- Contents
- Why a “Romantic” Natural History?
- Backgrounds: From Aristotle to Erasmus Darwin
- The Anxiety of Species: Toward a Romantic Natural History
- The Loves of Plants and Animals: Romantic Science and the Pleasures of Nature
- Additional Topics in Romantic Natural History
- Darwin’s Evolution: A New Gallery of Images
- A Romantic Natural History Timeline: 1750-1859
- Natural Historians
- Spencer F. Baird
- Henry David Thoreau
- Charles Darwin
- Louis Agassiz
- John D. Godman
- Adam Sedgwick
- Geoffray St. Hilaire
- William Smith
- Georges Cuvier
- Alexander von Humboldt
- Benjamin Rush
- Jean Lamarck
- William Paley
- Thomas Jefferson
- William Bartram
- Joseph Priestley
- Erasmus Darwin
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Gilbert White
- George-Louis Buffon
- Carolus Linnaeus
- Literary Figures
- Letitia Landon
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- John Keats
- John Clare
- Felicia Hemans
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Lord Byron
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- William Wordsworth
- Ann Radcliffe
- Robert Burns
- William Blake
- Charlotte Smith
- Anna Laetitia Barbauld
- William Cowper
- Thomas Warton
- Christopher Smart
- Thomas Gray
- Thomas Beddoes
- James Thomson
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Robert Browning
- John Dyer
- Topics
- Temple of Nature (1803)
- Dorothy Wordsworth
- Fossils
- Geologist Poets
- Rhinos, Crocs and other Monsters
- Global Exploration
- Amphibious Thinking
- Poetry Lab with Dr. Frankenstein
- Galvani’s Electric Romanticism
- Frog Fish from Surinam
- Boundary between Plant and Animal
- Mimosa: The Sensitive Plant
- The Venus Fly Trap and the Great Chain of Being
- Humans as a species of Animal
- Monkeys, Men and Apes
- Jardine’s Natural History of Monkeys
- Human Monsters and Reproductive Mysteries
- Human Taxonomy
- Goldsmith’s History of Earth and Animated Nature
- Erasmus Darwin and the Frankenstein Mistake
- James King Davidson’s Journal
- Zoos as a 19th Century Spectacle
- Mammoths and Mastodons
- Fontana on the Venom of the Viper
- Celestial Bodies
- Coleridge on Plants and Animals
- Baird Report as Curator of Museum
- Artists & Illustrators
- Bibliography
- Tags
(Male Narwal, or Unicorn, 1828)
I. Why a “Romantic” Natural History?
II. Backgrounds: From Aristotle to Erasmus Darwin
III. The Anxiety of Species: Toward a Romantic Natural History
IV. Romantic Science and the Pleasures of Nature
V. Additional Topics in Romantic Natural History
VI. A Romantic Natural History Timeline: 1750-1859
VII. Darwin’s Evolution: A New Gallery of Images
VIII. Natural Historians:
(The Temple of Nature, 1803)
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-78), George-Louis Buffon (1707-88),
Gilbert White (1720-93)
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802),
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)
William Bartram (1739-1823), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
William Paley (1743-1805)
Jean Lamarck (1744-1829), Benjamin Rush (1746-1813),
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), William Smith (1769-1839),
Geoffray St. Hilaire (1772-1844)
Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), John D. Godman (1794-1830)
Louis Agassiz (1807-73)
Charles Darwin (1809-82), Henry David Thoreau (1817-62),
Spencer F. Baird (1823-87)
XIX. Literary Figures:
(“The Fertilization of Egypt,” 1791)
James Thomson (1700-48), John Dyer (1700-58),
Thomas Gray (1716-71)
Christopher Smart (1722-71), Thomas Warton (1728-90),
William Cowper (1731-1800)
Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), Charlotte Smith (1749-1806),
William Blake (1757-1827)
Robert Burns (1759-96), Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823),
William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Lord Byron (1788-1824),
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822),
Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), John Clare (1793-1864)
John Keats (1795-1821),
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), Letitia Landon (1802-38)
Thomas Beddoes (1803-49),
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), Robert Browning (1812-89)
X. Artists and Illustrators:
(Nightingale, Bewick, 1797)
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-92), Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)
Thomas Bewick (1753-1828),
Rubens Peale (1784-1865), John James Audubon (1785-1851),
Titian Peale (1799-1885)
XI. A Romantic Natural History Bibliography
(8/2011: Updated Regularly)
Houghton Mifflin has published a teaching anthology
based on the Romantic Natural History hypertext
Click cover image to purchase a paperback copy of Romantic Natural Histories (2004)
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