Abstract
The term “degeneration” denotes reversion to a state of lesser complexity on the part of an individual, species, society, or nation. In late Victorian Britain, degeneration theory was used to describe and diagnose real or perceived economic, social, and cultural crises, and to warn against the possibility of widespread, catastrophic decline on the part of the nation, its people, and its empire. Models of degenerate pathology articulated in such human sciences as evolutionary biology, psychology, criminology, and sexology were borrowed and reworked by political analysts and cultural critics, all serving to inform representations of degeneration and degenerate types in late Victorian literature.
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