Call for papers
The Glory and Fall of Scientific Poetry
An International Colloquium
Montreal (Canada), Sept. 15-17, 2010
By the end of the Enlightenment period in Europe, a number of literary works mixing verse and science gained prominence and were circulated in several countries. Erasmus Darwin’s The Botanic garden (1791) was quickly translated into French by Joseph-Philippe-François Deleuze, Jacques Delille’s Les Trois règnes de la nature (1808) was translated in Flemish as early as 1813, and Goethe published his Metamorphoze der Pflanzen in 1798. The success of these long treatises, often accompanied with an imposing set of footnotes, marks a high point in the tradition of didactic poetry that goes as far back as Lucretius or Vergil. Yet, it is at the same time the swan’s song of the genre.
Participants in the “Republic of Letters” possessed an expertise that ranged, according to Voltaire, “from the thorns of mathematics to the flowers of poetry”. This all disappears during the 19th c. to the benefit of a culture made up of disciplines considered distinct from then on. As a matter of fact, the alliance between science and poetry soon started being condemned. According to Leopardi, they share “a sworn and eternal enmity”; Keats reproaches Newton with “unweaving the rainbow”. For Poe, didactism is but a “heresy” – a position backed by Baudelaire. In France, after 1900 and Sully Prudhomme, any effort to convey science in verse will often but result in enriching the inventory of “fous littéraires”.
Thus denied of its legitimacy, scientific poetry equally lost any esthetic value it might have had and it was widely ignored by literary critics. This process took place in different ways in different countries, but little is known about it since no serious comparative study has ever been conducted.
Initiated by a research team at work on French scientific poetry, the Montreal colloquium will bring together specialists of different literatures in order to try and map the evolution of the genre, in Europe and in North America, from 1750 until today.
Did the fall of scientific poetry from an elevated status, followed by an almost complete disappearance, work in the same way at the same time in all areas? Was it a global Western phenomenon or did it affect some countries only? Which poetic forms were in use, what is it that caused their fall of grace and what kind of arguments were used for or against scientific poetry? Is there still some kind of scientific poetry in existence today and what does it look like?
The emphasis will be put on attempts at a global apprehension of the topic but monographic studies will equally be welcome when dedicated to exemplary cases.
Four major directions will be favored:
- Trends: Panoramic views in synchrony or diachrony of a nation’s output, or of a sub-genre or a specific theme.
- Actors: Communications dedicated to major figures (authors, contributors, scientists, opponents of the genre, etc.)
- Areas: Emphasis on the role of national interfaces (translations journeys, transnational themes and fashions, science and nationalist views).
- Methods: Tools adapted to the study of scientific poetry texts.
The duration of standard communications will not exceed some 20 mn. Proposals (3500 signs max) should be forwarded to the conveners by October 10:
Hugues Marchal (Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle Paris 3 / CNRS) : [log in to unmask]
Michel Pierssens (Université de Montréal) : [log in to unmask]
*********************************************************
British Association for Romantic Studies
http://www.bars.ac.uk
To advertise Romantic literature conferences, publications, jobs, or
other events that the BARS members would be interested in, please
contact Neil Ramsey <[log in to unmask]>
Also use this address to register any change in your e-mail address,
or to be removed from the list.
Messages are held in archives, along with other information about the
Mailbase at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/bars.html
*********************************************************