Imagination and Science in Romanticism

How did the idea of the imagination impact Romantic literature and science?2018 Winner, Jean-Pierre Barricelli Book Prize, The International Conference on RomanticismRichard C. Sha argues that scientific understandings of the imagination indelibly shaped literary Romanticism. Challenging the idea th...

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Kaituhi matua: Sha, Richard C.
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I whakaputaina: Johns Hopkins University Press 2022
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Urunga tuihono:ONIX_20220715_9781421441245_761
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author Sha, Richard C.
author_browse Sha, Richard C.
author_facet Sha, Richard C.
author_sort Sha, Richard C.
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description How did the idea of the imagination impact Romantic literature and science?2018 Winner, Jean-Pierre Barricelli Book Prize, The International Conference on RomanticismRichard C. Sha argues that scientific understandings of the imagination indelibly shaped literary Romanticism. Challenging the idea that the imagination found a home only on the side of the literary, as a mental vehicle for transcending the worldly materials of the sciences, Sha shows how imagination helped to operationalize both scientific and literary discovery. Essentially, the imagination forced writers to consider the difference between what was possible and impossible while thinking about how that difference could be known. Sha examines how the imagination functioned within physics and chemistry in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, neurology in Blake's Vala, or The Four Zoas, physiology in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, and obstetrics and embryology in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He also demonstrates how the imagination was called upon to do aesthetic and scientific work using primary examples taken from the work of scientists and philosophers Davy, Dalton, Faraday, Priestley, Kant, Mary Somerville, Oersted, Marcet, Smellie, Swedenborg, Blumenbach, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Von Baer, among others. Sha concludes that both fields benefited from thinking about how imagination could cooperate with reason—but that this partnership was impossible unless imagination's penchant for fantasy could be contained.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-890142024-03-26T22:56:45Z Imagination and Science in Romanticism Sha, Richard C. Literary theory thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSA Literary theory How did the idea of the imagination impact Romantic literature and science?2018 Winner, Jean-Pierre Barricelli Book Prize, The International Conference on RomanticismRichard C. Sha argues that scientific understandings of the imagination indelibly shaped literary Romanticism. Challenging the idea that the imagination found a home only on the side of the literary, as a mental vehicle for transcending the worldly materials of the sciences, Sha shows how imagination helped to operationalize both scientific and literary discovery. Essentially, the imagination forced writers to consider the difference between what was possible and impossible while thinking about how that difference could be known. Sha examines how the imagination functioned within physics and chemistry in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, neurology in Blake's Vala, or The Four Zoas, physiology in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, and obstetrics and embryology in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He also demonstrates how the imagination was called upon to do aesthetic and scientific work using primary examples taken from the work of scientists and philosophers Davy, Dalton, Faraday, Priestley, Kant, Mary Somerville, Oersted, Marcet, Smellie, Swedenborg, Blumenbach, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Von Baer, among others. Sha concludes that both fields benefited from thinking about how imagination could cooperate with reason—but that this partnership was impossible unless imagination's penchant for fantasy could be contained. 2022-07-15T15:18:31Z 2022-07-15T15:18:31Z 2018 book ONIX_20220715_9781421441245_761 9781421441245 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/89014 eng image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59664 Johns Hopkins University Press 10.1353/book.59664 10.1353/book.59664 1f9b1002-ec35-4fcf-94be-32cfd0a1dfd3 9781421441245 344 open access
spellingShingle Literary theory
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSA Literary theory
Sha, Richard C.
Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title_full Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title_fullStr Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title_full_unstemmed Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title_short Imagination and Science in Romanticism
title_sort imagination and science in romanticism
topic Literary theory
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSA Literary theory
topic_facet Literary theory
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSA Literary theory
url ONIX_20220715_9781421441245_761
work_keys_str_mv AT sharichardc imaginationandscienceinromanticism