Science and decadence: evolutionary biology in works by Henry James, Elizabeth Robins, and Edith Wharton

This thesis examines the significance of evolutionary biology to works by three prominent American expatriate writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Henry James, Elizabeth Robins, and Edith Wharton. Drawing on scholarship from the fields of Literature and Science, Theatre and Science, and New Modernist studies, the thesis argues for the importance of new definitions of heredity in the literature of the period spanning the American Civil War and World War I. It traces the role of heredity in moves away from literary realism, engagement with discourses like eugenics, and a questioning of essentialism with regards to identity categories of race and gender. With an emphasis on critically overlooked works, this thesis reconsiders the relationship between literature and science by recovering the influence of the work of figures such as August Weismann on postbellum American literature and addressing a long-acknowledged gap in our understanding of the legacy of fin de siècle drama for the development of literary Modernism. The first part of this thesis radically revises our understanding of James's fin de siècle efforts as playwright. It moves past long-rehearsed arguments about his failure as a dramatist based on the disastrous premiere of his play _Guy Domville_ and the tendency to treat him as a devotee of high, autonomous art as a representative of either Aestheticism or Modernism. It recovers the deep relations between his fiction and dramatic works with respect to the early Pragmatism of William James; debates about free-will formulated around heredity; and new, scientific definitions of gender. In part II, archival material is used to recover the legacy of his close friend and colleague in the theatre, Robins: a figure well-known by drama scholars for her central roles in London's independent theatre, but whose once best-selling novels remain virtually unknown. This thesis traces how her turn-of-the-century work drew on the discoveries of figures such as the German biologist August Weismann to engage in broader debates about racial hybridity, empire, and the future of the American nation. Finally, in part III, for the first time, Robins and Wharton are discussed together, establishing the ways in which Wharton's scientific treatment of gender -- with respect to her career as playwright and recently unearthed play -- bridges the worlds of European drama and the little-studied works of the American Progressive Era. Although James, Wharton, and Robins are established figures in literary study, critical treatment has tended to pigeonhole their outputs in certain genres: for James and Wharton, fiction; for Robins, drama. Taking the opportunity to read critically-overlooked works from these authors alongside their more well-known ones, contemporary scientific texts, and the work of prominent proponents of modern drama (figures like Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, Cicely Hamilton, George Bernard Shaw, and Rachel Crothers), this thesis recovers an all-but lost chapter in American literature, as well as a sophisticated, transatlantic debate that used familiar tropes of the period -- such as precocious children, family ghosts, and inherited furniture -- to understand how revolutionary findings of evolutionary science could enhance the role of art in life.

Advisor: Shepherd-Barr, KE