Experimenters Versus Magicians: Poetic Strategies of an Intertextual Rivalry in 19th Century German Fiction (2019)
Even earlier than C. P. Snow's thesis of the "two cultures", Max Weber argued in 1917 that scientists are responsible for "the disenchantment of the world". At first glance, this seems to be evidenced by the science-friendly belles-lettres and literary texts of the 19th century. They focus on various scientists, experimenters, and traveling explorers who displace and "overcome" fictitious characters of magicians, necromancers, and magnetizers in literary texts. Moreover, literary programs (Emile Zola, Wilhelm Bölsche) and the "social" dramas of Naturalism fostered a scientific-like tendency of literature. According to Weber's and Snow's thesis of an antagonism between the natural scientists and literary intellectuals from the humanities, one might assume a rivalry between scientists and magicians in fiction, too. But this paper analyzes novels by Gottfried Keller and Paul Heyse exemplarily in order to show particular literary strategies which undermine this antagonism.
...MoreArticle George N. Vlahakis (2019) Science and Imagination: An Introduction. Almagest (pp. 6-9).
Similar Citations
Article
Britta Ager;
(2019)
Necromancy, Divine Encounters, and Erotic Magic in Cupid and Psyche
(/isis/citation/CBB774211692/)
Book
Vanessa Heggie;
(2019)
Higher and Colder: A History of Extreme Physiology and Exploration
(/isis/citation/CBB963440719/)
Book
Andrea Wulf;
(2019)
The adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt
(/isis/citation/CBB213038813/)
Article
Andrea Franchetto;
(2020)
Imaginal Architectural Devices and the Ritual Space of Medieval Necromancy
(/isis/citation/CBB908630568/)
Book
Klaassen, Frank F.;
(2013)
The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB001321244/)
Thesis
Liou, Jennifer Hwa Yu;
(2013)
“This Rough Magic”: Experimental Literature in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB001567436/)
Article
Lombardo, Giovanni Pietro;
Foschi, Renato;
(2010)
Sante De Sanctis Research on Dreams and His Relationships with German-Speaking Scholars
(/isis/citation/CBB425275573/)
Book
Richard Fallon;
(2021)
Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature: How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon
(/isis/citation/CBB569188287/)
Article
Dustin Hellberg;
(2019)
Close Encounters of the Tertiary Kind: Science Fiction as Tertiary Epic
(/isis/citation/CBB184221896/)
Book
Ian Duncan;
(2019)
Human Forms: The Novel in the Age of Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB663333559/)
Thesis
Diana Rose Newby;
(2022)
Passive Life: Vitalism and British Fiction, 1820-1880
(/isis/citation/CBB233336823/)
Thesis
Kassenbrock, Brian W.;
(2009)
Novalis and the Two Cultures: The Chiasmic Discourse of Mathematics, Philosophy and Poetics
(/isis/citation/CBB001562853/)
Book
Anna Jerratsch;
(2019)
Der Fruhneuzeitliche Kometendiskurs Im Spiegel Deutschsprachiger Flugschriften
(/isis/citation/CBB833184165/)
Chapter
Wyss, Tamara;
(2011)
Searching for the “Lolos”: Tracking Fritz and Hedwig Weiss's Trip to the Liangshan Region in 1913
(/isis/citation/CBB001214674/)
Article
Jones, Anna Maria;
(2011)
Conservation of Energy, Individual Agency, and Gothic Terror in Richard Marsh's The Beetle, or, What's Scarier Than an Ancient, Evil, Shape-Shifting Bug?
(/isis/citation/CBB001213085/)
Article
Erdheim, Cara;
(2013)
Naturalism's Dietary Discourse: From Fasting Fads to Sinclair's Social Reforms
(/isis/citation/CBB001320896/)
Chapter
Levine, George;
(2014)
Paradox: The Art of Scientific Naturalism
(/isis/citation/CBB001422047/)
Article
Germic, Stephen;
(2003)
Pathological Identity and the Ambiguities of Race and Class: Nature and the Anxious Naturalism of Frank Norris and Rebecca Harding Davis
(/isis/citation/CBB000330038/)
Thesis
Nichols, Rachael L.;
(2010)
The Human Animal: Tangles in Science and Literature, 1870--1920
(/isis/citation/CBB001567211/)
Thesis
Scott C. Thompson;
(2022)
The Social Ecology of Character: British Naturalism and the Mid-Victorian Sensation Novel
(/isis/citation/CBB607947783/)
Be the first to comment!