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RESEARCH PRODUCT
‘Happy amicable co-operation’: mutual aid, anarchism and the image of the bee in the work of Louisa Sarah Bevington
Wolfgang Funksubject
LiteratureLinguistics and LanguageCultural historyLiterature and Literary Theorybusiness.industrymedia_common.quotation_subject05 social sciences0507 social and economic geographyStruggle for existenceContext (language use)06 humanities and the arts060202 literary studies050701 cultural studiesLanguage and LinguisticsPoliticsAesthetics0602 languages and literatureSympathySociologyEvolutionismMutual aidbusinessSocial Darwinismmedia_commondescription
AbstractThe poet and political activist Louisa Sarah Bevington has been largely ignored in accounts of late Victorian literary and cultural history, even though her work presents a singular nexus of scientific, socio-cultural and poetical perspectives. This essay will show how Bevington juxtaposes Social Darwinist interpretations of the theory of evolution, which foreground the idea of human life as a struggle for existence, with the anarcho-communist view proposed by Peter Kropotkin, which foregrounds the human capacity for sympathy and mutual aid as the driving forces in social development. After situating Kropotkin’s ideas within the larger context of anarchist and evolutionist thinking, the article illustrates central aspects of his scientific and political agenda in Bevington’s essays, pamphlets and poems. The essay pays particular attention to the images of the bee and beehive, which function as symbols for an idealised version of anarchist society.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-01-02 | European Journal of English Studies |