02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Byron's Don Juan and Controversy

However, on receiving an early copy of the first canto of Byron’s Don Juan in 1819, Banks was outraged. ‘I never read so Lascivious a performance. No woman here will Confess that she has read it. We hitherto considered his Lordship only as an Atheist without morals. We now must add to his respectable Qualifications that of being a Profligate.’16 Yet had Banks lived to read the tenth canto (1821), he might well have been amused by His Lordship’s nimble mockery of Newton and the story o...
  1  notes

The poem pokes fun at Adam in the Garden of Eden, and predicts a hopeful future through science.

02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Byron Charged With Atheism

Over the next decade Herschel’s work began to be widely known by the younger generation of Romantic writers. Byron visited him at Slough in 1811, and viewed the stars through his telescope, which gave him an alarmingly religious experience: ‘The Night is also a religious concern; and even more so, when I viewed the Moon and Stars through Herschel’s telescope, and saw that they were worlds.’124 Later Byron defended himself against accusations of atheism. ‘I did not expect that, becau...
Folksonomies: history heresy orthodoxy
Folksonomies: history heresy orthodoxy
  1  notes

For extrapolating on the insights about the Universe brought on by looking through Herschel's telescope.