Victorian Literature and the Physics of the Imponderable
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9781848935662
Subjects: English literature, history and criticism, 19th century; Science in literature
Description: The Victorians were obsessed with the empirical but were frequently frustrated by the sizable gaps in their understanding of the world around them. This study examines how literature and popular culture adopted the emerging language of physics to explain the unknown or 'imponderable'. Writers such as Charles Dickens, William Morris and Joseph Conrad used recent concepts such as energy, entropy and atom theory to explore key issues of capitalism, imperialism and social unrest. In doing so, they created a fresh vocabulary, helping to make sense of the new experiences of modernity." -- Publisher's description