“A great empire falling to pieces”: Coleridge, Herschel, and Whewell on the Poetics of Unitary Knowledge

Abstract

This essay examines the use of poetic quotations in the metascientific writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Herschel, and William Whewell. It situates particular uses of poetic quotations in relation both to the author’s work and the broader context of early nineteenth-century metascientific discourse. While each of these authors espoused a different model of scientific method, they all had recourse to poetic quotations as a means of gesturing toward what they saw as the fundamental unity of knowledge. In an age of increased disciplinary specialization, poetic quotations functioned as both ceremonial invocations of a unitary national culture and speculative gestures toward a future synthesis that would articulate the fragmentary branches of modern knowledge as a fully integrated organic whole.