Chaos and Cosmos - Heidi C. M. Scott

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      CHAOS AND COSMOS

      HEIDI C.M. SCOTT

      CHAOS AND COSMOS

      Literary Roots of Modern Ecology in the British Nineteenth Century

      The Pennsylvania State University Press

      University Park, Pennsylvania

      All poetry quotations and extracts come from the Poetry Foundation website, http://www.poetryfoundation.org, unless otherwise noted.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Scott, Heidi C. M. (Heidi Cathryn Molly), 1978- author.

      Chaos and cosmos : literary roots of modern ecology in the British nineteenth century /

      Heidi C. M. Scott.

      p. cm

      Summary: “Traces an epistemological legacy from Romantic and Victorian ecological literature to modern scientific ecology. Investigates two essential and contrasting paradigms of nature that continue to be debated today”—Provided by publisher.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-271-06383-6 (cloth: alk. paper)

      1. English literature—19th century—History and criticism.

      2. Nature in literature. 3. Ecology in literature.

      4. Chaotic behavior in systems in literature.

      5. Microcosm and macrocosm in literature.

      6. Romanticism—Great Britain. I. Title.

      PR468.N3S38 2014

      820.9’36—dc23

      2014004459

      Copyright © 2014 The Pennsylvania State University

      All rights reserved

      Printed in the United States of America

      Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

      University Park, PA 16802-1003

      The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

      It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

      This book is printed on paper that contains 30% post-consumer waste.

      For Colleen, who lent an ear and dotted my i.

      In the realm of evolutionary biology and ecology, ours is an unpredictable world and our place in it an accident of history; it is a place of many possibilities that are influenced by forces beyond our control and, in some cases at least, beyond our immediate comprehension.

      —RICHARD LEAKEY AND ROGER LEWIN, The Sixth Extinction (1996), 230–31

      Circumstances are like Clouds continually gathering and bursting. While we are laughing the seed of some trouble is put into the wide arable land of events. While we are laughing it sprouts, it grows and suddenly bears a poison fruit which we must pluck.

      —JOHN KEATS TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS, 14 FEBRUARY–4 MAY 1819

      Contents

       3 Today’s Science Nonfiction

       PART 2 MICROCOSM

       4 Romantic Microcosms: Brain Worlds

       5 Victorian Microcosms: Domestic Systems

       6 Today’s Scientific Modeling

       PART 3 KEATS AND ECOLOGY: A CASE STUDY

       7 The Literary Empiricist

       8 Hyperion: The Chaos of Tartarus

       9 Microcosmic Odes

       Epilogue

       Works Consulted

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Many minds contributed to this book at its various stages from shadowy notion to monograph. I would like to thank my mentors and colleagues at the University of Maryland. Jeanne Fahnestock, Orrin Wang, and major advisor Neil Fraistat suggested primary texts, combed through drafts with patience and interest, and commented with insistence. Compatriots Kate Singer, Joseph Byrne, and Elizabeth Whitney helpfully interrogated my ideas in the earlier drafts. My colleagues at Florida International University, especially Meri-Jane Rochelson, Kathleen McCormack, and Yvette Puggish, provided insights about the introductory discussion that clarified the whole project. My parents, Tom and Bonnie Kime Scott, provided the same intellectual support they always have, with perceptive readings of the introduction and the Keats section. My wife, Colleen Flaherty, a biological scientist and environmental policy expert, helped me recognize and elaborate on the essential disciplinary crossings blazed in these pages. The peer reviewers’ comments were crucial to the final organization of the book, and I thank them for their time and fair appraisals. Penn State University Press editor Kendra Boileau and her associates were a joy to work with in the last stages, as we honed the manuscript for its final audience, you, the reader. Thank you all.

       Introduction: Beyond the Dichotomy

      Two Portraits of Nature

      Ecological theories offer ideological portraits of nature. As portraiture can disclose an individual’s origins, talents, deeds, powers, and disposition, not just his or her physical appearance, various portraits of nature can be fantastically contradictory. The classic ecological paradigm of nature favored well into the twentieth century depicts a character that is fundamentally balanced, nurturing, and intelligible, with a face that changes only gradually. More recently, postmodern ecology depicts nature

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