The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy

On All Sides Infinity

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137474346
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In the nineteenth century the beauty of the night sky is the source of both imaginative wonder in poetry and political and commercial power through navigation. The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy examines the impact of astronomical discovery and imperial exploration on poets including Barbauld, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Rossetti.

1

The First International Event and the First “New” Planet: Expanding the Globe and Confronting Infinity

In 1714, Edmund Halley, renowned scientist and a competent navigator, urged the Royal Society to undertake an unprecedented action, not simply of scientific inquiry but of international scientific cooperation, to map the transits of Venus. During this transit, the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. If properly observed, measurements taken would allow scientists to calculate the distance of the planets and accurately assess the size of the solar system. Halley’s request to the Royal Society underscores the importance of this event. He claimed that, “the most noble [or lofty] problem of the universe [in nature] for humanity is to seek to gain knowledge of and apply observation toward the working out of the period of the transit.”¹ His insistence that mapping the transits of Venus did not constitute just one of the important scientific problems, but the single most important problem in all the universe, was not taken as hyperbole by colleagues. Halley was already advanced in age when he made the prediction of the coming transits of Venus and realized their potential for scientific advancement. He knew that he would not live to see the transits of 1761 and 1769, so he worked out the difficult calculations necessary to predict the best sites for observation and set them forth in a treatise published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1714 (“Methodus Singularis”).

Halley sits on the knife-edge of a critical divide in the history of science. The Renaissance lay behind him and the modern cosmology lay before him. He himself was critical as an axis of change in these paradigms. Halley first rendered the previously portentous coming of a comet predictable and also first grasped the importance of measuring the upcoming transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769 in order to determine the parallax of the planet. His calculation of the orbit of the comet that was to bear his name suddenly made one of the previously most mysterious aspects of the field of astronomy, if not commonplace, then certainly within the grasp of understanding and at least, predictable. His discoveries and calculations of the orbits showed that they were not “sublunary” and unpredictable in nature. Comets were at such a distance as to have extremely long periodic returns. The cataloguing of comets in the eighteenth century (important among these comet hunters is Caroline Lucretia Herschel, who independently discovered eight comets) led the push to systematize the natural world that we see in the science of the time. This systematization was at its apex in the Renaissance system of taxonomy devised by botanist Carl Linnaeus and rapidly spread across scientific disciplines. During this time period, the systematic calculation of celestial events as a form of demystification also was at work in the coming interest in the transits of Venus. This call to arms for scientific exploration was intended to set up a relationship between men of science, men of wealth and influence, and the government that had previously not existed, at least not in such a developed and complex manner. It was also to affect the popular mind-set and the literary production of the coming age.

The connection between astronomical observation and literary Romanticism may not be immediately evident, so it is necessary to ground this event in its historical importance. Part of what makes these astronomical events so important is the narrow window of opportunity with which they present themselves for scientific study, as they are one of the rarest of predictable astronomical events. The transits of Venus occur in sets of two, eight years apart, in a pattern repeating every 121.5 years and then every 105.5 years. Therefore if the observations were missed, the scientific community would not again have the opportunity of discovering the crucial information for another lifetime. What could be so important to have mounted the expedition and raised the public awareness to the anticipatory fervor? Astronomers needed to observe the parallax of Venus because doing so would give them the information needed to compute the distance from the earth to the sun (one astronomical unit), and consequently, the distances to the other planets. This information was the key to establishing the dimensions of the solar system. The goal was to do nothing less than discover and map the planetary system and, in so doing, to understand and set its limits.

Over the next fifty-four years, England and the international scientific community at large undertook this challenge. The event captured the imagination of the international scientific community as well as the lay population.² James Cook’s first voyage (1768–1771) to the South Seas was undertaken as a part of this task. While scientific interest may have propelled these travelers forward, the popular interest of the readers back home cemented the ties of astronomy, navigation, discovery, and demystification securely to the national identity.

International cooperation between governments was needed to collect, collate, and analyze the astronomical data from points as distant as Russia, Canada, Australia, America, and Tahiti.³ The importance of the event ensured that Cook set out with the endorsement of popular support and a diplomatic and political immunity for safe passage in his travel. Perhaps most importantly, he set out under the cloak of science, a “noble cause,” which seemed to make his actions above reproach. The English admiralty was more than willing to go under this mantle of pure research—and more than willing to turn this immunity to their own advantage for commercial and military exploration.

