Romantic science : the literary forms of natural history / Noah Heringman, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Heringman, Noah.

Series:

SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Nature in literature.

Literature and science--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and science.

Great Britain.

History.

Natural history in literature.

Physical Description:

xiii, 281 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2003]

Summary:

Although "romantic science" may sound like a paradox, much of the romance surrounding modern science -- the mad scientist, the intuitive genius, the utopian transformation of nature -- originated in the Romantic period. Romantic Science traces the literary and cultural politics surrounding the formation of the modern scientific disciplines emerging from eighteenth-century natural history. Revealing how scientific concerns were literary concerns in the Romantic period, the contributors uncover the vital role that new discoveries in earth, plant, and animal sciences played in the period's literary culture. Furthermore, as they examine the social and literary ramifications of a particular branch or object of natural history, they historicize our present intellectual landscape by reimagining and redrawing the disciplinary boundaries between literature and science.

Contents:

Introduction: The Commerce of Literature and Natural History / Noah Heringman 1

Part I The Boundaries of Natural History

Chapter 1 "Twin Labourers and Heirs of the Same Hopes": The Professional Rivalry of Humphry Davy and William Wordsworth / Catherine E. Ross 23

Chapter 2 The Rock Record and Romantic Narratives of the Earth / Noah Heringman 53

Chapter 3 "Great Frosts and ... Some Very Hot Summers": Strange Weather, the Last Letters, and the Last Days in Gilbert White's The Natural History of Selborne / Stuart Peterfreund 85

Part II The Global Reach of Natural History

Chapter 4 Jefferson's Thermometer: Colonial Biogeographical Constructions of the Climate of America / Alan Bewell 111

Chapter 5 Robinson Crusoe's Earthenware Pot: Science, Aesthetics, and the Metaphysics of True Porcelain / Lydia H. Liu 139

Chapter 6 Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the "Yellow Peril" / Anne K. Mellor 173

Part III Botany, Taxonomy, and Political Discourse

Chapter 7 Lyrical Strategies, Didactic Intent: Reading the Kitchen Garden Manual / Rachel Crawford 199

Chapter 8 Romantic Exemplarity: Botany and "Material" Culture / Theresa M. Kelley 223

Chapter 9 Taxonomical Cures: The Politics of Natural History and Herbalist Medicine in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton / Amy Mae King 255.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0791457028

079145701X

OCLC:

51040651