Science Poetry in the Romantic Era A Study of Shelley’s Use of Science in Queen Mab

Abstract

When Erasmus Darwin declared that he would enlist imagination under the banner of science, imaginative writers in Britain confronted the growing expansion of scientific knowledge that was radically redefining human understanding and experience of the natural world, of human societies, and of the self. Romantic literature is a literature of change – itself a basic definition of science poetry – and is consistent with scientific and cultural views shaped by evolutionary notions. Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of those Romantic poets who dealt with questions raised by contemporary science in his poetry and prose as well, and, therefore, his influential perspectives contributed to the cultures and practices of science.