''The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science'' is a 2008
popular biography book about the
history of science
The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal.
Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
written by
Richard Holmes. In it, the author describes the scientific discoveries of the
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
s of the late eighteenth century and how this period formed the basis for modern scientific discoveries. Holmes, a literary biographer, also looks at the influence of science on the arts in the
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
. The book won the 2009
Royal Society Prize for Science Books
The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and ...
, the 2009
.
Overview
Holmes focuses particularly on the lives and works of
Sir Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James C ...
, the astronomers
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
and
Caroline Herschel
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (; 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German born British astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigolle ...
, and chemist
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for t ...
. Other profiles include African explorer
Mungo Park. There is a chapter on the early
history of ballooning
The history of ballooning, both with hot air and gas, spans many centuries. It includes many firsts, including the first human flight, first flight across the English Channel, first flight in North America, and first aircraft related disaster.
...
including pioneers
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier () was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He made the first manned free balloon flight with François Laurent d'Arlandes on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier ball ...
,
Vincent Lunardi,
Jean-Pierre Blanchard
Jean-Pierre rançoisBlanchard (4 July 1753 – 7 March 1809) was a French inventor, best known as a pioneer of gas balloon flight, who distinguished himself in the conquest of the air in a balloon, in particular the first crossing of the Englis ...
and
James Sadler.
He also describes the relationships between the scientists of that time, and the early days of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
. A recurring theme of the book is the relation between science and poetry in the Romantic era.
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
, in “
On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”, compares his first encounter with Homer’s poetry to Herschel’s
discovery of Uranus: “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken.” Holmes writes that “Among other things, Keats had combined science and poetry in a new and intensely exciting way.” (207) Keats would express negative feelings about science in “
Lamia
LaMia Corporation S.R.L., operating as LaMia (short for ''Línea Aérea Mérida Internacional de Aviación''), was a Bolivian charter airline headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as an EcoJet subsidiary. It had its origins from the failed ...
”, where he accused
Newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
, by “unweav
ngthe rainbow”, of reducing it “to the dull catalogue of common things.” Another Romantic poet,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...
, said he attended Humphry Davy’s lectures “to enlarge my stock of metaphors.” Davy, Mungo Park and the Arctic explorer
William Parry are alluded to by
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
in his satiric epic
''Don Juan'' as emblems of the age.
Holmes looks at how the debates around
Vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
contributed to
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...
’s ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'': “Mary’s brilliance was to see that these weighty and often alarming ideas could be given highly suggestive, imaginative and even playful form... She would develop exactly what
William Lawrence had dismissed in his lectures as a ‘hypothesis or fiction.’ Indeed, it was to be an utterly new form of fiction – the
science fiction novel
This is a list of science-fiction novels, novel series, and collections of linked short stories. It includes modern novels, as well as novels written before the term "science fiction" was in common use. This list includes novels not marketed as SF ...
.” (327)
Holmes bookends his narrative with voyages of discovery. It opens in 1769, with Joseph Banks traveling to
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
on
HMS ''Endeavour''. In the last chapter, he describes
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...
's establishment of an observatory in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
to catalogue the stars of the southern hemisphere in 1833. In 1836, Herschel was visited by a young
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, returning from the
Galápagos on
HMS ''Beagle''.
The book was published by HarperCollins in 2008 in the UK, and by Pantheon in the US in 2009.
Reception
The book received very good reviews, and made several Best Books of 2009 lists, including the ''New York Times Ten Best list. Mike Jay of the ''
Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' wrote: "Scientists, like poets, need a sense of wonder, a sense of humility and a sense of humour. Holmes has all three in abundance". Peter Forbes of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' wrote of the book:
"Its heart – the linked stories of Banks, Herschel and Davy – is thrilling: a portrait of bold adventure among the stars, across the oceans, deep into matter, poetry and the human psyche"Review by ''The Independent''
/ref>
See also
*
Royal Society Prizes for Science Books
The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and ...
*''
Unweaving the Rainbow
''Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder'' is a 1998 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author discusses the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scienti ...
'' by
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
, which rebuts the claims of Keats in "Lamia"
*
History of science
The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal.
Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
References
External links
''The Age of Wonder'' at HarperCollins publishers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Age Of Wonder
Science books
2008 non-fiction books
HarperCollins books