Science of Poetry
Today's class discussion was centered around the "science" of poetry--a title that I found interesting considering we focused heavily on the technical aspects of poetry and poetic forms. We related learning the scansion of poems to dissection because we separated the poems into different pieces and attempted to understand the meaning behind choices that the poets made. Lastly, we listened to a poem and tried to write down as much of it as we could, and realized that each time we heard something different as well as how important it is to realize what sorts of things stood out for each of us. After class, I wondered: do we consider science to be so technical? Would we consider any type of art that has a specific form or follows meticulous rules to be scientific?
As lover, reader, and writer of poetry, I have never really thought about the possible connection that it could have to the techniques of science. I would not consider it the same as creating a hypothesis or performing a scientific experiment; however, I can relate to the planning that occurs before the experiment and the possible length of time that passes before the experiment is completed. Scientists, like most poets or artists are observers--they comment on what is going on in the world around them and attempt to share this information with their peers and hopefully the rest of the world.
Although it is easy to believe that there is no connection between science and art, I am happy to see that the two have blended in a forum that interests me.
As lover, reader, and writer of poetry, I have never really thought about the possible connection that it could have to the techniques of science. I would not consider it the same as creating a hypothesis or performing a scientific experiment; however, I can relate to the planning that occurs before the experiment and the possible length of time that passes before the experiment is completed. Scientists, like most poets or artists are observers--they comment on what is going on in the world around them and attempt to share this information with their peers and hopefully the rest of the world.
Although it is easy to believe that there is no connection between science and art, I am happy to see that the two have blended in a forum that interests me.
posted by maxine at 2:12 PM
3 Comments:
You've asked some great questions about the status of the "scientific," particularly your question about whether or not we would consider any kind of artistic creation that follows meticulous rules to be scientific. I don't have a great answer, but you might notice that in class I often put "science" in scare quotes perhaps to have us question the status of science itself. Are there ways in which caling scansion a kind of science of poetry may be incorrect? Probably. But I also like how the combination of the arts and the sciences (which may not be reducible to the "technical," as you mention) helps us think about the connections between these two seemingly opposing areas of inquiry.
At first, to answer your question about whether or not there are forms of art that follow meticulous rules to be scientific, I thought no. Art is very much about free form. You try not to think and plan out each step with a set of rules; you just let your brush, pencil move freely. But then I thought,well actually, there is a type of art that is very 'scientific': computer programming and graphics. I didn't even think about the two being connected. As a computer science major, art and graphics are my concentration so I thought it was interesting that I never really thought how art could be so technical and meticulous. Many lines of code may only draw a simple shape, so filling an entire canvas would most definitely involve lots of planning and rules like you said in your post.
I think that there is definitely a sort of science behind all art. My mother is a painter and thus I have sort of an inside view on the thought process behind a professionally done piece of art. To be honest when I look at one of her paintings I usually just see the picture, but her explanations always include all kinds of things about composition, layering , various substructures within the painting as a whole, and different ways of placing emphasis on certain aspects of the work. I think that this might be termed a sort of science, its definitely complicated enough, but the great thing about art is that sometimes breaking those sorts of rules is what leads to the greatest innovation.
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