"THE AGE OF WONDER": SCIENTISTS GET ROMANTIC

In his "Critique of Practical Reason", Kant named the two things that filled him with wonder and awe: the "starry heaven" above and the "moral law within". A similar dedication would go on to define the Romantic poets--Keats, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge incorporated both science and the internal life into their poetry. Somehow, the second half of the relationship--the influence of the poets on the scientists--has not been expertly explored until now, with the publication of Richard Holmes's "The Age of Wonder".

"Romanticism as a cultural force is generally regarded as hostile to science, its ideal of subjectivity eternally opposed to that of scientific objectivity," Holmes writes. "But I do not believe this was always the case, or that the terms are so mutually exclusive. The notion of wonder seems to be something that once united them, and can still do so.”

The Economist called the book a "long-awaited fermentation of the author's knowledge of the Romantic poets and his lifelong fascination with science." A biographer of Shelley and Coleridge, Holmes's particular genius is to parse the similar philosophical concerns of both science and poetry, showing us how the scientists of the era defined the textbook Romantic temperament as much as the poets did.

Explorers and scientists like Mungo Park, William Herschel, Humphry Davy (who unfortunately introduced Coleridge to nitrous oxide) and Sir Joseph Banks had the characteristics we associate with Romanticism: they led feverishly creative lives, believed in destiny, were prone to having visions and cultivated a sense of wonder. Like the Romantics, Holmes's scientists possessed endearing dedication. They devised spectacular plans, ignored common sense, packed frivolous items (Mungo Park carried a formal brass-buttoned coat with him into the wilds of Africa).

The book is appropriately massive, resembling a Harry Potter novel with its jewel-toned cover and thick vanilla pages. But it's an intellectual treat as well as an aesthetic one--Holmes's argument is not only convincing but actually revelatory. Best of all, it offers a new perspective on some of the most-read poems in the canon.

"The Age of Wonder", by Richard Holmes (Pantheon), out now.

~ MOLLY YOUNG