The Last of the Race: The Growth of a Myth from Milton to Darwin

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1 Oxford Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 22 items for: keywords : Teaching career litsev litmyt The Last of the Race: The Growth of a Myth from Milton to Darwin Item type: book acprof:oso/ This book describes and analyses the enduring interest in the last of the race through investigation into different treatments by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers. The analysis is influenced by both literary expressions and extensive reading of the historical accounts, diaries, and newspaper reports of individuals who have represented the last of their kind. Fictional and real-life accounts of last men and women were compared and found to be enlightening. The biography of Pu Yi or the history of St Kilda may also help explain novels, such as The Last Man by Mary Shelley, and provide insights into the psychology of the sole survivor and the social significance of the unique symbols. More insights into a literary figure, such as James Macpherson's Ossian (the last of Fingal's race), could be derived from the Reminiscences of Michael O'Guiheen (the last poet of the Great Blasket Island) more so than from a lot of academic woks. This literature presents an excellent example of the now unclear boundaries between fact and fiction, since the author's recollections of the Great Blasket Island community are interspersed with literary allusions to the Oisin of Irish legend. The growth of the last of the race is traced in this book from the Restoration period, when traditional Christian views of human destiny started to diminish, to the late 19th century, when new racial ending patterns had arisen following evolutionary and thermodynamic theories. New Ideas of Race: The Last of the Mohicans acprof:oso/ Page 1 of 6

2 James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans (1826), is an important expression of the myth of the last of the race not merely for its popularity or influence, but because it was the first novel to illustrate the modern concept of race as a divisive issue. The extinction of the Mohicans was conveyed in the novel as a consequence of white settlement; Cooper was expecting a new scientific theory that would greatly impact on nineteenth-century thought: uniformitarianism. In the novel, there is no Apocalypse, since only one race ends; there is also no suggestion of redemption in the ending or the last becoming the first. The Last of the Mohicans was also the first novel to tackle the modern tragedy of extinction, and the emergence and subsequent popularity of a new collective experience is manifested by the its immediate success. Edward Bulwer and the Terror of History acprof:oso/ This article focuses on Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer's works on the myth of the last of the race, including the (at least) four historical novels he wrote specifically about the myth between 1834 and 1848, as well as several of his works in which it was dealt with at a lesser but significant extent. Bulwer's historical novels all linger on the image of a falling race, such as the Romans, the Saxons, the Egyptians, and feudal Britain's barons. The demise of the old in Bulwer's works is not always treated as tragic, but its impact on the last members is not at all happy as they are doomed to vanish with their kind. Bulwer held onto his positive attitude towards the future and his defences against the Terror of History. The Last Chapter: After Darwin acprof:oso/ Different revolutionary ideas had already been published about the myth of the last of the race by 1859, but it was Charles Darwin who produced Page 2 of 6

3 a theory sufficiently effective to destroy the old orthodoxies with his On the Origin of Species, which brought about the death of Adam. Darwin's law of evolution greatly inverts the traditional attitudes towards vanishing races. His subtitle The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life implies the concept of extinction of unfavoured races, which is at the core of the myth's ambiguities. Darwin's theory of evolution emphasized advancement. The vanishing of a race signifies the victory of a stronger form, while every new species indicates a higher development stage. Introduction acprof:oso/ This book analyses the long-lasting interest in the last of the race, focusing on literary expressions and taking into account the contents of diaries, historical accounts, and newspaper reports about those known to be the last of their race, or the sole survivor. The different treatments made by writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are examined. The author refers to the last of the race as myth, owing to the lack of other sufficiently fluid and all-encompassing terms. The phrase consists of contradictory ideas, and the terms idea and theme seem inadequate. Some of the works in this book are not mythic, owing to the entry of the story or characters into popular culture and their achieving a life that is independent of the original texts. All the works here, however, have made a contribution to the collective myth of the last of the race. Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored : Milton and the Universal Rack acprof:oso/ John Milton's great poem on the creation of mankind entitled Paradise Lost (1667) is discussed in an attempt to start an investigation into the Page 3 of 6

4 last-of-the-race myth. Milton's efforts to revive an unfallen world shows knowledge of the limitations of seventeenth-century Britain and his own concept of distance from God's human prototype. With the importance of the figure of Adam in this study, Paradise Lost is a key text, it being the myth of Eden's most influential modern illustration. Predictions of the modern myth of the last of the race can be recognized in Milton's orthodox account of Adam, the first man. Milton allows his readers to explore world history towards the last part of the poem, through Archangel Michael's revelation of his vision to Adam. The First Last Man? Thomas Burnet and the Revolution in Time acprof:oso/ This chapter examines Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth, an influential account of the earth's history based on the text of the Bible, published in the seventeenth century. In The Sacred Theory, Burnet, who considers himself among the first last men, articulates the myth of the last of the race in its most extreme form; yet, his text contains all the major factors that were to bring about the myth's development: the diminishing apocalyptic convictions, the tension between individual and communal attitudes, and the concept of linear time. The Sacred Theory is a manifestation of traditional beliefs and among the first futuristic fictions. Burnet's creation of the Sacred Theory was seen to be taking over God's role as Author while also underscoring the scriptural history's fictional aspect. Towards the Last of the Race: Robinson Crusoe as Sole Survivor acprof:oso/ Daniel Defoe's explorations of individualism in Robinson Crusoe, the narrative of a single man who lives alone for years on a remote island off the South American coast, has made the narration obvious material for twentieth-century readers interested in seventeeth-century Page 4 of 6

5 individualism, both in the economic and spiritual aspects. With the emerging emphasis on colonialism, familial patterns, and national consciousness, focus has been shifting more to the influence of the lost race, with which the solitary hero must not be defined. Defoe also explores the relationships between the lonely narrator, his family, and his native culture. Crusoe is an important forerunner of the last of the race owing to his prolonged experience of total isolation. The Last Bards acprof:oso/ This chapter discusses the mythic power of the last bards, focusing on works such as James Macpherson's translations of Ossian (1760 3); Thomas Gray's The Bard (1757); and Oliver Goldsmith's The History of Carolan, the Last Irish Bard (1760). The myth is said to have worked both to free the modern world from the past and to recover some of the already-lost genius. Gray and Macpherson turned away from neoclassicism's constricting rules and created a new kind of literature by experimenting with ancient forms. Their new emphasis on wild scenery and their use of simple imagery and irregular verse paved the way to the Romantic movement. Goldsmith's emphasis on the bard's social relevance suggests that the death of Carolan, claimed as the last and the greatest bard, also marked the death of a poetic tradition and the life that had survived for centuries without alteration. Shortliv'd as foliage is the race of man : The Last of the Race and the Natural World acprof:oso/ The development of the last of the race figure in rural literature is said to have been brought about by the new consciousness of change and loss. In poems such as William Shenstone's The School-Mistress and Thomas Gray's Elegy, a traditional agricultural community being viewed Page 5 of 6

6 as a disappearing race is implied, although in Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, rural depopulation, or the entire community vanishing leaving only a single survivor, is perceived as historical fact. The general acceptance of extinction is also said to have resulted from the obsession with natural history in the eighteenth century. It is unavoidable for the concept of life to lead to the idea of death, either individually or for the whole. The last of the race is an inevitable occurrence in this organic universe. Page 6 of 6