George Levine is one of the world's leading scholars of Victorian literature and culture. This collection of his essays extends and develops the key themes of his work: the intersection of nineteenth-century British literature, culture and science and the relation of knowledge and truth to ethics. The essays offer new perspectives on George Eliot, Thackeray, the Positivists, and the Scientific Naturalists, and reassess the complex relationship between Ruskin and Darwin. In readings of Lawrence and Coetzee, Levine addresses Victorian and modern efforts to push beyond the limits of realist art by testing its aesthetic and epistemological limits in engagement with the self and the other. Some of Levine's most important contributions to the field are reprinted, in revised and updated form, alongside previously unpublished material. Together, these essays cohere into an exploration both of Victorian literature and culture and of ethical, epistemological, and aesthetic problems fundamental to our own times.

This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot includes several new chapters, providing an essential introduction to all aspects of Eliot's life and writing. Accessible essays by some of the most distinguished scholars of Victorian literature provide lucid and original insights into the work of one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century, author most famously of Middlemarch, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Daniel Deronda. From an introduction that traces her originality as a realist novelist, the book moves on to extensive considerations of each of Eliot's novels, her life and her publishing history. Chapters address the problems of money, philosophy, religion, politics, gender and science, as they are developed in her novels. With its supplementary materials, including a chronology and an extensive section of suggested readings, this Companion is an invaluable tool for scholars and students alike.

This major new reading of the novels of Thomas Hardy, by leading critic George Levine, disentangles the author's often elaborately distanced prose from his beautiful poetic and precise renderings of the natural world. Clear, direct and minimally academic in his own writing, Levine provides an overview of Hardy's entire fictional canon, with extensive discussions of his early and late novels including his last, The Well-Beloved. Levine draws new attention to the way Hardy absorbed both the ideas and the writing strategies of Charles Darwin, and develops new perspectives first articulated in the criticism of great novelists - in particular Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. Levine departs from the critical norm by reading Hardy in the context of his deep feeling for the natural world and all living things, and the implicit affirmation of life that sometimes drives his bleakest narratives.

This major new reading of the novels of Thomas Hardy, by leading critic George Levine, disentangles the author's often elaborately distanced prose from his beautiful poetic and precise renderings of the natural world. Clear, direct and minimally academic in his own writing, Levine provides an overview of Hardy's entire fictional canon, with extensive discussions of his early and late novels including his last, The Well-Beloved. Levine draws new attention to the way Hardy absorbed both the ideas and the writing strategies of Charles Darwin, and develops new perspectives first articulated in the criticism of great novelists - in particular Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. Levine departs from the critical norm by reading Hardy in the context of his deep feeling for the natural world and all living things, and the implicit affirmation of life that sometimes drives his bleakest narratives.

Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate "on-the-ground," extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate "on-the-ground," extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot includes several new chapters, providing an essential introduction to all aspects of Eliot's life and writing. Accessible essays by some of the most distinguished scholars of Victorian literature provide lucid and original insights into the work of one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century, author most famously of Middlemarch, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Daniel Deronda. From an introduction that traces her originality as a realist novelist, the book moves on to extensive considerations of each of Eliot's novels, her life and her publishing history. Chapters address the problems of money, philosophy, religion, politics, gender and science, as they are developed in her novels. With its supplementary materials, including a chronology and an extensive section of suggested readings, this Companion is an invaluable tool for scholars and students alike.

George Levine is one of the world's leading scholars of Victorian literature and culture. This 2008 collection of his essays develops the key themes of his work: the intersection of nineteenth-century British literature, culture and science and the relation of knowledge and truth to ethics. The essays offer perspectives on George Eliot, Thackeray, the Positivists, and the Scientific Naturalists, and reassess the complex relationship between Ruskin and Darwin. In readings of Lawrence and Coetzee, Levine addresses Victorian and modern efforts to push beyond the limits of realist art by testing its aesthetic and epistemological limits in engagement with the self and the other. Some of Levine's most important contributions to the field are reprinted, in revised and updated form, alongside previously unpublished material. Together, these essays cohere into an exploration both of Victorian literature and culture and of ethical, epistemological, and aesthetic problems fundamental to our own times.

Levine shows how Darwin's ideas affected nineteenth-century novelists--from Dickens and Trollope to Conrad. "Levine stands in our day as the premier critic and commentator on Victorian prose."--Frank M. Turner, "Nineteenth-Century Literature." "Magnificently written, with a care and delicacy worthy of its subject."--Nina Auerbach, University of Pennsylvania

In "The Realistic Imagination," George Levine argues that the Victorian realists and the later modernists were in fact doing similar things in their fiction: they were trying to use language to get beyond language. Levine sees the history of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novel as a continuing process in which each generation of writers struggled to escape the grip of convention and attempted to create new language to express their particular sense of reality. As these attempts hardened into new conventions, they generated new attempts to break free.

