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A Poetry of Science Or a Science of Poetry? the Speculative Method of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)

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A Poetry of Science Or a Science of Poetry? the Speculative Method of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications 2012 1-1-2012 A Poetry of Science or a Science of Poetry? The Speculative Method of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) John Ryan Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2012 Part of the Poetry Commons Ryan, J. C. (2012). A Poetry of Science or a Science of Poetry? The Speculative Method of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). The International Journal of Literary Humanities, 10(1), 45-57. Available here This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2012/222 A Poetry of Science or a Science of Poetry?: The Speculative Method of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) John Charles Ryan, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, Australia Abstract: Specialization was not in the lexicon of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802): doctor, sci- entist, poet, inventor, and socialite. By profession, he was an unparalleled general physician with a universality of mind that infused his practice of medicine as well as his technical innov- ation, scientific observation, and poetic vision. For Darwin, scientific findings involved a mixture of informed conjecture and imagination. Darwin’s approach to poetry hinged on this ability to illumine a scope of subjects with concise couplets supported by imaginative exposition and speculation. Scientific facts and theories interwoven with mythological places and characters constitute his “hypotheses”. Writing in an instructive and captivating manner, Darwin became the only best selling scientific poet in English history, largely due to his steadfast conviction that poetry should amuse and entertain the public. His poetry, and in particular his choice to recruit science and technology as its subject matter, will be discussed in this paper. The focus will be on two of Darwin’s long poems. The first, “The Botanic Garden”, is divided into Part I ‘The Economy of Vegetation’ (1791) and Part II ‘The Loves of the Plants’ (1789). The second poem is the posthumous “The Temple of Nature” (1803). Darwin’s speculative method will be shown through close analysis of these works. Keywords: Theme: Literary Humanities, English Literature, Erasmus Darwin, Science, Poetry, Speculation pecialization was not in the lexicon of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802): doctor, scientist, poet, inventor, and socialite (Smith and Arnott 2005, 1–4). By profession, he was an unparalleled general physician with a universality of mind that infused his practice of Smedicine as well as his technical innovation, scientific observation, and poetic vision. As an artist, he achieved notoriety as the sardonic, ponderous bard whose rhythmically crafted couplets embraced the scientific and technological issues of his time. Writing in both an instructive and captivating manner, Darwin became the only best-selling scientific poet in English history largely due to his steadfast conviction that poetry should amuse and entertain the public. His poetry, and in particular his choice to recruit science and technology as its subject matter, will be discussed in this paper. The focus will be on two of Darwin’s long poems. The first, The Botanic Garden, is divided into Part I, ‘The Economy of Vegetation’ (1791), and Part II, ‘The Loves of the Plants’ (1789) (Darwin 1799). The second poem addressed here is the posthumous The Temple of Nature (1803) (Darwin 1804). Both long poems demonstrate Darwin’s talent for writing up scientific findings in verse. The Botanic Garden was highly acclaimed during its time and sold widely whereas the success of The Temple of Nature was stunted because of Erasmus Darwin’s controversial evolutionary ideas. As we will see regarding his evolutionary theory, Darwin’s approach to scientific discovery differed radically from the stereotypical modern image of the rogue scientist in an antiseptic lab, carefully plotting statistical frequency curves. For Darwin, scientific findings involved a The International Journal of Literary Humanities Volume 10, 2012, http://thehumanities.com/, ISSN ISSN Pending © Common Ground, John Charles Ryan, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: [email protected] THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LITERARY HUMANITIES mixture of informed conjecture and imagination. Darwin’s approach to poetry hinged on this ability to illumine a scope of subjects with concise couplets supported by imaginative exposition and speculation. Scientific facts and theories, interwoven with mythological places and characters, constitute his ‘hypotheses’. In the preface to ‘The Economy of Vegetation’, he even apologizes to the reader for putting forth so many