Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 5-11-2015 Literatures of Stress: Thermodynamic Physics and the Poetry and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins Thomas Mapes Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Mapes, Thomas, "Literatures of Stress: Thermodynamic Physics and the Poetry and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2015. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/134 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. LITERATURES OF STRESS: THERMODYNAMIC PHYSICS AND THE POETRY AND PROSE OF GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS by THOMAS MAPES Under the Direction of Paul Schmidt, PhD ABSTRACT This dissertation examines two of the various literatures of energy in Victorian Britain: the scientific literature of the North British school of energy physics, and the poetic and prose literature of Gerard Manley Hopkins. As an interdisciplinary effort, it is intended for several audiences. For readers interested in science history, it offers a history of two terms – stress and strain – central to modern physics. As well, in discussing the ideas of various scientific authors (primarily William John Macquorn Rankine, William Thomson, P.G. Tait, and James Clerk Maxwell), it indicates several contributions these figures made to larger culture. For readers of Hopkins’ poems and prose, this dissertation corresponds with a recent trend in criticism in its estimation of Hopkins as a scientifically informed writer, at least in his years post-Stonyhurst.