A Newton Among Chemists?

Abstract

December 1819 saw the completion of the fourth and last Act of Prometheus Unbound, which was written in a remarkable new style, best described, perhaps, as ‘lyricized science’. This was the final fruit of Shelley’s early scientific interests. At Eton and Oxford (1809–11) he was a keen experimenter; at Tremadoc (1812) he was sure science could better Man’s lot; and in Queen Mab (1813) he was sure it justified Necessity. Then from 1814 till 1819, if we judge from poems alone, science was buried beneath a humanistic landslide: who can imagine the Poet in Alastor doing anything practical, plugging a leak in his boat even? Shelley’s interest in science, though buried deep, was not extinct, however, and his scientific reading continued. We saw in a previous chapter how ideas sometimes had, as it were, to circulate awhile in his bloodstream before dissolving enough to pass the poetic filter, and this process certainly applied to scientific ideas. In Queen Mab those ideas were dragged in to back up a mechanistic philosophy. Six years later, having passed the filter, they appear in subtler guise, fully integrated into his habitual style. The new scientific slant is far less obvious and far more profound than the old.

Nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time.

Tennyson, Locksley Hall