H. G. Wells, Geology, and the Ruins of Time
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12411580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Shackleton (0000-0001-8262-0200, St. Catherine University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 839-855 |
| Publication date | 2017-11-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victorian Literature and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1060-1503 • E-ISSN: 1470-1553 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1060150317000249 |
| OpenAlex | W2767729982 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) has hitherto been read in two principal scientific contexts: those of evolutionary biology and thermodynamic physics. Numerous critics have situated the romance in the context of evolutionary biology and contemporary discourses of degeneration (McLean 11–40; Greenslade 32–41). Others have discussed it in the context of thermodynamic physics. For instance, Bruce Clarke has read The Time Machine as “a virtual allegory of classical thermodynamics,” and shows that its combination of physical and social entropy reflects a wider transfer within the period of concepts and metaphors from physical science to social discourses of degeneration (121–26). Neatly linking these scientific contexts with issues of form, Michael Sayeau has argued that the social and physical entropy that are themes of the romance are reflected in its narrative structure, which manifests a type of narrative entropy, and thereby raises the spectre of the end of fiction (109–46)
Allegory · Art · Context (archaeology · Entropy (arrow of time · Epistemology · Laws of thermodynamics · Literature · Narrative · Physics · Romance · Situated · Sociology · Thermodynamics · Computer Science · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence · Geology · Paleontology
Bursting the Limits of Time
On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life
The Sense of an Ending
On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life /
The science fiction of H. G. Wells
Worlds Before Adam
Darwin's Plots
The Strategy of Lyell's Principles of Geology
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
The Earth on Show
Ninety-Fifth Critical Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (to January 1970)
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |