Literature, Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era: Bodies of Knowledge

by Tim Fulford, Debbie Lee, Peter J. Kitson

Overview

The authors of this study examine the massive impact of colonial exploration upon British scientific and literary activity between the 1760s and 1830s. This broad-ranging survey will appeal to literary and cultural studies scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521829199
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/02/2004
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Romanticism , #60
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Dr Tim Fulford is Professor in the Department of English and Media Studies at Nottingham Trent University. He is the author of Landscape, Liberty and Authority: Poetry, Criticism and Politics from Thomson to Wordsworth (Cambridge, 1996) and Romanticism and Masculinity (1999) and co-editor with Peter J. Kitson of Romanticism and Colonialism (Cambridge, 1998).

Peter J. Kitson is Professor in the Department of English at Dundee University. He is co-editor with Timothy Fulford of Romanticism and Colonialism (Cambridge, 1998).

Debbie Lee is Professor of English at Washington State University. She is the author of Slavery and the Romantic Imagination (2002) and co-editor with Peter J. Kitson of Abolition, and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period (2000).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; A note on the text; Frequently cited texts; Introduction: bodies of knowledge; Part I. Exploration, Science and Literature: 1. Sir Joseph Banks and his networks; 2. Tahiti in London; London in Tahiti: tools of power; 3. Indian flowers and Romantic Orientalism; 4. Mental travellers: Banks, African exploration and the Romantic imagination; 5. Banks, Bligh and the breadfruit: slave plantations, tropical islands and the rhetoric of Romanticism; 6. Exploration, headhunting and race theory: the skull beneath the skin; 7. Theories of terrestrial magnetism and the search for the poles; Part II. British Science and Literature in the Context of Empire: 8. 'Man electrified man': Romantic revolution and the legacy of Benjamin Franklin; 9. The beast within: vaccination, Romanticism and the Jenneration of disease; 10. Britain's little black boys and the technologies of benevolence; Conclusion; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This well-written, meticulously researched book should be in every collection supporting the study of Romantic literature. Essential."
-Choice

From the Publisher