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A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details The Victorian Poetic Imagination and Astronomy: Tennyson, De Quincey, Hopkins and Hardy Gillian Jane Daw Doctor of Philosophy English Literature University of Sussex September 2011 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX GILLIAN JANE DAW DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ENGLISH LITERATURE THE VICTORIAN POETIC IMAGINATION AND ASTRONOMY: TENNYSON, DE QUINCEY, HOPKINS AND HARDY SUMMARY This thesis investigates the effect of astronomy on the Victorian poetic imagination. It centres on four writers of the period: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas De Quincey, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Hardy. To date this subject has received surprisingly little critical focus. This study redresses this lack, by revealing how these writers engaged creatively with the possibilities and limitations of contemporary astronomical science and its technologies. It argues that astronomy gave all four writers important metaphors and analogies, enabling them to project a sense of self-discovery in their writing. It shows how their interest in scientific texts, their association with prominent astronomers of the period, and their own astronomical observations, had a profound effect on their creative imagination. This thesis uses their texts, personal diaries, notebooks, letters and library collections to reveal their interest in the science of astronomy. Likewise, it researches the astronomical texts they studied, including those of the leading scientists of the day such as John Frederick William Herschel, John Pringle Nichol and Richard Anthony Proctor. The argument places Tennyson, De Quincey, Hopkins and Hardy’s interest in astronomy within the period’s cultural fascination with the science, and establishes them as both consumers and producers of astronomical knowledge. Each of the writers studied avidly watched the night sky through the telescopes he owned, had access to, or by the naked eye. Important to this enquiry, is a discussion of the optical technology of the telescope as a transparent framing and mirroring device, and how its use results in intense and visionary experiences in the work of these writers. This study crosses the traditional divides of science and literature, to show how these four writers achieved a synthesis of scientific and poetic thought in their writing. I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature .... G J Daw 1 For Geoff, Naomi and James 2 Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another (Plato, The Republic) From the multitudinous observations of the astronomer on his tower, __ spring truths which the philosopher employs to interpret nature’s mysteries, and which give to the soul of the poet those realities to which he aspires in his high imaginings (Robert Hunt, The Poetry of Science) 3 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 5 List of Illustrations 7 INTRODUCTION ‘A CHAIN WOVEN OF FEELING AS WELL AS THOUGHT’ 12 CHAPTER I ASTRONOMICAL PLEASURES 30 CHAPTER II ‘MY MENTAL EYE GREW LARGE’: ALFRED LORD TENNYSON AND ASTRONOMY 1. ‘The pleasure of a peep’ 66 2. ‘And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns’ 74 3. ‘Can calm despair and wild unrest / Be tenants of a single breast’ 82 4. ‘An orb repulsive of all hate’ 93 CHAPTER III ‘AN ABOMINABLE APPARITION’: THOMAS DE QUINCEY, THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION AND THE VICTORIAN GROTESQUE 5. ‘System of the Heavens’ 104 6. ‘Affecting to the imagination’: De Quincey, the sublime and the grotesque 110 7. ‘The machinery for dreaming’ 116 8. ‘An abominable apparition’ 131 CHAPTER IV ‘I AM LIKE A SLIP OF COMET’: GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS AND THE ASTRONOMICAL FRAGMENT AS FORM AND IDENTITY 9. ‘Look at the stars’ 146 10. ‘I have drawn heat from this contagious sun’ 157 CHAPTER V THOMAS HARDY, ASTRONOMY AND ‘THE POETRY OF MOTION’ 11. A synthesis: poetry and astronomy 173 4 12. ‘In his mind’s eye’: Hardy, astronomy and Far From the Madding Crowd 178 13. ‘The poetry of motion’ 184 CONCLUSION 200 Bibliography Primary texts 204 Secondary texts 216 5 Acknowledgements The Art and Humanities Research Council have generously funded this research project. I also thank the British Association for Romantic Studies for a Stephen Copley Postgraduate award to enable archive visits in relation to my chapter on Thomas De Quincey. My thanks also go to the Alfred Foster Charitable Settlement who contributed towards funding for my writing-up year. Likewise, I thank the School of English at the University of Sussex, for their funding contributions towards archival research visits and conferences. Throughout my research visits, I have