Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution

"…the essays in this volume offer interesting contributions to our understanding of the Romantic conception of natural history and its relation to Darwinian evolution – pointing toward the possibility of expanding the contours of the ‘Romantic Darwin’ narrative."

Andrea Gambarotto, Universite Catholique de Louvain, HPLS

"Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution, thoughtfully edited by Joel Faflak, presents a multiplicity of thinkers delving deeply into the possibility and potential for entanglement among temporality, Romanticism, and evolution."

Dewey W. Hall, California State Polytechnic University, European Romantic Review

"There is much to learn from Marking Time, both in terms of how evolution served as a pervasive concept and metaphor across multiple discourses and disciplines in the Romantic era, and in the specific writings and authors analyzed in individual chapters, in which familiar texts are made unfamiliar and unfamiliar texts are brought to the forefront. Marking Time will surely have a major effect on future studies of Romantic science and the history of evolution."

Seth T. Reno Auburn, University at Montgomery, Clio

"Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution offers excellent contributions to these diverse fields of study, and Faflak’s timely collection leaves readers with a portrait of Romantic evolution’s own entangled bank of topics and concepts far knottier—and more interesting—than the one familiar from more traditional histories of Darwinian evolutionary science."

Andrew Bukett, Isis

"The importance of pre-Darwinian theorists of evolution is receiving more critical attention. Revealing how notions of evolution were very current and contested in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Marking Time illustrates how Romantic concerns with organicism, vitalism and natural history fed into contemporary understandings of natural development. Marking Time is a very impressive contribution to the currently vibrant subject of science and Romanticism, and highlights the work of leading scholars in the field."

Peter J. Kitson, professor of English Literature, University of East Anglia

"Containing superb, thought-provoking essays, Marking Time raises new questions about Darwin and the precursors and consequences of his thought."

Tim Fulford, professor of English, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK