‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’
This essay explores the vestigial influence of natural theology, and its discourse of divine design, on H. G. Wells’s fictions of technology. In Natural Theology (1802), an influential text in this spiritual tradition, William Paley envisions a natural world of analogical clocks, which persuade and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2018-06-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/cve/3452 |
| _version_ | 1811339369755181056 |
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| author | Tamara Ketabgian |
| author_facet | Tamara Ketabgian |
| author_sort | Tamara Ketabgian |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This essay explores the vestigial influence of natural theology, and its discourse of divine design, on H. G. Wells’s fictions of technology. In Natural Theology (1802), an influential text in this spiritual tradition, William Paley envisions a natural world of analogical clocks, which persuade and appeal to viewers through an immersive encounter with material artistry and skill. Although Paley’s star faded in the later nineteenth century, his discourse persists in alternate, technophilic forms—in what Wells calls the technological ‘patter’ of his own science fiction. Wells ironizes and aestheticizes these mechanical models of belief, both in his eponymous ‘time machine’ (1894–95) and in ‘The Lord of the Dynamos’ (1894), which restages Paley’s analogy with a ‘savage’ worshipping the industrial engine. Seeking, above all, to feel the machine, these two works portray communities of intense spiritual affect, supported through sound, sight, and touch. Yet, while The Time Machine offers us fantastical devices that we must take on faith, ‘The Lord’ reads theistic humanism unsparingly against itself, through acoustic bonds that join people and things within an industrial power station. Exposing the freighted colonial subtext of natural theology, Wells anatomizes the modern worship of machinery, comparing the metropolitan British viewers of engines to naïve primitives in their own right. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T18:25:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5b27533117b0492fbb0e82d9916c9252 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T18:25:34Z |
| publishDate | 2018-06-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| spelling | doaj.art-5b27533117b0492fbb0e82d9916c92522022-12-22T02:35:16ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492018-06-018710.4000/cve.3452‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’Tamara KetabgianThis essay explores the vestigial influence of natural theology, and its discourse of divine design, on H. G. Wells’s fictions of technology. In Natural Theology (1802), an influential text in this spiritual tradition, William Paley envisions a natural world of analogical clocks, which persuade and appeal to viewers through an immersive encounter with material artistry and skill. Although Paley’s star faded in the later nineteenth century, his discourse persists in alternate, technophilic forms—in what Wells calls the technological ‘patter’ of his own science fiction. Wells ironizes and aestheticizes these mechanical models of belief, both in his eponymous ‘time machine’ (1894–95) and in ‘The Lord of the Dynamos’ (1894), which restages Paley’s analogy with a ‘savage’ worshipping the industrial engine. Seeking, above all, to feel the machine, these two works portray communities of intense spiritual affect, supported through sound, sight, and touch. Yet, while The Time Machine offers us fantastical devices that we must take on faith, ‘The Lord’ reads theistic humanism unsparingly against itself, through acoustic bonds that join people and things within an industrial power station. Exposing the freighted colonial subtext of natural theology, Wells anatomizes the modern worship of machinery, comparing the metropolitan British viewers of engines to naïve primitives in their own right.http://journals.openedition.org/cve/3452Wells (H. G.)The Time Machine‘The Lord of the Dynamos’Paley (William)natural theologyargument from design |
| spellingShingle | Tamara Ketabgian ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens Wells (H. G.) The Time Machine ‘The Lord of the Dynamos’ Paley (William) natural theology argument from design |
| title | ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ |
| title_full | ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ |
| title_fullStr | ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ |
| title_short | ‘Savages’ and Spiritual Engines: Feeling the Machine in H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and ‘Lord of the Dynamos’ |
| title_sort | savages and spiritual engines feeling the machine in h g wells s time machine and lord of the dynamos |
| topic | Wells (H. G.) The Time Machine ‘The Lord of the Dynamos’ Paley (William) natural theology argument from design |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/cve/3452 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tamaraketabgian savagesandspiritualenginesfeelingthemachineinhgwellsstimemachineandlordofthedynamos |