Wordsworth and the geologists
By: John Wyatt.
Series: Cambridge studies in Romanticism ;; 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 268
Subjects: Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 -- Knowledge -- Earth sciences.; Literature and science -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) -- History -- 19th century.; Earth sciences -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Geology -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Earth sciences in literature.; Geology in literature.; Romanticism -- England.
Description: 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).
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 251-264) and index.