In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary

In Chaos and Cosmos, Heidi Scott integrates literary readings with contemporary ecological methods to investigate two essential and contrasting paradigms of nature that scientific ecology continues to debate: chaos and balance. Ecological literature of the Romantic and Victorian eras uses environmental chaos and the figure of the balanced microcosm as tropes essential to understanding natural patterns, and these eras were the first to reflect upon the ecological degradations of the Industrial Revolution. Chaos and Cosmos contends that the seed of imagination that would enable a scientist to study a lake as a microcosmic world at the formal, empirical level was sown by Romantic and Victorian poets who consciously drew a sphere around their perceptions in order to make sense of spots of time and place amid the globalizing modern world.

This study’s interest goes beyond likening literary tropes to scientific aesthetics; it aims to theorize the interdisciplinary history of the concepts that underlie our scientific understanding of modern nature. Paradigmatic ecological ideas such as ecosystems, succession dynamics, punctuated equilibrium, and climate change are shown to have a literary foundation that preceded their status as theories in science. This book represents an elevation of the prospects of ecocriticism toward fully developed interdisciplinary potentials of literary ecology.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication, Quote
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: Beyond the Dichotomy
  2. pp. 1-16
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART I: Chaos
  1. Chapter 1. Romantic Chaos: Natural Patterns Disturbed
  2. pp. 19-44
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 2. Victorian Chaos: Industrial Disruptions
  2. pp. 45-72
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 3. Today’s Science Nonfiction
  2. pp. 73-88
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART II: Microcosm
  1. Chapter 4. Romantic Microcosms: Brain Worlds
  2. pp. 91-117
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 5. Victorian Microcosms: Domestic Systems
  2. pp. 118-140
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 6. Today’s Scientific Modeling
  2. pp. 141-152
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART III: Keats and Ecology: A Case Study
  1. Chapter 7. The Literary Empiricist
  2. pp. 155-163
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 8. Hyperion: The Chaos of Tartarus
  2. pp. 164-175
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 9. Microcosmic Odes
  2. pp. 176-189
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Epilogue
  2. pp. 190-194
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Works Consulted
  2. pp. 195-202
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 203-210
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Back Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.