been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and interest my project has received. I am indebted to the Royal Astronomical Society, London, for the use of their archives and providing copies of scientific papers and engravings. Similar thanks go to the librarians and archivists at the Royal Society of London, and the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln. The assistance of Philip Endean S.J., Campion Hall, Oxford, was invaluable in pointing me towards facsimiles of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ work, and providing copies of manuscript pages. I would also like to thank Philippe Garner for the image of the stereoscopic photograph of the moon by Samuel Fry. I am grateful to David Simkin for putting me in touch with Philippe. I received unstinting help from the librarians at Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Special Collections Cambridge University Library and Special Collections Manchester Central Library. Likewise, I am also grateful to the Science Museum London, the British Museum London, the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge, the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the Herschel Museum, Bath, Chetham’s Library, Manchester, Southwark Local History Library and the Bill Douglas Centre, University of Exeter. I thank the University of Sussex Library, and in particular the Interlibrary Request section, for their help in the acquisition of rare and out of print astronomical texts. My greatest thanks go to my supervisor Professor Lindsay Smith at the University of Sussex. Her cross-disciplinary interests in the visual, the poetic, and the effect of optical technologies on perception, sparked my own interdisciplinary interests in science, poetry and the visual. I am very grateful for her thoughtful reading and insights throughout the progress of this thesis. In her supervision, I found an excellent mentor and I thank her for her intellectual advice and companionship. I also wish to thank 6 Martin Ryle, whose enthusiasm during my undergraduate days in the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sussex inspired my interest in English literature. Throughout this project, fellow researchers and staff in the School of English at the University of Sussex have been consistently supportive. They are too many to name individually but our many conversations have been invaluable. Finally, I thank my family. My husband Geoff and two children Naomi and James have my enduring gratitude. They have always supported me in my studies and we have had many entertaining and useful family discussions. My sister Helen’s interest and advice is appreciated. Finally, I thank my mother and father, Doreen and Kenneth Turner, who instilled in me the love of learning. Without the encouragement of all my family to take the opportunities given to me, this thesis would not have been written. 7 List of Illustrations 1. The Planet Saturn in 1872, frontispiece, from Robert Stawell Ball, The Story of the Heavens, London, (1882), rev. edn., London: Cassell, 1905, plate 1 22 2. Spectrum of T Coronӕ, from George F. Chambers, A Handbook of Descriptive and Practical Astronomy, vol. II, Instruments and Practical Astronomy, 4th edn., Oxford: Clarendon, 1890, fig. 163, p. 365 23 3. Photograph of members of the British Himalaya expedition to Spain to observe the total solar eclipse of 18 July 1860 (Royal Astronomical Society) 32 4. John Leech, ‘So Fond of Astronomy that they are always on the Balcony, Looking for the Comet!’ from Punch, 2 October (1858), p. 140 33 5. James Reynolds, Astronomical Diagrams – Comets and Aerolites (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS AST0051) 37 6. Urania’s Mirror; or a View of the Heavens, 1825, with Cassiopeia in a semi-naked pose (Item 69057, Courtesy of The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture, University of Exeter) 37 7. John Leech, ‘Horrid Girl’, from Punch, 1 June 1861, p. 226 39 8. Richard Doyle, ‘Science and Art: Conversazione’, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel, from ‘Bird’s Eye Views of Society’, Cornhill Magazine 6.32 (1862), XV, p. 269 41 9. Lecture Hall of the Greenwich Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1843, tinted lithograph (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London PY5856) 43 10. Wall hangings produced by the Working Men’s Educational Union, cotton and brass, i) Planetary orbits with comet; ii) Telescopic view of the surface of the Moon, 1850-60 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, ZBA4550 and ZBA4552) 44 11. Sir Robert Stawell Ball lecturing at the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, 1889, with an orrery and magic lantern projector, frontispiece from his Star-Land: Being Talks with Young People about the Wonders of the Heavens, London: Cassell, 1891 edn.