The Chemist as a Poet: An Analysis of the Select Poems of Sir Humphry Davy

Abstract

Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), the torchbearer of modern Chemistry in Europe as well as the rest of the world is best known for his scientific invention in the field of Chemistry - the invention of the miner’s safety lamp, the discovery of several important chemical elements including potassium, magnesium and chlorine etc. But a very important strain of his personality as a poet who wrote verses throughout his life is shadowed by the clout that he enjoyed as a scientist.  A close acquaintance of romantics like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Byron, Davy’s poetry was an endeavour to bring an aesthetic sensibility in the overtly rational realm of science. Davy’s poetry is a complex conglomerate of science, nature, imagination and the complex manifestation of human life. This paper therefore will try to delve into the rather overshadowed strain of Humphry Davy’s personality as a poet. The paper will try to understand how Davy used poetry to bridge the chasm that divided disciplines like Literature, Philosophy etc. and scientific disciplines.