The case for a thoughtful secularism from some of today's most distinguished scientists, philosophers, and writers Can secularism offer us moral, aesthetic, and spiritual satisfaction? Or does the secular view simply affirm a dog-eat-dog universe? At a time when the issues of religion, evolution, atheism, fundamentalism, Darwin, and science fill headlines and invoke controversy, The Joy of Secularism provides a balanced and thoughtful approach for understanding an enlightened, sympathetic, and relevant secularism for our lives today. Bringing together distinguished historians, philosophers, scientists, and writers, this book shows that secularism is not a mere denial of religion. Rather, this positive and necessary condition presents a vision of a natural and difficult world—without miracles or supernatural interventions—that is far richer and more satisfying than the religious one beyond. From various perspectives—philosophy, evolutionary biology, primate study, Darwinian thinking, poetry, and even bird-watching—the essays in this collection examine the wealth of possibilities that secularism offers for achieving a condition of fullness. Factoring in historical contexts, and ethical and emotional challenges, the contributors make an honest and heartfelt yet rigorous case for the secular view by focusing attention on aspects of ordinary life normally associated with religion, such as the desire for meaning, justice, spirituality, and wonder. Demonstrating that a world of secular enchantment is a place worth living in, The Joy of Secularism takes a new and liberating look at a valuable and complex subject. The contributors are William Connolly, Paolo Costa, Frans de Waal, Philip Kitcher, George Levine, Adam Phillips, Robert Richards, Bruce Robbins, Rebecca Stott, Charles Taylor, and David Sloan Wilson.

How does Carlyle, Macaulay, Newman sustain the values of old traditions and at the same time meet the challenge of contemporary Victorian experience is the subject of Professor Levine's book. Like the novelists of the period upon whom they had great influence, these three writers were seeking stability and permanence in an age of tremendous change. They were trying to sustain the values and order of old traditions and at the same time meet the challenge of contemporary Victorian experience. How each one met this challenge is essentially the subject of Professor Levine's book. The author begins with a close analysis of the style and structure of the writers' key works, essentially dissimilar in nature, then moves on to an exploration of what they had in common. Originally published in 1968. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

""Darwin Loves You" is the most interesting book I have read this year. It is wise, brave, and beautifully written. Levine's reflections on the important issue of Darwinism as an ideology are bound to engage readers. He shows that Darwin's science is not dehumanising or amoral and that it's possible to be a Darwinist and still believe that the world has meaning."--Janet Browne, author of "Charles Darwin: The Power of Place"

"George Levine has thought deeply about Darwinism, its cultural history, and its implications for moral and spiritual values. "Darwin Loves You" should be read by everyone who thinks that their values are threatened by evolutionary theory."--David Sloan Wilson, author of "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society" and "How to be a Good Evolutionist"

""Darwin Loves You" is a very important work that deserves to be read by many people well outside the narrow circle of Darwin specialists. First, it is a brilliant account of how a science is taken up and used for diverse cultural ends, far beyond the intention of the author and the content of the text. Second, it is crucially relevant to the present day with the horrifying rise of fundamentalist religion in America and abroad. It shows how science gets misused and misunderstood in dangerous ways by fanatics. Third, and most important of all, it introduces us to a man who is deeply in love with his subject, wanting to engage the reader. One learns here truly why scholarship is such a joyful activity."--Michael Ruse, author of "The Evolution-Creation Struggle"

"This is a rich and multilayered argument for a wider appreciation of a 'kinder, gentler' Darwin. It examines many of the ways inwhich Darwin's writings have been appropriated by later social Darwinist and eugenicist thought. Levine makes a cogent defence of the practice of close reading both Darwin and his many commentators. The result is a subtle but powerful argument about the way in which distinctive strands of Darwin's intellectual and personal identity--as romantic materialist and emotional subject--need to be appreciated as a possible resource of re-enchantment, overturning pessimistic, rationalistic, and technological disenchantment."--David Amigoni, Keele University, coeditor of "Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species": New Interdisciplinary Essays"

"Passionate, erudite, and polemical, "Darwin Loves You" draws its arguments from a heady array of writers and philosophers. This is a book to think with."--Rebecca Stott, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, author of "Darwin and the Barnacle"

How does Carlyle, Macaulay, Newman sustain the values of old traditions and at the same time meet the challenge of contemporary Victorian experience is the subject of Professor Levine's book. Like the novelists of the period upon whom they had great influence, these three writers were seeking stability and permanence in an age of tremendous change. They were trying to sustain the values and order of old traditions and at the same time meet the challenge of contemporary Victorian experience. How each one met this challenge is essentially the subject of Professor Levine's book. The author begins with a close analysis of the style and structure of the writers' key works, essentially dissimilar in nature, then moves on to an exploration of what they had in common. Originally published in 1968. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

