American Literature and Science

by Scholnick, Robert J.

• ISBN13: 9780813117850
• ISBN10: 0813117852
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-11-05
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

" Literature and science are two disciplines are two disciplines often thought to be unrelated, if not actually antagonistic. But Robert J. Scholnick points out that these areas of learning, up through the beginning of the nineteenth century, "were understood as parts of a unitary endeavor." By mid-century they had diverged, but literature and science have continued to interact, conflict, and illuminate each other. In this innovative work, twelve leaders in this emerging interdisciplinary field explore the long engagement of American writers with science and uncover science's conflicting meanings as a central dimension of the nation's conception of itself. Reaching back to the Puritan poet-minister-physician Edward Taylor, who wrote at the beginning of the scientific revolution, and forward to Thomas Pynchon, novelist of the cybernetic age, this collection of original essays contains essential work on major writers, including Franklin, Jefferson, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Twain, Hart Crane, Dos Passos, and Charles Olson. Through its exploration of the ways that American writers have found in science and technology a vital imaginative stimulus, even while resisting their destructive applications, this book points towards a reconciliation and integration within culture. An innovative look at a neglected dimension of our literary tradition, American Literature and Science stands as both a definition of the field and an invitation to others to continue and extend new modes of inquiry.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Permeable Boundaries: Literature and Science in America	p. 1
"This Brazen Serpent Is a Doctors Shop": Edward Taylor's Medical Vision	p. 18
Benjamin Franklin: The Fusion of Science and Letters	p. 39
Thomas Jefferson	p. 58
An Intrinsic Luminosity: Poe's Use of Platonic and Newtonian Optics	p. 77
Fields of Investigation: Emerson and Natural History	p. 94
Thoreau and Science	p. 110
(Pseudo-) Scientific Humor	p. 128
Traveling in Time with Mark Twain	p. 157
Hart Crane and John Dos Passos	p. 172
Fields of Spacetime and the "I" in Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems	p. 194
"Unfurrowing the Mind's Plowshare": Fiction in a Cybernetic Age	p. 209
Turbulence in Literature and Science: Questions of Influence	p. 229
Bibliography: American Literature and Science through 1989	p. 251
Contributors	p. 273
Index	p. 275
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