In his series of lectures, Charlton admits that as a historian, he is an anomaly among the philosophers and theologians before him. The principal concern of his work is the multiplicity of meaning of the term ‘natural’. New perceptions of nature have led to a shift in the way nature is perceived, and it is these new understandings that Charlton examines. Focusing on French examples, he summarises modern assumptions about humankind and nature.
Donald Geoffrey Charlton was born on 8 April 1925 in Bolton, England. A scholar of French literature, his multidisciplinary volume, France: A Companion to French Studies (1972), was the standard book of reference for many years. In 1949, he was appointed Assistant Lecturer at the University College of Hull, and in 1963, became Professor of French at the University of Warwick. He spent a year at the University of Toronto and often travelled to the US to lecture, visiting Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, and Brown. He retired from Warwick in 1984.
A skilled administrator, he served as Member of the National Council of Languages in Further and Higher Education and the Committee for the Association of University Professors of French. Charlton was elected President of the Society for French Studies in 1988 and on the editorial board of European Studies Review, Journal of European Studies, and Parnasse. Notable works include Positivist Thought in France During the Second Empire (1959), Secular Religions in France 1815–1870 (1963), Companion Guide to French Studies (1972), and The French Romantics (1984).
