* An expanded version of this note is HERE, among the essays in Poetry and Science.
After thinking about some perspectives on science from Walt Whitman, from an interview and from his poem, "Song of Myself" (see "What is Science?"), we read Edgar Allen Poe's "Sonnet--To Science".
Here 'tis:
Sonnet--To Science
Edgar Allen Poe
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
While Whitman's writings express admiration for the open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgement that are hallmarks of the best scientists, Poe's narrator responds to another aspect of science, the findings that sometimes conflict with cherished or comforting beliefs. Poe's images suggest woodland spirits torn from their pastoral homes and replaced with the "dull realities" of scientific findings. For the poet particularly, these spirits personify vital forces that evoke mystery and wonder.
In a strict scientific view, Diana, the Hamadryad, Naiads, and elves are not physical beings whose existence we can agree on, whose dimensions we can measure, whose metabolisms we can study. So what do their roles become if we don't believe that they are material beings? Are the therefore of no use or importance? Despite Poe's lament, poets are still writing about these woodland spirits.
Whitman treats science again in this often-quoted poem.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proof, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Remember what I said in class about it being dangerous to assume that the narrator of a poem is the poet herself or himself? After all, a poet (or any story teller) might write from numerous points of view, and might create a poetic character who describes a situation from a more moving point of view than that of the poet or storyteller—for example, a deceased person might narrate the events of their own death, as in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Ambrose Bierce (read it at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/375).
So it makes sense to ask: Is the viewpoint of the narrator of "Astronomer" compatible with the viewpoints of Whitman in the interview, and of the narrator of "Song of Myself"? (Both are quoted in "What is Science?")
More on "Astronomer" in a Reflection to come.
