Immanent Evolution

Questions of evolution are raised in both literary and biological theory. Biological transformism as a theory emerged at the turn of the nineteenth century against a background of religious orthodoxy, which endorsed fixism (stable types) and preformationism. Proposals of change and epigenesis (material transformation) were considered radical at the time. Homological series and unity of composition were instrumental to the eventual acceptance of evolution. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that a vital materialism drove a progressive change from simple to complex organisms, and Ernst Haeckel developed a panvitalist account that also endorsed orthogenesis. In common with Darwinian models, literary formalism eschews the notion of a progressive evolution of literature, an effect of historical or socio-political movements, whether Marxist or neo-liberalist. However, nor do formalists subscribe to evolution as a chance event: formalists (in Russia and Prague) proposed evolution occurs due to an immanent rearrangement of previous structures, rather than by the introduction of new elements. Literary evolution is proposed to be radically transformational, resulting in sudden change, whereby a constructive principle assumes dominance, causing deformation in the literary structure. Therefore, rather than being gradualist, literary changes are dynamic, introducing tension to the system. These models are based on a revised version of Saussure’s langue that incorporates diachronicity into a dynamic system. In the field of biology, structuralists proposes that change occurs by an immanent transformation. This is neither progressivist nor the result of chance (genetic mutations) as old (atavistic) forms can be resurrected.