Table of Contents

1. Professionals and amateurs, work and play: William Rowan Hamilton, Edward Lear and James Clerk Maxwell; 2. Edinburgh natural philosophy and Cambridge mathematics; 3. Knowing more than you think: James Clerk Maxwell on puns, analogies and dreams; 4. Red Lions: Edward Forbes and James Clerk Maxwell; 5. Popular science lectures: 'A Tyndallic Ode'; 6. John Tyndall and 'The Scientific Use of the Imagination'; 7. 'Molecular Evolution': Maxwell, Tyndall and Lucretius; 8. James Joseph Sylvester: the romance of space; 9. James Joseph Sylvester: the calculus of forms; 10. Science on Parnassus; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

The first study of poetry by Victorian scientists, a unique record of the nature and cultures of Victorian science.

About the Author

Daniel Brown is Professor of English at the University of Southampton.

Reviews

'… provides fresh perspectives on, and a thorough engagement with, the wider scientific and literary culture of the era … it is likely to become a standard point of departure for those studying the poetry of that most remarkable and multifaceted of Victorian natural philosophers, James Clerk Maxwell.' London Mathematical Society Newsletter

'… does for verse what Beer's Darwin Plots (1983) did for the novel, and reveals, often compellingly, how poetry and poetics were crucial components of the working practices and intellectual activities of many of the most influential men of science in the second half of the nineteenth century … a stimulating and fascinating book.' Gowan Dawson, Journal of Victorian Culture

'Daniel Brown's highly original and stimulating new book shows us that poetry mattered to Victorian scientists … Brown's scholarship is intense and impressive.' John Holmes, University of Reading

'The book argues persuasively for the importance of poetry to a number of Victorian scientific figures … The Poetry of Victorian Scientists does valuable work in mapping and contextualizing the various poetic writings of these figures, and it represents a major contribution to scholarship on poetry by 19th-century scientists.' Gregory Tate, The Review of English Studies