Charles Darwin and the Church of Wordsworth

Charles Darwin and the Church of Wordsworth
ISBN-10
0198757352
ISBN-13
9780198757351
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
218
Language
English
Published
2016
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Robert M. Ryan

Description

Charles Darwin presented On the Origin of Species to a reading public whose affective response to the natural world had been profoundly influenced by Wordsworth's understanding of nature as benign, harmonious, a source of moral inspiration and spiritual blessing, and a medium through which one might enter into communion with the Divine. As the 19th century's two most prominent theoreticians of nature's life, Wordsworth and Darwin competed for attention among those seeking to understand humanity's relationship with the natural world, and their disciples engaged in a productive, mutually transformative dialogue in which the poet's cultural authority influenced the way Darwin was received, and Darwinian science adjusted interpretation and evaluation of the poetry.

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