oa Erasmus Darwin’s Impact on English Romanticism

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) is primarily remembered today as a precursor of his grandson Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution, and secondly as a poet and serious medical scientist, although he was a much-celebrated versifier in his day and briefly one of England’s most popular poets. His style and poetic vision were quickly eclipsed by the Romantic Movement, however, and the explosion of scientific inquiry in the 19th century, but his influence, particularly the medical treatise Zoonomia and the scientific poems The Botanic Garden and The Temple of Nature, can be clearly traced in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and the Shelleys. This article trace Darwin’s influence on William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge specifically using a macro-historical and history of ideas perspective to contextualize Darwin’s impact within late 18th century intellectual culture– specifically radicalism, materialism, and spirituality.