MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03431nam a22003498i 4500
001 2012020239
003 DLC
005 20120525163546.0
008 120517s2012 enk 000 0 eng
010 $a 2012020239
020 $a9781107023376 (hardback)
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda
042 $apcc
043 $ae-uk---
050 00 $aPR595.S33$bB76 2012
082 00 $a821/.80936$223
100 1 $aBrown, Daniel,$d1961-$eauthor.
245 14 $aThe poetry of Victorian scientists :$bstyle, science and nonsense /$cDaniel Brown.
260 $aCambridge :$bCambridge University Press,$c2012.
263 $a1210
300 $apages cm.
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
490 0 $aCambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ;$v83
520 $a"A surprising number of Victorian scientists wrote poetry. Many came to science as children through such games as the spinning-top, soap-bubbles and mathematical puzzles, and this playfulness carried through to both their professional work and writing of lyrical and satirical verse. This is the first study of an oddly neglected body of work that offers a unique record of the nature and cultures of Victorian science. Such figures as the physicist James Clerk Maxwell toy with ideas of nonsense, as through their poetry they strive to delineate the boundaries of the new professional science and discover the nature of scientific creativity. Also considering Edward Lear, Daniel Brown finds the Victorian renaissances in research science and nonsense literature to be curiously interrelated. Whereas science and literature studies have mostly focused upon canonical literary figures, this original and important book conversely explores the uses literature was put to by eminent Victorian scientists"--$cProvided by publisher.
520 $a"Many came to science as children through such games as the spinning-top, soap-bubbles, and mathematical puzzles, and this playfulness carried through to both their professional work and writing of lyrical and satirical verse. This is the first study of an oddly neglected body of work that offers a unique record of the nature and cultures of Victorian science. Such figures as the physicist James Clerk Maxwell toy with ideas of nonsense, as through their poetry they strive to delineate the boundaries of the new professional science and discover the nature of scientific creativity"--$cProvided by publisher.
505 8 $aMachine generated contents note: 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.
650 0 $aEnglish poetry$y19th century$xHistory and criticism.
650 0 $aScientists' writings.
650 0 $aLiterature and science$zGreat Britain$xHistory$y19th century.
856 42 $3Cover image$uhttp://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/23376/cover/9781107023376.jpg