The huge expenditure of resources and national pride associated with the voyage had a deep and enduring effect on the public. The popularization of the event assured that it occupied the British imagination. Cook became the subject of popular writings, and the wonder of astronomy and navigation found its way into other popular poetry.⁴ By the time Cook died (February 1779) on his third voyage of discovery, he was a national hero of epic proportion. He was eulogized thus by the young poet Anna Seward:

Ye, who ere-while for Cooke’s illustrious brow

Pluck’d the green laurel, and the oaken bough,

Hung the garlands on the trophied oars,

And pour’d his fame along a thousand shores

(l.7–10)

The above lines show how Cook’s fame grew through his exploits of discovery. Seward has him enjoying the funereal send-off of the heroes of classic literature and, most importantly, his fame is “pour’d . . . along a thousand shores.” The international valorizing of Cook begins with the important mission of mapping the transits.

An example of the transits’ level of international importance is the special consideration that was given to Captain Cook and his ship the Endeavor, which set out for Tahiti to map the transit from the South Seas. The year 1769 was one of conflict (among many) between the French and the English. These longtime combatants were certainly vying for control of the oceans as two of the great naval powers. Such was the importance of the errand that the French forces were ordered to destroy English ships with the sole exception of Cook’s Endeavor. They were instructed not to interfere with him in his passage because of the importance of this scientific venture.

The celestial goal of mapping and expanding boundaries could not be achieved without a similar journey to map the South Seas and set up observational posts in such far-flung sites as Tahiti. Cook’s voyage to observe the transit is well documented. It is clear from looking over his journals that even though the voyage was proposed by the scientific community for this pure scientific research, when it was executed by this captain under control of the admiralty, the focus was not the transit. The transit is observed, of course. On 3 June 1769 Cook’s journal gives the cursory information “so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Sun’s disk” (97). There is only a short paragraph for the entirety of the event that is the supposed focus of the trip. The entry for 4 June, in which a sailor is punished for stealing bread, is nearly as large, and the entry for 6 June, which discusses venereal disease amongst the crew, is four times the size (98–9). But overall, Cook seems infinitely more interested in the islands’ resources and people than in the scientific event. Research by Mary Louise Pratt and others has shown that Cook was under secret orders to explore for the possibility of commercial exploitation (34). The issue of mapping, exploring, and demystifying the natural world was to serve the admiralty as well as science through the provision of star charts and commercial development and resources such as those that grew out of the collections and experiments of Joseph Banks. This exploitation of commercial and military interests is evident also in the secret instructions given to Cook to continue the work of Wallis in discovering new land for colonization and military ports (Beaglehole cix–cx). The military and commercial efforts to map the world were inextricably linked to the scientific effort to map the solar system.

Prior to having this information that allowed them to map the solar system, astronomers could tell the proportional distance from the earth to the sun or to Venus and so on using Newtonian methods; but, in terms of miles, what did that mean? Establishing the boundaries or limits of the solar system is at one and the same time an act of demystification and an act causing human psychological bewilderment. Historically, this information had been beyond reach, so the human mind could think of the heavens under the umbrella term “infinite.” By making these calculations, the human mind would have to come to terms with distances that were actual, yet so large as to defy the human ability to conceive of them. This mental paradox resulting from the measurement of what had previously been immeasurable may be why Halley described the transits as “the most noble problem in nature” (Halley 454). Such a demystification of that portion of nature considered the most beautiful and yet the most elusive to human understanding, created a siren-like call to Halley. Mapping the transits was a possible feat—yet incredibly complex and difficult to execute—the very definition of a challenge that excites wonder in the human psyche. This challenge of discovery in association with a “noble” cause, despite the extreme complexity of execution and the exorbitant use of resources to achieve these results, in many ways became the operating metaphor and then the cultural paradigm of the British Colonial Empire throughout the next century.

The difficulty of obtaining the observations necessary to calculate the parallax of the planet Venus cannot be stressed too much. In order to do the calculations more accurately than the margin of error, observations of the transits would have to take place from as many positions as possible including Tahiti, New Foundland, Siberia, and Madagascar. The observation of the transits would entail travel to places, some of which were the remotest from Britain, on earth. The necessary personnel and delicate astronomical equipment would have to be transported great distances at a time when sea travel was fraught with danger. Even finding some of the locations would have been a logistical nightmare. The longitude problem had not yet been definitively solved in 1761 and 1769, so calculating longitude required acute observation and complex calculations of lunar motions. Using the lunar tables and calculations as accurately as might be possible under the conditions at sea might yield navigational positions that were 30–40 or more miles off in the calculation of longitude. In one instance, Captain Cook was searching for the island of Tahiti, which is merely twenty miles long. The place he was looking for was much smaller than the generally experienced margin of error.⁵

Since the transits occur twice, eight years apart, there would be two opportunities to map them, 1761 and 1769. Once locations were targeted, one had to depend upon favorable weather conditions to obtain useful results. Neville Maskelyne, who later became the royal astronomer, went to the island of St. Helena in 1761 in order to observe the transit. Weather conditions prevented him from taking accurate measurements. He did however, use his time well doing lunar calculations. These lunar tables were tested finding longitude on Cook’s 1769 voyage aboard the Endeavor. All in all, the transit of 1761 was disappointing. Enough adequate observations simply were not obtained in order to accurately perform the necessary calculations.