MARY SHELLEY's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus grew out of a parlor game and a nightmare vision. The story of the book's origin is a famous one, first told in the introduction Mary Shelley wrote for the 1831 edition of the novel. The two Shelleys, Byron, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, and John William Polidori (Byron's physician) spent a "wet, ungenial summer in the Swiss Alps." Byron suggested that "each write a ghost story." If one is to trust Mary Shelley's account (and James Rieger has shown the untrustworthiness of its chronology and particulars), only she and "poor Polidori" took the contest seriously. The two "illustrious poets," according to her, "annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task." Polidori, too, is made to seem careless, unable to handle his story of a "skull-headed lady." Though Mary Shelley is just as deprecating when she speaks of her own "tiresome unlucky ghost story," she also suggests that its sources went deeper. Her truant muse became active as soon as she fastened on the "idea" of "making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream": "'I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others."' The twelve essays in this collection attest to the endurance of Mary Shelley's "waking dream." Appropriately, though less romantically, this book also grew out of a playful conversation at a party. When several of the contributors to this book discovered that they were all closet aficionados of Mary Shelley's novel, they decided that a book might be written in which each contributor-contestant might try to account for the persistent hold that Frankenstein continues to exercise on the popular imagination. Within a few months, two films--Warhol's Frankenstein and Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein--and the Hall-Landau and Isherwood-Bachardy television versions of the novel appeared to remind us of our blunted purpose. These manifestations were an auspicious sign and resulted in the book Endurance of Frankenstein.

Eloquent, provocative, and timely, these essays provide a thoughtful, undoctrinaire defense of the centrality of the humanities to higher education--and society--at the millennium.--Cora Kaplan, University of Southampton The crisis in the humanities and higher education intensifies daily. The partisan din drowns out the voices of those thinkers who have resisted the seductions of strong ideology. Against the tendencies of the extreme attacks on higher education from the right and the counterattacks from the left, many academics would prefer to get beyond critical fashions and easy slogans. In this collection, leading scholars demonstrate how the current furor threatens the critical analysis of culture, so vital to a healthy society. They explore the historical sources of the crisis, the relations between politics and research, the responsibilities and possibilities of the academic intellectual, the structure of the institution of the university, the functions and achievements of the humanities, and the development of interdisciplinarity as a catalyst for change. This volume is a necessary resource for understanding the current crisis and for transforming the academy as we approach the twenty-first century. The contributors are Jonathan Arac, Lauren Berlant, Peter Brooks, Roman de la Campa, Myra Jehlen, Stanley Katz, Richard Kramer, Dominick LaCapra, George Levine, Ellen Messer-Davidow, Helene Moglen, Bill Readings, and Bruce Robbins. E. Ann Kaplan is the director of The Humanities Institute at the State University of New York at Stony Brook

Darwin's theory thrust human life into time and nature and subjected it to naturalistic rather than spiritual or moral analysis. Insisting on gradual and regular-lawful-change, Darwinian thought nevertheless requires acknowledgment of chance and randomness for a full explanation of biological phenomena. George Levine shows how these conceptions affected nineteenth-century novelists--from Dickens and Trollope to Conrad--and draws illuminating contrasts with the pre-Darwinian novel and the perspective of natural theology. Levine demonstrates how even writers ostensibly uninterested in science absorbed and influenced its vision. A central chapter treats the almost aggressively unscientific Trollope as the most Darwinian of the novelists, who worked out a gradualist realism that is representative of the mainstream of Victorian fiction and strikingly consonant with key Darwinian ideas. Levine's boldly conceived analysis of such authors as Scott and Dickens demonstrates the pervasiveness and power of this revolution in thought and sheds new light on Victorian realism.

""Dying to Know" is the work of a distinguished scholar, at the peak of his powers, who is intimately familiar with his materials, and whose knowledge of Victorian fiction and scientific thought is remarkable. This elegant and evocative look at the move toward objectivity first pioneered by Descartes sheds new light on some old and still perplexing problems in modern science."--Bernard Lightman, York University, Canada
In "Dying to Know," eminent critic George Levine makes a landmark contribution to the history and theory of scientific knowledge. This long-awaited book explores the paradoxes of our modern ideal of objectivity, in particular its emphasis on the impersonality and disinterestedness of truth. How, asks Levine, did this idea of selfless knowledge come to be established and moralized in the nineteenth century?
Levine shows that for nineteenth-century scientists, novelists, poets, and philosophers, access to the truth depended on conditions of such profound self-abnegation that pursuit of it might be taken as tantamount to the pursuit of death. The Victorians, he argues, were dying to know in the sense that they could imagine achieving pure knowledge only in a condition where the body ceases to make its claims: to achieve enlightenment, virtue, and salvation, one must die.
"Dying to Know" is ultimately a study of this moral ideal of epistemology. But it is also something much more: a spirited defense of the difficult pursuit of objectivity, the ethical significance of sacrifice, and the importance of finding a shareable form of knowledge.