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Visiting Scholar Steven Denison (Eckerd College) discusses the connections between Romantic poetry and science.

How scientific were the experiments that Wordsworth carried out with the poems of Lyrical Ballads? How could the naturalist Charles Darwin in writing On the Origin of Species, have been influenced by a poet who wrote of “a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns?” How does the ecologist and entomologist, E. O. Wilson, come to the conclusion that “The ideal scientist thinks like a poet?” In this paper, I will discuss connections between science and poetry by looking at the works of William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin and E. O. Wilson.

Steve Denison is a Professor of Biology at Eckerd College in Saint Petersburg, Florida. He teaches courses in Microbiology and Genetics and a study-abroad course on the history of science in London. He has also lectured on Romantic poetry. In 2017, he conducted research as a visiting scholar in the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University.