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The Poetry of Victorian Science

Adam Green - July 26, 2018 in poetry, robert hunt, Science & Medicine, the poetry of science, victorian, victorian england, victorian science

In 1848, the mineralogist, pioneer of photography, and questionable poet Robert Hunt published The Poetry of Science, a hugely ambitious work that aimed to offer a survey of scientific knowledge while also communicating the metaphysical, moral, and aesthetic aspects of science to the general reader. Gregory Tate explores what the book can teach us about Victorian desires to reconcile the languages of poetry and science.

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Lofty Only in Sound: Crossed Wires and Community in 19th-Century Dreams

Adam Green - April 5, 2017 in civil war, Culture & History, dream, dreams, Featured Articles, paranormal, poetry, psychology, Science & Medicine, telepathy, us civil war

Alicia Puglionesi on a curious case of supposed dream telepathy at the end of the US Civil War, and the important role dreams played in how a traumatised nation responded to the conflict.

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The Friendship Book of Anne Wagner (1795-1834)

Adam Green - February 3, 2016 in friendship, friendship book, poetry, shelley

Pages from a friendship book of Anne Wagner, aunt to the poet Felicia Dorothea Browne, who herself has a number of entries in the album, including wonderful mixed-media collages.

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The Friendship Book of Anne Wagner (1795-1834)

Adam Green - February 3, 2016 in friendship, friendship book, poetry, shelley

Pages from a friendship book of Anne Wagner, aunt to the poet Felicia Dorothea Browne, who herself has a number of entries in the album, including wonderful mixed-media collages.

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On Oscar Wilde and Plagiarism

Adam Green - January 13, 2016 in aesthetics, Art & Illustrations, Books, decadence, James McNeill Whistler, oscar wilde, plagiarism, poetry

Celebrated for his innovative wit, Oscar Wilde and the notion of originality are common bedfellows. The pairing, however, is not without its complications. Joseph Bristow and Rebecca N. Mitchell explore the claims of plagiarism that dogged Wilde's career, particularly as regards his relationship with that other great figure of late-19th-century Decadence, the American painter James McNeill Whistler.

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Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918)

Adam Green - October 27, 2015 in Apollinaire, caligram, concrete poetry, first world war, poetry, surrealism, visual poetry, war poets, world war one, ww1

A book of poetry by French writer Guillaume Apollinaire, noted for its use of "caligrams" in which typeface and arrangement of words on the page add to the meaning of the compositions.

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Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918)

Adam Green - October 27, 2015 in Apollinaire, caligram, concrete poetry, first world war, poetry, surrealism, visual poetry, war poets, world war one, ww1

A book of poetry by French writer Guillaume Apollinaire, noted for its use of "caligrams" in which typeface and arrangement of words on the page add to the meaning of the compositions.

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Sex and Science in Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora

Adam Green - March 11, 2015 in Art & Illustrations, Books, botanical illustrations, botany, Carl Linnaeus, Erasmus Darwin, Featured Articles, flora, flowers, Painting, poetry, robert thornton, Science & Medicine, sex, temple of flora

Bridal beds, blushing captives, and swollen trunks - Carl Linnaeus' taxonomy of plants heralded a whole new era in 18th-century Europe of plants being spoken of in sexualised terms. Martin Kemp explores how this association between the floral and erotic reached its visual zenith in Robert Thornton's exquisitely illustrated Temple of Flora.

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Wild Heart Turning White: Georg Trakl and Cocaine

Adam Green - October 29, 2014 in baudelaire, cocaine, drugs, first world war, georg trakl, karl kraus, poetry, snow, ww1

To mark the 100th anniversary of the death by cocaine overdose of Austrian lyric poet Georg Trakl, Richard Millington explores the role of the drug in the Trakl's life and works.

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Ghostwriter and Ghost: The Strange Case of Pearl Curran & Patience Worth

Adam Green - September 17, 2014 in automatic writing, blake, Books, heteronym, Literature, mediumship, occult, ouija, ouija board, patience worth, pearl curran, pessoa, poetry, Religion, Myth & Legend, spiritualism, yeats

In early 20th-century St. Louis, Pearl Curran claimed to have conjured a long-dead New England puritan named Patience Worth through a Ouija board. Although today mostly unknown, the resulting books, poems, and plays that Worth "dictated" to Curran earned great praise at the time. Ed Simon investigates the curious and nearly forgotten literary fruits of a “ghost” and her ghostwriter.

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