Bridging the gap between «The Two Cultures»: Il medico che si fa autore e personaggio nella narrativa di A : Bridging the gap between «The Two Cultures»: Doctors as authors and characters in A.J. Cronin’s fiction (1896-1981)
In: LedizioniOpenAIRE; (2012)
Online
E-Book
- 173-184
Zugriff:
In his Rede Lecture on The Two Cultures (University of Cambridge, 1959), the scientist and novelist C.P. Snow denounced the «sheer loss» caused by the polarization of sciences and humanities in twentieth-century western society. For Snow, the academic system is responsible for both the difficulty to train a modern and adequately skilled ruling class and the lack of a place where both cultures may meet and cross-fertilize each other. Already in the nineteenth century, however, English fiction seems to have attempted to bridge this gap and reconcile scientific progress and mainstream culture. In the 1930s, the debate concerning the efficiency and the costs of the healthcare system, and the project of the National Health Service in Great Britain drew the attention of the public to medicine as a branch of science having a tangible impact on everyday life. Such aspects are investigated in the fiction of a number of physician writers. This essay focuses on Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981) and his bestselling novel The Citadel (1937), which contributed to the coeval debate on the foundation of the nhs, while Cronin’s last work, Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae (1978), portrays a ‘postmodern’ healthcare provider who recognizes the importance of both scientific knowledge and public aid. The essay explores the works of Cronin as one of those physicians who, by becoming literary authors, popularized medical fiction as a genre. Its focus lies on the portrayal of doctors who, by acknowledging the importance of professional ethics, depart from the Faustian cliché of the scientist and provide a place where ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ sciences meet.
Titel: |
Bridging the gap between «The Two Cultures»: Il medico che si fa autore e personaggio nella narrativa di A : Bridging the gap between «The Two Cultures»: Doctors as authors and characters in A.J. Cronin’s fiction (1896-1981)
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Canani, Marco |
Link: | |
Quelle: | LedizioniOpenAIRE; (2012) |
Veröffentlichung: | Ledizioni, 2012-01-01., 2012 |
Medientyp: | E-Book |
Umfang: | 173-184 |
ISBN: | 978-88-6705-356-8 (print) ; 978-88-6705-207-3 (print) |
DOI: | 10.4000/books.ledizioni.528 |
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