The poetic uses of Linnaean taxonomy from Erasmus Darwin to John Clare

Thesis

This thesis challenges critical assumptions that Carl Linnaeus was a dulling if not malignant influence on Romantic poetry by exploring the ways in which Linnaean strategies of comparison and distinction, organisation and arrangement, enumeration and description find echoes in the poetry of Erasmus Darwin, William Wordsworth, and John Clare. As studies of Romantic science have proliferated in the last thirty years, research has investigated the gendered implications of the Linnaean system,...

Expand abstract

Authors: Edwall, C

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford