Descending Caves: Descent Narratives and the Subterranean Science and Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century 1680 - 1830
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Descending Caves: Descent Narratives and the Subterranean Science and Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century 1680 - 1830 Damian Frank Pearson Thesis submitted in fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Literature Department of English and Creative Writing Lancaster University June 2018 Frank Pearson Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract vi Introduction: The Underworld and the Underground 1 Structure 6 Cave Context 9 The Origin of Cave Science 13 Descent Narratives and the Hidden Recesses of Nature 21 Subterranean Aesthetics 35 The Space and Place of the Underground 40 Travel, Curiosity and the Descent Narrative 44 Cave Representations 49 Chapter One: Establishing Cave Science Introduction: Natural Philosophy and Literary Science 51 The Royal Society, Fieldwork and the Concept of Nature 58 Biblical Theories of Cave Geomorphology 66 Caves and the Origin of Subterraneous Water 69 Cave Geomorphology and Erosion 75 Caves and Deep Time 79 Joseph Black, Fixed Air, Carbon Dioxide and Limestone Solution 85 James Hutton and Limestone Solution 95 Adam Walker and the Exploration of caves 100 Charles Lyell and the Formation of Caves 108 Conclusion 112 Chapter Two: Cave Myth and Literature Introduction: The Descent Narrative, Underworld and Hell 114 Thomas Burnet and the Sublime Underworld 122 The Subterranean Sublime in Descent Poetry 125 The Descent Narrative as Parody 132 The Descent Narrative as a State of Mind 134 Caves and the Poetry of Place 140 Descent Narratives and the Novel 147 Conclusion 156 Chapter Three: Caves and Travel Writing Introduction 158 Cave Travellers’ Descent Narratives: 1680 – 1700 160 Cave Travellers’ Descent Narratives: 1700 – 1750 169 Cave Travellers’ Descent Narratives: 1750 – 1800 176 Conclusion 197 i Frank Pearson Chapter Four: John Hutton and the Cave Guidebook Introduction 199 Guidebooks before A Tour to the Caves 203 The Contemporary Context of A Tour to the Caves 206 Establishing the Field of Cave Geomorphology 210 Underground Aesthetics 221 The Field of Cave Geomorphology after A Tour to the Caves 226 Conclusion 235 Chapter Five: William Wordsworth and Caverns of the Mind Introduction 237 Initial Descent Narrative: ‘The Vale of Esthwaite’ 239 Early Influences of the Descent Narrative 241 The Cave as a Displaced Space 244 Later Descent Narrative: Peter Bell 250 A Journey towards The Prelude 256 The Prelude and Yordas Cave 261 The Prelude and Weathercote Cave 266 Conclusion 273 Conclusion 274 Bibliography 278 ii Frank Pearson Acknowledgements Most significantly, I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Simon Bainbridge for his support, encouragement and guidance throughout my research and writing of this thesis. As well as supervising my work, he has given me opportunities to teach, mentor and lecture on this and related subjects. It has often been a deep, dark and labyrinthine process and Simon has been an inspirational and illuminating guide from the start. It has been an extraordinary experience, largely through his reassurance and advocacy. Professor Sharon Ruston has encouraged and enabled my research into Romanticism and science and has given me many opportunities to teach, mentor, lecture and give seminar papers. She has been a great teacher and colleague. Her critical support has been thorough and immensely productive. Professor Sally Bushell has been very supportive and gave me the opportunity to teach on the undergraduate Romanticism course. Professor Arthur Bradley has read much of my research and has unfailingly offered guidance and encouragement. Doctor Jo Carruthers has given me many opportunities to present seminar and conference papers and has been consistently encouraging. Professor Catherine Spooner has given me invaluable feedback on draft sections. Professor Lynne Pearce encouraged me to start the research and has offered further encouragement throughout the study. Professor Keith Hanley inspired my fascination with Romantic literature in the first place when he taught me as an undergraduate and working with him as a colleague has proved a further inspiration. Professor Adelene Buckland’s critical analysis and advice has been invaluable and has helped me to develop the thesis in areas I had originally only touched upon. She has helped me make it a better piece of writing. iii Frank Pearson I want to thank my fellow postgraduate students for their support, their ideas and many discussions: Nour Dakkak, Kate Ingle, Andrew Lacey, Andrew Raven and Michael Regan, though most of all, my friend and office-mate, Muren Zhang. I am indebted also to my erstwhile sixth-form student and now postgraduate colleague, Jennifer Hughes, who has shared