Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Sourgen, Gavin

Abstract

British Romantic poets adapted the natural-philosophical idea of “organicism”, a framework that explained life as a formative, generative power that pervades all organisms and provides unity to the parts that make the whole, as a way to judge art. The uniquely Romantic idea of organicism was defined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as “unity in multeity” (Theory of Life, 42), which was the aesthetic ideal many poets strove to meet. I will explore how certain works in the Romantic era exemplify various aspects of organic theory, specifically: The Sensitive Plant, by P. B. Shelley, describes a personified organic force; The Botanic Gardens, by Erasmus Darwin, demonstrates how natural philosophers came to view the organization of life as a network, rather than a taxonomic hierarchy; and the ode encapsulates the organic ideal of synthesis. Understanding organic theory helps us to understand the ideal that the Romantics aspired to meet.

Comments

Includes bibliography.

Extent

39 p.

Identifier

FAUHT00044

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