ROMANTIC NATURAL HISTORY: A VISION OF BIRTH, EVOLUTION OF LIFE-FORMS AND DEATH IN ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY
ROMANTIC NATURAL HISTORY: A VISION OF BIRTH, EVOLUTION OF LIFE-FORMS AND DEATH IN ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY

Summary/Abstract: The present paper surveys many works of English Romantic poets,highlighting the underlying proto-evolutionary thought. Many Romantics were acquainted with the ideas of Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandchild), their contemporary, and some even acknowledged his influence on them. He was not only a man of science, but a poet as well, who put into verse his evolutionary thesis. Some of his ideas recur in the romantic poems, such as the relatedness of all beings that evolved from a single living filament, the role of the aquatic environment in the birth and propagation of life, or the presence of border-like creatures indicative of mutable species. The poet is a more subtle and sensitive naturalist, conveying aesthetically the realities of nature and calling for empathy, genuine communicationand harmony between all that lives. That is, scientific truth is rendered in poetic form, with the benefit of adding emotion. Emphasizing the link between science and poetry is an important endeavor in that it grants Romanticism the authority it deserves.

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