a very similar journey through studying at Lancaster. I am deeply grateful to Professor Malcolm McVicar, Doctor David Parker, Doctor Sui Gang and Hannah Yu-Pearson who read and gave invaluable feedback on an early draft of this thesis. Any remaining errors are mine. Further gratitude is due David Parker who as an artist, and as my caving and climbing partner, has provided decades of inspiration and collaboration on all things subterranean, mountainous, literary and philosophical. We have discussed and enthused about so much of this thesis since 1970s. Tim Allen has played a major role in helping this thesis to production. He has given me countless opportunities to write on caving and to present public lectures on caving, as well as encouraging me, with patience and good-humour, to pursue a line in cave photography. He has invited me on international caving expeditions, and for the past eight years has been the leading inspiration for the cave exploration we practise in the Yorkshire Dales. Much of this thesis is drawn from the practice of cave exploration in Britain and abroad, and for this I am indebted to the following friends for their subterranean help, support, encouragement and camaraderie: Jane Allen, Diane Arthurs, Tony Balmer, Jon Beavan, Bill Bennett, Mark Brown, Judith Calford, Simon Cornhill, Geoff Crossley, Dave Deane, Richard Dowbiggin, Andy Eavis, Joe Giblin, Chris Howes, Matt Kirby, Rebecca Lawson, David Lowe, Brian Marshall, Mick Nunwick, Pete O’Neil, David Rose, Harry Salisbury, Bill Sherrington, Hugh St. Lawrence, Mick Tolley, Andy Walsh, Richard ‘Roo’ Walters, Bob Windsor and Geoff Yeadon. iv Frank Pearson I have incalculable gratitude to my late mother and father, William and Monica Pearson, who ensured the initial idea of the research could be put into practice, and to my sister, Louise Pilkington, who has been a part of this life-changing process. My final and most sincere gratitude, appreciation and love must go to my wife, Feixia, and our two children, William and Hannah, who have not only been supportive, encouraging and patient throughout, but have accompanied me on many mountain, cave and photography trips, my most hearty thanks. v Frank Pearson Abstract Caves form a major element in both scientific and literary writing in the long eighteenth century and function as a crucial part in the transformation of the perception of wild mountain landscapes. Despite this, the role of caves has been critically neglected. This thesis re- examines the writing of this period to uncover the place and importance of caves. From readings of the catastrophic biblical flood, where caves enabled the flood waters to rise and fall from within the Earth, to a far-reaching synthesis of laboratory and fieldwork experiments into the chemical dissolution of limestone, caves attracted wide-spread scientific and cultural appreciation. The role of water in the formation of limestone caves has been the basis for all theories; the major discoveries and advances in knowledge are in how water forms them. Fused with these discoveries, reworkings of mythological descent narratives in poetry, novels and travel journals led to the evolution of a sub-genre in eighteenth-century literature and nascent ideas of the subconscious. The archetypal form of the classical descent narrative is based on the transformative experience of a descent underground and a return to the surface, and this framed the discourses that represented caves and the experiences of descending them, whether they were tangible or imagined. The changing perception of caves was an influence in many scientific and cultural fields, including: knowledge of earth science and the eventual specialization of geology with the assistance of chemistry, the debates over the meaning of nature and god, the development of aesthetic theories and their application to the landscape, and the growth of domestic travel and tourism. The genres of natural philosophy, poetry, prose fiction and travel writing formed the representational discourse of caves through a remarkable degree of dialogue and intertextuality. Those who wrote in this genre blended the causal and the aesthetic understanding of subterranean space before subject specialization would divide them. The representations, instabilities and transformations of this strange subterranean environment are principally illustrated in the vi Frank Pearson writings of John Hutton and William Wordsworth at the end of the long eighteenth century. Their pivotal writings absorbed the material that preceded them and shaped it for the scientific and literary writers that followed. They formed the field of cave and karst science and established the cave as the central metaphor for the creative imagination. vii Frank Pearson Introduction: The Underworld and the Underground Caves are as much a product of the imagination as they are of natural processes