Higgins, D orcid.org/0000-0001-8136-6466 (2019) British Romanticism and the Global Climate. In: Johns-Putra, A, (ed.) Climate and Literature. Cambridge University Press , pp. 128-143. ISBN 9781108505321
Abstract
As a result of developments in the meteorological and geological sciences, the Romantic period saw the gradual emergence of attempts to understand the climate as a dynamic global system that could potentially be affected by human activity. This chapter examines textual responses to climate disruption cause by the Laki eruption of 1783 and the Tambora eruption of 1815. During the Laki haze, writers such as Horace Walpole, Gilbert White, and William Cowper found in Milton a powerful way of understanding the entanglements of culture and climate at a time of national and global crisis. Apocalyptic discourse continued to resonate during the Tambora crisis, as is evident in eyewitness accounts of the eruption, in the utopian predictions of John Barrow and Eleanor Anne Porden, and in the grim speculations of Byron’s ‘Darkness’. Romantic writing offers a powerful analogue for thinking about climate change in the Anthropocene.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This chapter is protected by copyright and has been published in Climate and Literature edited by Adeline Johns-Putra https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108505321. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. |
Keywords: | Laki; Tambora; Anthropocene; William Cowper; Gilbert White; volcanism; Comte de Buffon; John Milton; Lord Byron |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) AH/N006526/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 07 Jan 2021 13:41 |
Last Modified: | 21 Oct 2021 14:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/9781108505321.009 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169523 |