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List of contents
Contents: Prefaces. Part I Critical Methodology, Literary and Historical Background: Introduction: 'convergence of the twain': a personal perspective on the interdisciplinary study of literature and science; Literary history of astronomy and the origins of Hardy's literary cosmology; The other 'terrible muse': astronomy and cosmology from prehistory through the Victorian period. Part II Reading Hardy's Novel Universe: Hardy's personal construct cosmology: astronomy and literature converge; Celestial selection and the cosmic environment: A Pair of Blue Eyes, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Return of the Native; The stellar dynamics of star-crossed love in Two on a Tower; Universal laws and cosmic forces: the tragic astronomical muse in The Woodlanders, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure; Conclusion: moral astrophysics: myth, cosmos and gender in 19th-century Britain and beyond. Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Pamela Gossin, who holds a double PhD in History of Science and English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is Associate Professor of History of Science and Literary Studies and Director of Medical and Scientific Humanities (MaSH) at the University of Texas-Dallas. Her publications include An Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (2002) and numerous articles and chapters on the interrelations of literature, culture, and science.
Summary
In the first book-length study of astronomy in Hardy's writing, historian of science and literary scholar Pamela Gossin offers complex and inspired readings of seven novels that enrich previous Darwinian, feminist and formalist perspectives on his work. She shows that Hardy's personal synthesis of ancient and modern astronomy with mythopoetic and s
