Transporting the Future: Erasmus Darwin and the Poetics of Climate Control

Abstract:In this article, I examine the depiction of icebergs in late eighteenth-century British poetry, focusing on Erasmus Darwin's The Economy of Vegetation (1791). In this work, Darwin projects a future in which icebergs are systematically transported to tropical waters to regulate global climates. Darwin's proposal, prompted by the disruption of colonial shipping routes by an iceberg, repurposes the model of industrial poetics he had earlier employed to influence the colonization of Australia. Building on the insights of scholars such as Siobhan Carroll and Alan Bewell, I argue that Darwin's poetics not only reflect but also actively support his ideological investment in the global development of industry. Furthermore, I detect a deeper ambiguity in Darwin's visions of the future, and suggest that his climate-controlling aspirations are more concerned with maintaining the conditions for his poetry's cultural reception than with addressing the broader consequences of such interventions.