At the close of the Second World War, modernist poets found themselves in an increasingly scientific world, where natural and social sciences claimed exclusive rights to knowledge of both matter and mind. Following the overthrow of the Newtonian worldview and the recent, shocking displays of the power of the atom, physics led the way, with other disciplines often turning to the methods and discoveries of physics for inspiration.             In Physics Envy, Peter Middleton examines the influence of science, particularly physics, on American poetry since World War II. He focuses on such diverse poets as Charles Olson, Muriel Rukeyser, Amiri Baraka, and Rae Armantrout, among others, revealing how the methods and language of contemporary natural and social sciences—and even the discourse of the leading popular science magazine Scientific American—shaped their work. The relationship, at times, extended in the other direction as well: leading physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger were interested in whether poetry might help them explain the strangeness of the new, quantum world. Physics Envy is a history of science and poetry that shows how ultimately each serves to illuminate the other in its quest for the true nature of things.

upload/motw_shc_2025_10/shc/Physics Envy_ American Poetry a - Peter Middleton.pdf

motw/Physics Envy_ American Poetry a - Peter Middleton.pdf

Middleton, Peter;

United States, United States of America

Chicago, IL, 2015

Chicago, 2016

1, 2015

producers:
Adobe PDF Library 10.0.1

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"At the close of the Second World War, modernist poets found themselves in an increasingly scientific world, where natural and social sciences claimed exclusive rights to knowledge of both matter and mind. Following the overthrow of the Newtonian worldview and the recent, shocking displays of the power of the atom, physics led the way, with other disciplines often turning to the methods and discoveries of physics for inspiration. In Physics Envy, Peter Middleton examines the influence of science, particularly physics, on American poetry since World War II. He focuses on such diverse poets as Charles Olson, Muriel Rukeyser, Amiri Baraka, and Rae Armantrout, among others, revealing how the methods and language of contemporary natural and social sciences -- and even the discourse of the leading popular science magazine Scientific American -- shaped their work. The relationship, at times, extended in the other direction as well: leading physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger were interested in whether poetry might help them explain the strangeness of the new, quantum world. Physics Envy is a history of science and poetry that shows how ultimately each serves to illuminate the other in its quest for the true nature of things."--Provided by publisher

CONTENTS 6
Acknowledgments 8
Introduction 12
PART I. POETRY AND SCIENCE 26
1. THE POETIC UNIVERSE: Mapping Interrelations between Modern American Poetry and the Sciences 28
2. WHAT THE PHYSICIST SAID TO THE POET: How Physicists Used the Ideal of Poetry to Talk about Uncertainty 62
PART II. MIDCENTURY 98
3. PROJECTIVE VERSE: Fields in Science and Poetics at Midcentury 100
4. CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES: The Midcentury Poetics of Muriel Rukeyser and Charles Olson 128
5. STORIES, GEOMETRIES, AND ANGELS: Muriel Rukeyser, Charles Olson, and Robert Duncan in the 1950s 162
PART III. SCIENTIFIC AMERICANS 206
6. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN POETRY: Rae Armantrout, Jackson Mac Low, and Robert Duncan 208
7. DEFYING SOCIAL SCIENCE: George Oppen and Amiri Baraka 232
Coda 266
Notes 270
Index 314

2024-06-27