Gillian Beer
Thu 19 Feb 2015
Dr Gillian Beer, one of the world's great literary scholars and author of Darwin's Plot discusses the links between Darwin and Lewis Carroll. Classifying allows us to make comparisons and uncover relationships. From parlour games to epidemiology, people try to find stable patterns and to keep them steady. But in the 19th century evolutionary theory emphasized change and diversity and made people anxiously aware that no description could be permanent. In Carroll’s Alice books the creatures are as puzzled by Alice as she is by them.
Repeatedly she is asked not just who she is but what she is...
