The ‘true philosophy’ of Robert Hunt: forms of understanding in Panthea and The Poetry of Science

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the first half of the nineteenth century, forms of knowledge production were strongly influenced by what has been called Romantic science. The work of Robert Hunt (1807–1887) is a notable example of the fusion of thought and feeling that this entailed. A scientist but also novelist, Hunt is best known for his account of contemporary scientific discoveries, The Poetry of Science (1848). Although it takes the form of prose, its discourse of the poetic underlines what was for Hunt a crucial relationship between science and poetry, united in their search for truth through the power of the imagination. His next major work makes still more explicit his view of this relationship. In the novel Panthea (1849), Hunt uses his young hero’s encounter with the Spirit of Nature to explore the role of the imagination in an age increasingly shaped by matters of fact and questions of utility, whilst emphasising the corollary of his search for truth: the continuing mystery of creation and the role of poetry in speaking for it.