‘Nature herself seems in the vapours now’: poetry and climate change in Ireland 1600–1820

Abstract

Abstract:Long before climate change became a recognised phenomenon, unusual weather patterns were affecting our lives and being recorded in our literature. Referred to as the ‘Little Ice Age’, the period between 1450 and 1850 saw severe weather conditions in Europe and North America, and during this time both private and published writings show a particular sensitivity to meteorological description. Turbulent weather, both at sea and on land, was a feature of much seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poetry, combining experience and observation in powerful ways. The Romantic era brought further change to the literary representation of weather, when heightened attention to subjective states was matched by an increased awareness of the relationship between natural forces and political upheaval. In this essay I will explore the changing representation of weather in poetry written in Ireland between 1600 and 1820 and examine the relationship between literary convention and political and intellectual transformation in these texts.