This publication explores “Discoveries“ and their implications as a central idea and motif in Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle's early 'science fiction'- novel the “The Lost World”. From the vantage point of cultural history, it endeavors to understand the narrated (and often characteristic) positions on scientific knowledge, the idea of progress, as well as its attitudes towards Nature and initially foreign parts of the world.
The present text is based on a Proseminar Paper in English
Literature and Culture, completed as part of my studies at Passau
University (Bavaria). In some ways, it sequels my work on “Sherlock Holmes”
and supplements my interpretation of Conan- Doyle's fictional realms.
Please note that this paper was originally written in English as a foreign, but cherished, language. The accompanying German version was composed exclusively for this online publication and may not always convey every single point as precisely as the prior formulation in English does. It also preserves the closest obtainable links to the original novel. By adding a version in my mother tongue, I hope to address a wider range of people and to contribute to the still too rare detailed material on the subject in German.
If you want to use extracts from the material displayed here, kindly respect the positions of all authors concerned and quote in an adequate manner. Regulations aside, I’m looking forward to constructive dialogs on the topic.
The e-text rests on careful academic research It is by no means intended to forestall the reader’s independent interpretations of the narrative nor to spoil his personal impressions. Rather, I’d like to encourage a historically informed, more alert reading of the text, encouraging a critical distance from stereotypical notions the zeitgeist might suggest at various historical moments.