This term’s second and final meeting of the English Faculty’s 18th-Century and Romantic Studies seminar will take place on Thursday 11th May at 5pm in the Board Room, Faculty of English. Prof. Clare Brant (King’s College London) will speak on the subject, ‘Literature, experiment and eighteenth-century balloons: light verse and other flying hits.’ A synopsis of the paper follows below. All are welcome.“In 1783, fire balloons were successfully sent aloft by the Montgolfiers, and swiftly joined by balloons raised by gas. The philosophical and practical consequences of these experiments were immense: at last humans could fly. What would they do with this astonishing opportunity? In the period of balloon madness which followed, writers took up the subject with enthusiasm. Balloons inspired heroic poems, satires, fictions, epigrams, sonnets and philosophical verse. As it celebrated aerial achievements and aired thoughtful ambivalence, the literature of balloons played with experiment and enlightenment. It also has an interesting tendency to light verse, which invites new critical thinking. My presentation discusses some highlights from the literature of balloon madness.”Those wishing to undertake some preparatory reading should request the recommended article and poems from Christopher Tilmouth, Faculty of English.
Clare Brant is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature & Culture at King’s College London, where she co-directs the Centre for Life-Writing Research. Her book Eighteenth-Century Letters and British Culture won the ESSE Book Award of 2008; her book Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination 1783-1786 will be published by Boydell & Brewer this autumn.
 |
| Experiments in photographic aeronautics. |
We considered the optimism around new gaseous discoveries and technologies, and the confidence that new kinds of air could be used as therapy and remedy. We explored the Romanticism of this kind of auto-experimentation, and the key role of figures such as Davy and Beddoes, and places such as the Pneumatic Institution. Comparison between epistolary, prose, and our set poetic descriptions of the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide, demonstrated how Polwhele drew on these other accounts, but pushed them to a satiric extreme.
We also set the poem in the context of a long 18thC tradition of verses on the Universe, or Botanic Garden, from Pope to Erasmus Darwin. We thought about the different poetic forms this corpus engaged with: some epic, some didactic, some comic (as here). Overall, we discussed how poetry like this formed a key part of (elite) British scientific culture at the time, including commentary on recent discoveries, and conveying accurate information (via footnotes, etc.). Indeed, the use of footnotes by Polwhele was a key topic of conversation.
We thought about how these publications were written in the shadow of the French Revolution, Terror, and Napoleonic Wars: in its very name the conservative Anti-Jacobin Review (where our text first appeared) echoed these concerns. We discussed the contrasting political commitments of conservative Polwhele with the more progressive politics of Beddoes, etc., hence the criticism of them under the guise of this poem. In general, we also thought about the contemporary fad or fashion for Laughing Gas (songs, satirical prints), and made comparisons with Davy's subsequently fashionable lectures at the Royal Institution.
We agreed we had all enjoyed reading the poem, and its often superbly awful choice of rhymes; but that perhaps not all of its references were that easy to 'get', and that not all of its humour survives over two hundred years later. We thought about the different voices and characters of the (real) people depicted, and whether or not the author - with contrasting poetic styles - had succeeded in conveying this variegated and personalised bodily experience effectively. As the only stimulant we had to hand was sugar (in the form of a birthday cake for Simon), perhaps a full answer to that last question was not possible.We closed the evening with the promised performance of two historic songs about Laughing Gas: the songs can be downloaded here and here from the Wellcome Images site.
 |
| Yours truly at the piano, with members of the group looking on. Photograph by Charissa. |
 |
| Laughing Gas sheet music. Photograph by Charissa. |
A preview of next Monday's meeting from @WellcomeLibrary? https://t.co/IEhXgdUxeP #slrgair #poeticgas #laughinggas pic.twitter.com/FRdAQj2n1z— scilit-reading-group (@scilitreadgrp) February 17, 2017
Our current header: two aeronautical paintings by Louis Joseph Watteau, on display at the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, Lille 🖼️🖼️🎈🌬️ pic.twitter.com/uySLvkSBBO— scilit-reading-group (@scilitreadgrp) February 15, 2017
The well-taught philosophic mindNext time we will stick with late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century pneumatics, but rather than mice being the subject of experimentation on new types of air we will read about what happened when people breathed them in...
To all compassion gives;Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
A sneak (squeak?) preview of one of next term's readings on #air: 'The Mouse's Petition' https://t.co/KgB5l4IAK2 🐁🌬️📚⚗️ pic.twitter.com/i5E3GiIWcw— scilit-reading-group (@scilitreadgrp) January 4, 2017
