The Agricultural Climax and Darwin's Evolutionary Rhetoric

This dissertation explores Charles Darwin’s encounter with an increasingly modern style of English agricultural rhetoric that emerged in the late 1700’s, analyzing how figurative language in those texts helped Darwin articulate his theory of natural selection. It argues that agricultural depictions of cultural change and biological power were essential to Darwin’s logical argument in The Origin of Species, and specifically that two stylistic tropes used by agricultural writers and artists, incrementum and metonymy, also enabled Darwin to reconceive the causal relationship between environments and organisms. While bringing attention to these agricultural dimensions of Darwin’s rhetoric, this dissertation simultaneously participates in recent conversations about the performativity of stylistic rhetoric, challenging the conception of style as extraneous to scientific discovery and invention.Doctor of Philosoph