In recent years, both the fields of literature and science and visual culture of science have addressed the importance of different visual and literary elements and their roles in establishing meaning and communication in science. In this article, I explore how visual and textual elements work to establish a narrative of plants in Erasmus Darwin's The Botanic Garden (1791) and in Alexander von Humboldt's Essai sur la géographie des plantes (1804). These two scientists employed literary and visual elements in order to construct their visions of the nature of plants in a time when the ideals of Enlightenment science gave way to a more holistic view of integrating the sciences and the arts. I, therefore, also discuss the analytical approach of integrated readings between the literary and visual elements of science.
BeerGillian.1983. Darwin's Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
BrowneC. A.1944. “Alexander von Humboldt as Historian of Science in Latin America.” Isis35: 134–139. doi: 10.1086/358684
3.
BunkseEdmunds V.1981. “Humboldt and an Aesthetic Tradition in Geography.” Geographical Review71 (2): 127–146. doi: 10.2307/214183
4.
CartwrightJohn H., and BakerBrian. 2008. Literature and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
5.
CosgroveDenis.2008. Geography and Vision: Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World. London: I. B. Tauris.
6.
DarwinErasmus.1806. The Poetical Works of Erasmus Darwin Containing The Botanic Garden and The Temple of Nature: With Philosophical Notes and Plates. Vol. 2. London: J. Johnson.
7.
DastonLorraine, and GalisonPeter. 2007. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books.
8.
DettelbachMichael.2001. “Alexander von Humboldt between Enlightenment and Romanticism.” Northeastern Naturalist8: 9–20. doi: 10.1656/1092-6194(2001)8[9:AVHBEA]2.0.CO;2
9.
DettelbachMichael.2005. “The Stimulations of Travel: Humboldt's Physiological Construction of the Tropics.” In Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire, edited by DriverFelix and MartinsLuciana, 43–58. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.
DriverFelix, and MartinsLuciana, eds. 2005. Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11.
FaraPatricia.2012. Erasmus Darwin: Sex, Science, and Serendipity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12.
HelferichGerard.2004. Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey that Changed the Way We See the World. New York: Gotham Books.
13.
HolmesRichard.2008. The Age of Wonder – How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. London: Harper Press.
14.
Von HumboldtAlexader, and BonplandAimé. 2010. “Essay on the Geography of Plants.” In Essay on the Geography of Plants, edited by JacksonStephen T., Translated by RomanowskiSylvie, 49–144. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
15.
JacksonStephen T.2010. “Introduction: Humboldt, Ecology, and the Cosmos.” In Essay on the Geography of Plants, edited by JacksonStephen T., Translated by RomanowskiSylvie, 1–46. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
KoernerLisbet.1996. “Carl Linnaeus in his Time and Place.” In Cultures of Natural History, edited by JardineNicholas, SecordJames A. and SparyEmma C., 145–162. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
KusukawaSachiko.2012. Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in the Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
18.
LevineGeorge.2002. Dying to Know: Epistemology and Narrative in Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
McCroryDonald.2010. Nature's Interpreter: The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press.
20.
McNeilMaureen.1986. “The Scientific Muse: The Poetry of Erasmus Darwin.” In Languages of Nature: Critical Essays on Science and Literature, edited by JordanovaLudmilla J., 159–203. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
21.
PageMichael R.2012. The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells: Science, Evolution, and Ecology. Farnham: Ashgate.
22.
ReillPeter Hans.2003. “The Legacy of the ‘Scientific Revolution’: Science and the Enlightenment.” In The Cambridge History of Science – Volume 4 – Eighteenth-Century Science, edited by PorterRoy, 23–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
RomanowskiSylvie.2010. “Humboldt's Pictorial Science: An Analysis of the Tableau physique des Andes et pays voisins.” In Essay on the Geography of Plants, edited by JacksonStephen T., Translated by RomanowskiSylvie, 157–198. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
24.
RupkeNicolaas.1999. “A Geography of Enlightenment: The Critical Reception of Alexander von Humboldt's Mexico Work.” In Geography and Enlightenment, edited by LivingstoneDavid N. and WithersCharles W. J., 319–344. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
25.
RupkeNicolaas.2008. Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
26.
SchiebingerLonda.1996. “Gender and Natural History.” In Cultures of Natural History, edited by JardineNicholas, SecordJames A., and SparyEmma C., 163–177. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
