Titlebook: Erasmus Darwin and the Romantic Poets; Desmond King-Hele Book 1986 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 1986 poe

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Introduction,n’ — and his work was plundered by a number of greater English poets who followed in his path, notably Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. My aim in this book is to trace the effect of Darwin’s ideas, images and words on the poets of the next two generations.

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Erasmus Darwin,rom 1731 until 1802. He spent most of his energy trying to relieve human suffering and he gained the highest reputation as a doctor. He had ‘a mind of universal sympathy’ and a genius for friendship. His remarkable scientific insight into the functioning of nature led him to many discoveries, and he

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Blake,sh poets. But he comes first chronologically, having been born in 1757, thirteen years before Wordsworth, so I cannot postpone him till the end. Blake was already thirty-two years old when . appeared; his opinions were formed, and differed in many ways from Darwin’s. So the idea that Darwin influenc

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Wordsworth,mouth on the fringes of the Lake District. He had the right surname for a poet, and lived his early years in a house beside the Cumbrian river Derwent; Darwin lived in a house beside the Derbyshire river Derwent, and also had the ‘right’ surname, because it derived from the river name. These coincid

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Evaluation questionnaire for PERA,ing to set up a small society with everyone equal in rank and social position — a Pantisocracy as he called it. The community would start with twelve gentlemen and twelve young ladies on the banks of the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania. The prospect of Pantisocracy inclined Southey and Coleridge t