Keith Thomson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300203677
- eISBN:
- 9780300213409
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300203677.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter recounts how geologists and philologists began rewriting the early story of the earth by the time of Jefferson's death in 1826. This new generation of intellectuals challenged two ...
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This chapter recounts how geologists and philologists began rewriting the early story of the earth by the time of Jefferson's death in 1826. This new generation of intellectuals challenged two primary notions: first, that the first verse of Genesis did not describe a single day but an unknowably long period during which the Creation took place; second, that the “days” of Creation were not actual days but figurative ones, each a long period. For centuries, both theologians and scientists have tried to answer the question of the earth's age and origin, the former by decoding the first chapter of Genesis, and the latter by looking at fossil records. Thomas Chalmers, a minister and mathematician, succeeded in bringing these ideas together in what he called the Gap Theory, which offered a place where theology and science could fit together, with science rescuing religion from the growing doubts about the age of the earth.Less
This chapter recounts how geologists and philologists began rewriting the early story of the earth by the time of Jefferson's death in 1826. This new generation of intellectuals challenged two primary notions: first, that the first verse of Genesis did not describe a single day but an unknowably long period during which the Creation took place; second, that the “days” of Creation were not actual days but figurative ones, each a long period. For centuries, both theologians and scientists have tried to answer the question of the earth's age and origin, the former by decoding the first chapter of Genesis, and the latter by looking at fossil records. Thomas Chalmers, a minister and mathematician, succeeded in bringing these ideas together in what he called the Gap Theory, which offered a place where theology and science could fit together, with science rescuing religion from the growing doubts about the age of the earth.
Peter Wright
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780853238188
- eISBN:
- 9781846312618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853238188.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Focussing on Wolfe's use of eclectic and archaic vocabulary and nomenclature throughout The Urth Cycle, this chapter argues that such diction establishes a shifting kaleidoscope of adumbration and ...
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Focussing on Wolfe's use of eclectic and archaic vocabulary and nomenclature throughout The Urth Cycle, this chapter argues that such diction establishes a shifting kaleidoscope of adumbration and revelation that confronts the reader with the problem of determining when Wolfe's vocabulary serves to reveal and develop the texts’ themes and when it functions deflectively. It explores how Wolfe's replacement of sf's more usual neologistic experimentation with archaic reappropriations functions analogically, allusively, and thematically. Drawing on the work of Barthes and Iser, the chapter acknowledges that The Urth Cycle appears to be a writerly text par excellence yet rejects this easy conclusion by arguing that the texts’ obscure diction in an explosive textual strategy that leads the reader further from the reality of the narrative's cosmological structure and the god-game played by the Hierogrammates. It argues for a ‘literal’, or ‘vulgar’ (in Shoshana Felman's terms), reading of the texts’ obscure diction rather than an embracing of its discursive effects. It concludes by emphasising that the agents in Wolfe's storyworld act in context, in harmony with their own nature, regardless of their name or title.Less
Focussing on Wolfe's use of eclectic and archaic vocabulary and nomenclature throughout The Urth Cycle, this chapter argues that such diction establishes a shifting kaleidoscope of adumbration and revelation that confronts the reader with the problem of determining when Wolfe's vocabulary serves to reveal and develop the texts’ themes and when it functions deflectively. It explores how Wolfe's replacement of sf's more usual neologistic experimentation with archaic reappropriations functions analogically, allusively, and thematically. Drawing on the work of Barthes and Iser, the chapter acknowledges that The Urth Cycle appears to be a writerly text par excellence yet rejects this easy conclusion by arguing that the texts’ obscure diction in an explosive textual strategy that leads the reader further from the reality of the narrative's cosmological structure and the god-game played by the Hierogrammates. It argues for a ‘literal’, or ‘vulgar’ (in Shoshana Felman's terms), reading of the texts’ obscure diction rather than an embracing of its discursive effects. It concludes by emphasising that the agents in Wolfe's storyworld act in context, in harmony with their own nature, regardless of their name or title.
