Includes bibliographical references (p. 437-446) and index.

Medieval cosmology and European literature : Dante and Chaucer -- Science and literature in the Elizabethan renaissance -- Science and literature in seventeenth-century England -- Science and literature, 1680-1790 -- The touch of cold philosophy : the response to science in Romantic literature, 1790-1840 -- Nineteenth-century American literature and science : problems of analogy -- Those dreadful hammers : geology and evolution in nineteenth-century literature -- Darwin's gothic : science and literature in the late nineteenth century -- Themes in science fiction -- Science and literature in the twentieth century : from entropy to chaos -- The two cultures debates -- Science wars and imperial ambitions -- Epilogue : a time for cultural exchange.