Romantic Dynamics: The Poetics of Physicality (Romanticism in Perspective:Texts, Cultures, Histories)

Romantic Dynamics creatively confronts Romantic poetry with a wide range of exotic concepts associated with the "new physics" of relativity and quantum to uncover their shared concerns for indeterminacy, uncertainty, relativity, and complexity in a chaotic universe. This interdisciplinary work traces the elaboration of dynamical models of cosmos and consciousness in works by Blake, Byron, Coleridge, the Shelleys, and Wordsworth, finding in those works an exploration of the interpenetration of psyche and phenomena. Romantic Dynamics creatively collides English poetry with a wide range of exotic concepts associated with the 'new physics' of relativity and quantum to uncover their shared concerns for indeterminacy, uncertainty, relativity, and complexity in a chaotic universe. This interdisciplinary work traces the elaboration of dynamical models of cosmos and consciousness in works by Blake, Byron, Coleridge, the Shelleys and Wordsworth, finding in those works an exploration of the interpenetration of psyche and phenomena. This model, the author argues, establishes a new metaphoric terrain liberated from the classical mechanics of Newtonian thought and more easily traversed with models articulated by Bohr, Einstein and Hawking. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 9 Preludium: On Synchronicity......Page 12 1 Romantic Dynamics, or Towards a Physical Criticism......Page 24 2 Blake’s Deep Ecology, or the Ethos of Otherness......Page 58 3 At the Limit of Physical Theory, or Physical Dynamics in Coleridge’s Rime......Page 75 4 Blake’s Vortex, or the Quantum Bridge in Milton......Page 93 5 Reconstructing Byronic Time, or Temporality and Memory in The Giaour......Page 116 6 The Rhythmic Universe, or Spatial Dynamics in Shelley’s Poetics......Page 147 7 Methodic Sadism/Symbolic Misogyny: Romantic Responses to Sciences as Ideology......Page 176 Notes......Page 193 Works Cited......Page 210 Index......Page 225 "Romantic Dynamics: the Poetics of Physicality creatively collides English Romantic poetry with a wide range of concepts from contemporary theoretical physics in an attempt to track shared assumptions in their models of material and mental dynamics. The work calls into question the perceived tension between Romantic poetics and physical theory and links such perceptions to recent backlashes against various modes of postmodern criticism. This interdisciplinary work traces the elaboration of dynamical models of cosmos and consciousness in works by Blake, Byron, Coleridge, the Shelleys and Wordsworth, finding in those works an exploration of the interpenetration of psyche and phenomena."--BOOK JACKET. Machine generated contents note: Preludium: On Synchronicity 1 Romantic Dynamics, or Towards a Physical Criticism 2 Blake's Deep Ecology, or the Ethos of Otherness 3 At the Limit of Physical Theory, or Physical Dynamics in Coleridge's Rime 4 Blake's Vortex, or the Quantum Bridge in Milton 5 Reconstructing Byronic Time, or Temporality and Memory in The Giaour 6 The Rhythmic Universe, or Spatial Dynamics in Shelley's Poetics 7 Methodic Sadism/Symbolic Misogyny: Romantic Responses to Sciences as Ideology. Lussier (English, Arizona State U.) calls into question the assumed tension between Romantic poetry and physical theory, arguing that the Romantics did in fact use and depend upon contemporary physical theory, including cosmology and neuroscience. He explores the work of several poets, covering topics such as Blake's "Deep Ecology", the physical dynamics of Coleridge's Rime, and temporality and memory in Byron's The Giaour.