Background:
A century ago, prehistoric animals, especially dinosaurs and ocher Mesozoic saurian', were still regarded as scientific and pop-cultural novelties. This was also a time when controversy stirred the biological sciences, centering on the matter of organic evolution. Reflecting this scientific intrigue, writers of fantastic fiction contrived astounding stories set in primeval landscapes where fictional scientist heroes and other characters encountered pre-historic animals, creatures that were extinct everywhere else and became emblematic of the mysteries of evolution.
Although a fictional editor in Conan Doyle's The Lou World (1912) frets over where to send his reporter Edward Malone for a good news story, remarking, "The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, there's no room for romance anywhere." in actuality the earth's "lost" places are all around us. When it comes to dinosaur fiction, frozen places of the globe (i.e., the Arctic and Antarctica), uncharted volcanic islands, primeval jungles un-ravaged by modernity, the ocean deeps, Atlantis, the earth's hidden interior, and even North America's western wildernesses have all qualified in this context as "lost" places where dinosaurs and other prehistoric forms still lurk and roam. But what sets lost-world dinosaur fiction-which is inherently crypto-zoological in nature-apart from the other forms discussed in this book? In the most remarkable examples, we note inherent evolutionary or paleoanthropological themes.
As stated by cultural historian W.J.T. Mitchell, "Like beast fables of any kind, dinosaur stories are really about human beings. Either the dinosaurs must be treated as if they were human, or they must be brought into some kind of encounter with human beings as an alien, hostile life-form. Dinosaurs, in short, arc "us." or they are "not us."' Literary "lost worlds" aren't about dinosaurs but, in more ways than one, about us instead. Themes principally explored in such tales are evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology and the aura of lost races and civilizations. Dinosaurs and those intriguing other prehistoric animals are often cast as elaborate paleoprops accentuating the main themes.
FOR EVERY DINO BOOM there is a bust. By the thirties, America was deep in the Depression, and war was looming. Paleontology was in the doldrums, research at a standstill, and the dinosaur image began dispersing itself throughout popular culture, in monster movies, cartoon strips like Alky Oop, and the kitsch attractions of Sinclair Oil. Dinosaurology, as Gregory Paul notes. seemed itself to be an endangered species of scientific activity, surrounded by a "circus air" that drove away serious paleontologists (see chapter 4). The tort tines of dino-science seem to flourish in inverse relation to dinomania: when the scientific side is depressed, the pop' ular image seems to become even more inflate d and prolific. As the real dinosaur fades, the imaginary one comes to lift' in 'lost worlds" where it encounters human beings face to face.
"Lost world" fictions typically reinforce the neo-Darwinist, Osbornian mythology of Anglo- Saxon superiority Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912), for instance, tells the story of a young Irish journalist, seeking an adventure to win the love a young woman, who joins Brazilian expedition composed of an aristocratic big game hunter and two quarrelsome zoologists. Deep in the jungle, the expedition finds a plateau where time has been suspended and evolution stopped, where all the "links" in the' chain of vertebrate being, from dinosaurs to ape-men to Indians to Anglo-Saxons, reside in not-so-peaceful coexistence. In between hair-raising battles with the dinosaurs, the expedition forms an alliance with t 1w Indians against the ape-men, conducting a war of extermination.
Up to this point, I have looked at the activities of paleontologists and the beginnings of a dinosaur cultural mythology. A decisive stage in this process has its roots in the first two decades of the 20th century and owes its development to science fiction cinema and literature. Naturally, its origin is centered on the avalanche of direct and speculative information generated by the activity of Marsh and Cope, and, to a lesser extent, by the discoveries in Europe.
The year 1912 saw the publication of a work of literature that would have a great influence on the subsequent development of the myth The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). The subject of the lost world-the persistence in the present day of the fauna and flora of the remote past-in this novel by the creator of Sherlock Holmes has some precedents. In 1833, the Swiss draftsman Rodolphe Toepffer (1799-1846) published his novel Voyages et Aventures du Docteur Festus (Journeys and Adventures of Doctor Festus). In this tale, the main character is launched into space by means of a windmill and goes into orbit around the Earth. During his journey, Dr. Festus observes that the poles are pierced by an enormous hole, at the bottom of which can be seen the magma of the interior of the planet. The heat has allowed prairies to flourish around the hole, with their perimeters bounded by ice. These prairies arc inhabited by mammoths and mastodons.
Jules Verne's (1828-1905) Voyage au Centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth) appeared in 1864. The novel tells of the adventures of Professor Lindenbrock, who, with his nephew and an Icelandic guide, reached the center of the Earth by descending the crater of the Sneffels Volcano, and appeared on the surface once again through Stromboli (Sicily).
Answer the following after reading the book above.
Who are some of the early 20th-Century authors who helped to develop the idea of the 'Lost World'? One of the defining elements of the Lost World myth is that such worlds are realms where "time stands still." What does Sanz and Debus say this really means? How is it achieved? According to Sanz what Biblical story forms the basis of the Lost World myth as found in modern popular fiction? According to Mitchell, stories about Lost Worlds fundamentally support what kind of worldview? What story by French author Jules Verne serves as one of the earliest Lost World narratives? According to Debus two different versions of this story exist. What are these versions? What are the key differences between them? Sanz and Debus both mention the courtship rituals of cavemen in prehistoric fiction. What are they? Considering out discussions last week where do you suppose this idea originated from? How was Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs more responsible then any other writer for popularizing the idea of the Lost World? According to Debus, Burroughs had some "odd ideas" about how Darwinian evolution worked. What were these? According to Debus how did the decidedly non-prehistoric gorilla end up in the Lost World? What essential role does Mitchell see dinosaurs playing in the story of King Kong (1933)?