| Wordsworth and the Geologists Contributor(s): Wyatt, John F. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0521472598 ISBN-13: 9780521472593 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $114.00 Product Type: Hardcover Published: January 1996 Annotation: Examination of the links between science and literary history is providing new insight for scholars across a range of disciplines. In Wordsworth and the Geologists John Wyatt explores the hitherto unexamined relationship between a major Romantic poet and a group of scientists in the formative years of a new discipline, geology. Wordsworth's later poems and prose display unexpected knowledge of contemporary geology and a preoccupation with many of the philosophical issues concerned with the developing science of geology. Letters and diaries of a group of leading geologists reveal that they knew Wordsworth, and discussed their subject with him. Wyatt shows how the implications of such discussions challenge the simplistic version of 'two cultures', the Romantic-literary against the scientific materialistic; and he reminds us of the variety of interrelating discourses current between 1807 (the year of the foundation of the Geological Society of London) and 1850 (the year of Wordsworth's death). |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Poetry | European - English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
| Dewey: 821.7 |
| LCCN: 95007149 |
| Series: Cambridge Studies in Romanticism (Hardcover) |
| Physical Information: 0.81" H x 6.15" W x 9.18" (1.16 lbs) 284 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Examination of the relationship between science and literary history is providing valuable new insights for scholars across a range of disciplines. In this text John Wyatt explores the unexpectedly close relationship between a major Romantic poet and a group of scientists in the formative years of a new discipline, geology. Wordsworth's later poems display extensive knowledge of geology and a preoccupation with philosophical issues concerned with the developing science of geology. Letters and diaries of leading geologists of the time reveal that they knew, and discussed their subject with, Wordsworth. Wyatt's study challenges the simplistic version of two cultures, the Romantic-literary against the scientific-materialistic, and aims to remind us of the variety of interrelating discourses current between 1807 (the year of the foundation of the Geological Society of London) and 1850 (the year of Wordsworth's death). |