Tennyson and Geology: Poetry and Poetics

This book offers new interpretations of Tennyson’s major poems along-side contemporary geology, and specifically Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-3). Employing various approaches, from close readings both poetic and geological texts, historical contextualisation and the application of Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism, this book demonstrates, not only the significance of geology for Tennyson’s poetry, but the vital import of Tennyson’s poetics in explicating the implications of geology for the nineteenth century and beyond. Gender ideologies in The Princess (1847) are read via High Miller’s geology, while Lyell’s writings are examined for their significance for In Memoriam’s (1851) form. Maud’s (1855) figuration of fossil remains is read along-side methods in comparative anatomy, while Bakhtinian theory is applied to In Memoriam and Maud to demonstrate Tennyson’s remarkable production of a Lyellian and ‘uniformitarian’ poetics. This book will appeal to students and scholars of literature and science, the history of science and of ideas and Bakhtin scholars.