The book Contemporary Poetry
and Contemporary Science edited by Robert
Crawford came into existence as a result of a connection made at the Edinburgh
International Science Festival which has existed for 21 years. The 2010
Festival will begin on April 3rd. Robert Crawford writes poems about
science. He was encouraged to run a program about the connection with science
at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
The UK also has a Sciarts scheme, an interdisciplinary approach, run by the Wellcome Trust with support from the Arts Council of England. Wellcome Trust supported the publication of these dialogues. Poets and scientists were brought together to talk to one another. The book Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science edited by Robert Crawford, published by Oxford University Press, 2006 was the result. Look at the Acknowledgements for the range of sources (pp vii – ix), the amount of material covering both areas of study that demonstrates the breadth and depth of the interests of the contributors, scientists and poets. For Challenging the Divide, Simon Armitage, the poet, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the astronomer, have been chosen for comparison. Scanning the Century: The Penguin Book of Poetry in the Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Forbes, Penguin Books, 2000 is divided into different themes that cover the history of the 20th century. Among them are ‘Mother Nature on the Run: The Environment’, ‘We Billions Cheer: The Media’, ‘Things under the Sun: Science and Technology’, ‘The Way we Live’, ‘By the Light of Orion: Sci-fi & Space’, and ‘Unfinished business 2000 – ‘. Oxford University now has a Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. Its first Professor was Richard Dawkins. Oxford University Press decided a collection of the best writing of twentieth century scientists should be available for the general reader. The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by Richard Dawkins who chose not to include examples of his own writing, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. The range of scientists represented in this collection is impressive. As short extracts, many are appropriate for students. A number of the essays are the work of scientists who have been awarded the Lewis Thomas Award. Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Black Swan edition, London, 2004 Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Harper Collins, London 2003 LUPAS – The Internet name for the Liverpool University Centre for Poetry and Science gave me access to the writing of David Morley, a scientist, working in Creative writing at the University of Warwick. Among poems of the month published on its website was the work of Roald Hoffmann. Google poets in residence in science departments in universities and you will find an increasing number of these connections being made. Gwyneth Lewis was the poet in residence for the Department of Physics at Cardiff University in 2005. Carcanet Press, Manchester, published the poetry of Rebecca Elson, astronomer and poet. Authors dealing with the history of the sciences include these outstanding historians of the sciences, Patricia Fara, John Gribbin as well as John and Mary Gribbin jointly and Roy Porter. The most recent, Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation discovered the beauty and terror of science, Harper Press, London, 2008, tells the stories of the discoveries and attitudes of the scientists and poets of the late 18th and early 19th century – a wonder-filled read. There is a British Society for Literature and Science. ************************
A discovery about science students at Cambridge after World War II.
Science students asked for courses in English literature.
In The Apple and the Spectroscope, published by Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1966., lectures about English literature, prepared for students of science, are presented.The author, T.R.Henn had been asked by science students in Cambridge in 1947 to help them understand English literature. The lectures they had asked for were to be given in the long vacation. The Heads of Scientific Departments supported the idea and the Faculty Board of English discussed a syllabus. This book contains the lectures prepared by T.R.Henn. What its discovery tells me is that not all young scientists, as C.P. Snow maintained in 1959, were dismissive of literature.
Sir Lawrence Bragg, a Nobel prize winner with his father Sir William Bragg, would insist, in the Preface he wrote for that book seven years after C. P. Snow had first published The Two Cultures and the Science Revolution, that ‘Science [was] becoming so vast and specialized that it [was] increasingly difficult to keep abreast of development. Just as gold is mined from the earth with infinite labour to be buried again in the earth in vaults, so new knowledge may only be too easily buried in scientific journals until with the lapse of time it can no longer be of interest or influence the progress of science. It is as important to present new knowledge in a form in which it can be assimilated and its essential import realized as it is to discover it, and this presentation is an art akin to poetry and literature.’
T. R. Henn, The Apple and the Spectroscope Preface by W.L. Bragg, published by Methuen General Studies Paperbacks, Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, paperback edition, 1966, [pp viii – ix]
If that was true then, it is even more true now. Without exposure to poetry and literature how can scientists gain the capacity to write with that clarity and understanding of the human condition so that students, as citizens of the future, have the knowledge and understanding required to make thoughtful political decisions about what is needed for themselves, their families and one day their children as part of society in the future? **************** Collections of poems about the sciences include: Poems of Science edited by John Heath-Stubbs and Phillips Salman, published by Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1984 A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems about Science, edited by Maurice Riordan and Jon Turney, Faber and Faber, London, 2000. |