The unity of thought and thing: collapsing mind-matter boundaries in the poetry and prose of Constance Naden

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hylo-idealism, the militantly atheist philosophical persuasion of Victorian poet and philosopher Constance Naden, attempted to combine what had long been thought irreconcilable: materialism with idealism, mind and matter, thought and thing. It did so radically by denying the difference between these dualistic terms. This paper explores the implications of this theory as it was developed in Naden’s poetry and prose, arguing that Naden’s insistence on the interrelationality of humanity and nature turns her into an unsuspected predecessor of latter-day new materialisms.