conjectures, but asserts that a current of speculation sets in motion a much-needed series of confirmatory experiments (King-Hele 1963, 100). Hence, for Darwin, imagination is the fountainhead of ideas from which scientific discourse springs. Still, why would an esteemed physician write up his scientific ‘findings’, in particular the more controversial contentions, in poetry instead of as a more official or professional treatise? In other words, what special advantage did Darwin recognize that poetry presented for swaying the public toward his scientific assertions? Figure 1: ‘Flora at Play with Cupid’ from The Botanic Garden Before I present three suggestions in response to these questions, it should be mentioned that Darwin maintained a theory of poetry in which prose instructs while poetry amuses. He further believed that poetry, in order to reach the public, should consist largely of visual images: ‘the Poet writes principally to the eye, the Prose-writer uses more abstracted terms’ (Darwin quoted RYAN: A POETRY OF SCIENCE OR A SCIENCE OF POETRY? in Logan 1936). Darwin replaced prose abstraction with poetic images by personifying a theor- etical scientific account, then having the mythological being behave in captivating ways. The Botanic Garden, for instance, is punctuated with visually sharp mythological episodes, many relating to the Goddess of Botany addressing a humble audience of sylphs, gnomes, and nymphs. Hence, for Darwin, the imaginative yet palpable visual imagery appropriate to verse provided a forum for speculation whereas the pure abstraction of prose would never hold the same weight in popularizing his scientific findings. My first suggestion consists of two intertwined points: poetry provided the imaginative me- dium for Darwin’s scientific conjecture, and an imaginative scenario was the sugary coating that allowed Darwin to feed his scientific and technological ideas to the populace. Section I of this paper will address this suggestion as it pertains to Darwin’s first long poem, The Botanic Garden with emphasis on Part I, ‘The Economy of Vegetation’. The Botanic Garden, with its complex imaginative structure, best exemplifies Darwin’s weaving together of scientific obser- vation and innovation with phantasmagoric characters and settings. By entertaining the populace with stunningly crafted verses and amusing preternatural persona, Darwin made his notions palatable to a wide audience and thereby broadcast his scientific speculation (Torrens 2005, 259–272). Figure 2: ‘Erasmus Darwin’ (1792) by Joseph Wright of Derby (Oil on Canvas) THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LITERARY HUMANITIES The second suggestion here is that the versification of science relates to Darwin’s theory of or- ganic happiness in which the contentment of a creature enhances its potential to survive. Hence, his scientific poetry with its intention to amuse and delight shows Erasmus working through his own theory; in some way, the couplets are the doctor’s attempts to ensure, through organic happiness, his own existence within the scheme of evolution. This point will be expanded in Section I through an examination of Darwin’s second long poem, The Temple of Nature. The final suggestion of this paper relates mostly to the first suggestion: poetry serves as a vehicle for his voluminous footnotes and additional notes through which he expounds, in a more serious tone, the innovative scientific concepts put forth in his verse. Thereby, Erasmus could offer the best of both worlds: amusing poetry and didactic prose notes. That the notes often exceed the poems in length implies that Darwin was very confident in the ability of the notes to propound his theoretical ideas while floating under the cover of verse. Versified Science: Blending Poetic Imagination and Scientific Theory For Erasmus Darwin, scientific findings involved informed conjecture and hypothesis mixed with imagination. Poetry provided Erasmus a versatile medium on which to speculate freely on scientific matters in a way not possible through formal scientific writing. In fact, after the success of his long poems, Erasmus was often ridiculed with the derogatory term Darwinizing, coined by Coleridge to mean speculating wildly (King-Hele 1963, 86). Indeed The Botanic Garden is unrestrained and frankly impressive in its sheer breadth of wild speculation with all of science as its subject matter. Part I, ‘The Economy of Vegetation’, focuses on physical science and technology with botany making an appearance at the end. The second part, ‘The Loves of the Plants’, reflects its title by detailing the process of fertilization in various classes of plants. In general, the poem anticipates several modern developments in science and technology, and illuminates many subjects, including electricity, chemistry, photosynthesis, solar physics, plant physiology, and geomagnetism, which Darwin accurately attributes to the rotation of the planet. While imagination provided
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