The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy: On All Sides Infinity

by Kenneth A. Loparo

Overview

In the nineteenth century the beauty of the night sky is the source of both imaginative wonder in poetry and political and commercial power through navigation. The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy examines the impact of astronomical discovery and imperial exploration on poets including Barbauld, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Rossetti.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137474346
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	12/11/2015
Series:	Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	203
File size:	911 KB

About the Author

Dometa Brothers is an Assistant Professor of British Literature at Iowa State University. She has published articles and book chapters on Romantic poetry and the history of science and mathematics, ecosemiotics, and travel writing.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The First International Event and the First 'New' Planet: Expanding the Globe and Confronting Infinity 2. Barbauld: 'Embryo Systems and Unkindled Suns' 3. Coleridge: Herschel, and Cosmogonical Time 4. John Herschel and Mary Somerville: Astronomical Legacy and the Proprietary British Scientist 5. Astronomy and Empire: The Pathos of Demystification in Lamia and The Witch of Atlas 6. Rossetti: Reconciliation and Recursivity Conclusion Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

Informative and engaging, written throughout in a lucid style, and persuasive in its recovery of the contours of astronomical debate in the period, this book undoubtedly adds to our understanding of the place of astronomy in the cultural history of the romantic period and of the processes by which the modern scientific disciplines began to develop out of eighteenth-century ‘natural philosophy.’” (Cian Duffy, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 48 (1), February, 2017)

From the Publisher