. • The most famous confrontation took place at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford on Saturday, 30 June 1860. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Darwinism seemed to fit well with the era’s prevailing notions of progress. • Do Darwin’s assertion bear any relationship to Isaac Newton’s? • Why did Darwin influence so many persons who were not scientists? • Were Darwin’s ideas a defiance of God’s Will as well as God’s Word? Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ • Is Man and Ape or an Angel? • Is there a place for a “soul” in conjunction with Darwin’s assertions? • Why were social scientists able to reconfigure Darwin’s theories to suit very different purposes? Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Creationism • Young-Earth Creationism • Flat Earthers – Young Earth Creationists – Flat Earthers believe that the (YEC) claim a literal earth is flat and is covered by interpretation of the Bible as a a solid dome or firmament. basis for their beliefs. They Waters above the firmament believe that the earth is 6000 were the source of Noah's to 10,000 years old, that all life flood. This belief is based on a was created in six literal days, literal reading of the Bible, that death and decay came as such as references to the "four a result of Adam & Eve's Fall, corners of the earth" and the and that geology must be "circle of the earth." Few interpreted in terms of Noah's people hold this extreme view, Flood. However, they accept a but some do. spherical earth and heliocentric solar system. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Creationism • Day-Age Creationism • Progressive Creationism – Day-age creationists interpret – Progressive Creationism is the each day of creation as a long most common Old-Earth period of time, even Creationism view today. It thousands or millions of years. accepts most of modern They see a parallel between physical science, even viewing the order of events presented the Big Bang as evidence of in Genesis 1 and the order the creative power of God, but accepted by mainstream rejects much of modern science. Day-Age Creationism biology. Progressive was more popular than Gap Creationists generally believe Creationism in the 19th and that God created "kinds" of and early 20th centuries. organisms sequentially, in the order seen in the fossil record, but say that the newer kinds are specially created, not genetically related to older kinds. Modern Britain: A Tale of Two Charles’ Creationism • Intelligent Design • Evolutionary Creationism Creationism • Intelligent Design • Evolutionary Creationism Creationism descended differs from Theistic from Paley's argument Evolution only in its that God's design could theology, not in its be seen in life. Modern science. It says that God IDC still makes appeals operates not in the gaps, to the complexity of life, but that nature has no but the arguments have existence independent of become far more His will. technical, delving into microbiology and mathematical logic..