The Poet as a Scientist

The poet must above all, be a scientist. William Blake’s handle on the grasping fevers of writing poetry seem to unleash a new – found view; that for once, a poet will not be juxtaposed to a man of science; he will, in fact, be likened to it.

‘The poet has much to learn from the scientist’. This was the mutable phrase encompassed by Blake, and seems to suggest a great sight seen, yet not seen as a human, but as a part of the Earth. On writing ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, for example, Keats was sitting in favorable surroundings that he would dissect in order to receive the inspiration for his verse. In this way, Blake is right, and the poet is likened to the scientist.

A scientist has been called a ‘Man of the Earth’ – and accordingly, assigns himself to live in a world where all is dissected, gathered together and rebuilt. One must wonder how this similarity to the process of writing a piece of verse is the very thing with is known to set science apart from verse; one naturally assumes that a scientist is a man of chemicals and dispositions; a poet of flowers and rainbows. Now, the challenge has been presented to view this relationship as the same; as the knowledge is encompassed that writing a chemical formulae is virtually the same as writing a piece of verse.

Belated, a poet concerns himself primarily with the fortunes of the universe; imaginative and reality. He must encompass the knowledge of language, and be able to tie this to the knowledge of worldly figures. Similarly, the scientist is surrounded by knowledge of language, and lives in a world of chemical gold and physical surroundings. One can see, therefore, than man is indifferent; all madness must be conceived, and all velocity has it’s match.