Scholar Robert M. Ryan, a Chestnut Hill resident for the last 41 years, holds a copy of his new book, “Charles Darwin & The Church of Wordsworth,” which explores the genius of these two intellectual giants and their contrasting views of the world. (Photo by Len Lear)[/caption]

by Len Lear

“There lives not one whose pilgrimage on earth has been more blessed by God’s special grace in stirring Heaven-ward thoughts in fellow men…”

These words were written by Eliza Fletcher, a friend of the family of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), as a poetic tribute to the man who was arguably the greatest nature poet in the history of the English language. Wordsworth painted a picture of nature as benign, inspirational and reverential. On the other hand, Wordsworth’s contemporary Englishman, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), was a naturalist and geologist best known for his contributions to the science of evolution in his revolutionary 1859 book, “On the Origin of Species.” To Darwin the world was governed by fixed laws in which a supreme being played no part. And survival in this world was a matter of “survival of the fittest.”

One might say that these two 19th-century geniuses competed in the public realm about their views of the natural world and the relationship between religion and science. A compelling new book, “Charles Darwin & The Church of Wordsworth,” by Chestnut Hill scholar, Robert M. Ryan, explores the relationship between these two intellectual giants and their contrasting views of the world.

Ryan, who has lived in Chestnut Hill for 41 years, earned a PhD in English Literature at Columbia University in 1972. The subject of his dissertation was “Keats and Religion." The Bronx native “just turned 75, God help me.” His parents were both immigrants from Ireland with little more than a grammar school education. Now an Emeritus Professor of English at Rutgers University, Ryan has also written “The Romantic Reformation” and "Keats: The Religious Sense," published by Princeton University Press in 1976. “I takes me 15 years to write a book,” he told us last week, “so I may not live long enough to write another one…

“What I argue in the book is that Wordsworth’s writing about nature was profoundly theological in character, which accounts for much of his impact as a counterweight to Darwin. It started out as a Wordsworth book, a study of his continuing importance as a poet in the decades after his death. Along the way it struck me that at the same time Darwin was becoming the other leading authority on humanity's relationship with the natural world and that the two became involved in a kind of rivalry.”

Ryan started thinking about the topic in 2000 or thereabouts, finished the book 13 years later and then spent more than two years searching for a publisher and then enduring the publication process with Oxford University Press. The brilliant scholarly analysis is not a page-turner, but Ryan believes that “libraries will have to buy it.”

Since Wordsworth and Darwin were both alive between 1809 and 1850, did they know each other? “They never met, as far as I know,” said Ryan, “but Darwin in his younger years was an avid reader and admirer of Wordsworth's poetry. They had a friend in common who might have talked about one to the other, and Wordsworth's lifelong interest in travel narratives could have led him to Darwin's ‘The Voyage of the Beagle’ when it was published in 1839 or to reviews of it in popular periodicals, but this is just speculation.”

What does Ryan hope will be the impact of his book? “In 1959,” he replied, “C. P. Snow published an influential book called ‘The Two Cultures,’ in which he argued that people in the humanities are generally ignorant of the sciences and that scientists don't always respect the intellectual achievements of literary men and women. This gap continues to be encouraged by disciplinary divisions in academia.

“I'm hoping my book may do something to bridge the divide between the two cultures by showing that Wordsworth's thinking about the natural world won the respect of prominent 19th-century scientists and that the poet was very much at the center of the controversy that Darwin provoked. The trouble with crossing disciplines, in academia at least, is that you can antagonize both camps.”

Ryan and his wife, Brighid Blake, still live in Chestnut Hill. Their??? children, Mark and Delia, are in their 30s. What are the pros and cons, if any, of living in Chestnut Hill for more than four decades? “No cons that I can think of, except when I'm out at night at the theater and wish I lived closer to Center City. But that's overbalanced by the pros of living in a beautiful, serene environment with lots of shops and sidewalks that lead anywhere I want to go. To live within walking distance of the Wissahickon Creek is more than a Bronx kid ever dreamed of.”

What was the hardest thing Ryan ever had to do? “Not for public consumption.”

What is the best advice Ryan ever received? “‘Apply to Columbia University.’ While there I got an excellent graduate education, and I met my wife."

What is Ryan’s greatest regret, if any? “That I didn't become a Broadway star. It's probably too late to start now.”

Which talent that Ryan does not have would he most like to have? “I wish I could play the piano, but wishing isn't as productive as practicing might be.”

What Romantic poet has Ryan admired the most and why? “Depends on whom I was reading on a particular day or week. William Blake was a uniquely imaginative genius in both the poetic and the pictorial arts. He profoundly changed the way I think about a lot of things, religion in particular. Byron is enormously entertaining, very funny and seldom dull. Shelley was probably the smartest, most intellectual of the poets; I'm awe-struck by much of his poetry. Keats was the first object of my affection, and my early devotion hasn't diminished. Whenever I'm in Rome, I go and pay my respects at his grave. Lately, working with Wordsworth has given me new respect for his originality, dedication and momentous achievement.

“I should say a word for the prose writers. Thomas DeQuincy's ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ is full of gorgeous writing. And if talent may be judged by continued popularity and financial returns, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley might be considered the most successful writers of the Romantic period. If Mary Shelley had been able to negotiate residuals for ‘Frankenstein,’ her descendents would be rich. Austen's people would be doing pretty well, too, these days.”

Who are Ryan’s own favorite writers from other eras and why? “I must first genuflect before the altar of Shakespeare, whose genius seems superhuman. I try never to miss a new production of any of his plays. I'm excited by theater in general as an art form and routinely subscribe to three or four of Philadelphia's theater companies. These days I'm especially impressed by the young Irish dramatists, Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson. Going way back in time, I have been deeply impressed by Aeschylus (no surprise there), whom I have read in various translations.

“I studied classical Greek for two years in college, and we read some of the ‘Odyssey’ in the original — but that language has since been all but driven out of my brain by inferior stuff. The same is true for Latin, in which as a high school kid I read Virgil's ‘Aeneid’ with great admiration. As for more recent writers, I never get tired of reading and rereading Dickens. I could throw Browning and Trollope and Emily Bronte and Joyce and Virginia Woolf into a list that would end with Bob Dylan and Stephen Sondheim.”

What is Ryan’s most treasured possession? “My family, of course, insofar as I can be said to ‘possess’ them.”

If Ryan could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? “It would be a large city like New York, London or Rome.”

What does Ryan like to do in his spare time? “As I said, I like the theater, and I also subscribe to the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Opera Company. Apart from that I read, walk, listen to recorded music, watch movies on TV and make an effort to learn Italian.”

What does Ryan you consider the most overrated virtue? “Consistency. Emerson called it ‘the hobgoblin of little minds.’"

If Ryan could meet and spend time with anyone on earth, who would it be? “Some relatives here and abroad whom I don't see very often. Apart from them, maybe Stephen Sondheim. I might invite Pope Francis to join us at Sardi's if he's in town. If dead people count, the list would include Wordsworth and Darwin, of course, and Blake and Byron and Keats — and one other Romantic figure, Napoleon Bonaparte. There's a man I could have a beer with if he wasn't too busy acquiring and governing and losing an empire.

For more information about the Darwin/Wordsworth book, visit www.oup.com