Tag Archives: plants
Coleridge on Plants and Animals in Anima Poetae
Love, a myrtle wand, is transformed by the Aaron touch of jealousy into a serpent so vast as to swallow up every other stinging woe and make us mourn the exchange. (1) Human happiness, like the aloe, is a flower … Continue reading
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Tagged animals, bird, Coleridge, Darwin, gnat, natural history, plants
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Oliver Goldsmith’s History of the Earth and Animated Nature
Engravings like these posed problems for the theory of separate creation for at least two reasons. They suggested that biological flora and fauna were much more diverse and widespread than had been previously imagined, and they pointed out remarkable similarities … Continue reading
The Venus Fly-trap and the Great Chain of Being
The Venus fly-trap caused serious problems for the traditional theory of the Great Chain of Being. The idea of the Great Chain suggested that all of creation was arranged in a rigidly hierarchical system, with God at the top and … Continue reading
Polypus (hydra) and the boundary between plant and animal
The polypus, or hydra, generated much comment among natural historians because of its apparent existence on the boundary between plant and animal species, because of its unique reproductive behavior, and because of the forms of “sensation” it seemed to manifest. … Continue reading
Additional Topics in Romantic Natural History
Amphibious Thinking The Anxiety of Species: Toward a Romantic Natural History Defining “Life”and “Death” Global Exploration and New Forms of Nature Erasmus Darwin and the Frankenstein Mistake Extinction as Metaphor The Frog-Fish of Surinam Geologist-Poets and Poet-Geologists Human “Monsters” and … Continue reading
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Tagged animals, literature, natural history, plants, science
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The Loves of Plants and Animals: Romantic Science and the Pleasures of Nature
[first published in “Romanticism and Ecology,” Romantic Circles Praxis Series (November 2001) [O]ur intellectual sympathies [rest] with . . . the miseries, or with the joys, of our fellow creatures. – Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia (1794) When Wordsworth notes his faith … Continue reading
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, was born near Nottingham on December 12, 1731. He was educated at Cambridge and Edinburgh and settled first near Lichfield and later at Derby. A remarkable polymath, he became a best selling poet during … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Historians
Tagged Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Frankenstein, plants, poetry, science, sexuality
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John Clare
John Clare (1793-1864) is often considered to be the quintessential nature poet of the Romantic era. He was acclaimed as a “nature poet” from the time his first volume, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, appeared in 1820. Unlike Robert … Continue reading
Posted in Literary Figures
Tagged animals, natural history, plants, poetry
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