Since the 1761 transit was such a disappointment, the scientists would have just one more chance to perform the observations, or science would be forced to wait more than a lifetime to try again. It became clear to the astronomers at the Royal Observatory in England, and to the admiralty that supported and funded the projects, that a massive international scientific effort would be needed to obtain the correct accurate measurements. The logistics of coordinating such an effort during the time period in question are mind-boggling. Where there were established observatories such as France, Italy, Spain, and Russia, information had to be disseminated regarding the proper procedures for taking the measurements. Following this dissemination, efforts had to be coordinated in order for adequately trained personnel to observe properly. Post observation, the information had to be gathered, centralized, and translated from various languages; copious and tedious calculations had to be done and redone; and finally, the quality of the information obtained had to be assessed. Where there were not established observatories—as in Canada, America, Africa, Australia, the South Sea Islands—the journeys already mentioned had to be mounted, equipped, funded, and executed under very difficult circumstances over a long period of time. A certain amount of duplication had to be built into the execution of these journeys due to the hazards inherent in sea travel at the time.

Since the journeys were so expensive, the organizers decided to gather as much information, scientific as well as commercial and military, as possible. The vessels were fitted out with all kinds of scientific instruments (not just astronomical ones) and staffed with surveyors, botanists, naturalists, geographers, and cartographers, as well as with admiralty officers. The young Joseph Banks, future president of the Royal Society, was amongst the botanists. Since it was uncertain if an opportunity for such a massive scientific expedition would arise again, or be paid for, the men of science associated with the journeys were intent on the inductive and indiscriminate gathering of information; they intended to sort it all out later.

Everywhere the Endeavor went the young naturalist Joseph Banks worked assiduously gathering plant specimens, animals, and even humans and human remains for study back in England. David Miller, using Latour’s notion of a “center of calculation,” discusses this phenomenon:

Cycles of accumulation through voyages of exploration thus involved mobilizing and disciplining economic and political resources, administrative procedures, and museums and other centers of calculations as well as astronomers, botanists, zoologists and the like. A center of calculation is thus characterized as being a center on which a cycle of accumulation is focused and which possesses the power to maintain that situation by disciplining individuals and institutions across a wide spectrum of the society. (25)

At the beginning of these voyages of exploration, Joseph Banks had not yet organized his specific “center of calculation” for botanical and biological studies. However, the process of forming a center of calculation was already begun in astronomy.

The establishment of the Greenwich observatory in 1675 “took a long step forward along the path of professionalization, and a stronger emphasis was placed on the possible services of astronomy to navigation and geography” (Wilson 163, in Planetary Astronomy). In this sense, professionalizing the science of astronomy and creating a centralized authority to oversee the gathering of data and set the practical goals of the profession, created a model for “centers of calculation” to come in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This step toward professionalizing science and putting astronomy into the service of navigation and geography early on was one taken toward the imbrication of the science with the admiralty and the empire. The importance of Greenwich Observatory to the Empire grew throughout the colonial period, until in 1885 the International Dateline and Greenwich or “universal” astronomical time, was established. By the end of the colonial period the Greenwich observatory was essentially the spatial and temporal locus of the world. The entwining of these disparate social forces toward a common goal of demystification through systematized knowledge was to change the psyche of the nineteenth-century person in heretofore unthought-of ways. For one thing, a centralized locus of information also created a format for systematized cultural dissemination, and later, colonial public relations.

First and foremost, the scientific community did not begin British colonialism, established colonies being well over a century old at this time, but it did change the ways in which the British Empire developed. The scientific community also displays the motives, both explicit and implicit of the Empire. The first famous voyage of

Captain Cook was not conceived of, or proposed by, the admiralty at all. It was a development of the scientific community more than fifty years in the making. At the core, this endeavor was the product Edmund Halley conceived, for what would now be called “pure research.” While all kinds of research would be done on the voyages, none of it was deemed important enough on its own to inspire a voyage of discovery of this magnitude. Clearly, the rareness of the celestial event inspired the scientific community. The voyage did not even ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The First International Event and the First “New” Planet: Expanding the Globe and Confronting Infinity
• 2 Barbauld: “Embryo Systems and Unkindled Suns”
• 3 Coleridge: Herschel and Cosmogonical Time
• 4 John Herschel and Mary Somerville: Astronomical Legacy and the Proprietary British Scientist
• 5 Astronomy and Empire: The Pathos of Demystification in Lamia and The Witch of Atlas
• 6 Rossetti: Reconciliation and Recursivity
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index