SCIENCE AND POETRY

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27628, 7 April 1955, Page 10

SCIENCE AND POETRY

Conflicting Ideals Analysed ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR J. C. GARRETT The greatest poetry of today tried to keep feelings and experience in a state of adjustment—“it tries to make us feel the significance of what we know,” said Professor J. C. Garrett, professor of English at Canterbury University College, in an address to the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand last evening. That was even more important- m the present age when men were terrified of, and yet in bondage to the scientific, instruments of their own contriving. Speaking on “Science and Poetry.” Professor Garrett said that since the Renaissance there had been.a kind of cold war which occasionally flared up between science and humane letters. Because the quality of their intelligence was different, poets and scientists had different views of* reality; and because both were sincere, they were sure that they placed, the emphasis where it should be placed. He preferred to adopt the balanced/ statement of a modern psychologist that there were “two different way» of knowing the universe,” said Pro* fessor Garrett. Even that had its dangers, for many then regarded science and poetry as autonomous and independent, and used the phrases “scientific truth” and “poetic truth.” They did not take cognisance of the fact that those were only facets of. a larger and more comprehensive truth. “Reporting of Experiences” ] Science and poetry were two means of reporting an experience, said Professor Garrett. Science was factual and descriptive, and did not involve value judgments. A fact was neither beautiful nor ugly. Even in his reporting the scientist made guesses—first, that the physical world and second, that the external wond was explicable in scientific terms. He ■built up phenomena convenient to human apprehension, but did not ask why matter existed or whether it operated with any purpose, because those were emotional or religious questions. “But the poet asks how things make us feel, or if a scientific fact changes our beliefs about life.” Professor Garrett added. A not^er problem was knowing that things were not what they seemed, he said. The scientific formulae did nothing to explain the “ieei” of water, or its power over one’s emotions. Yet the wetness '"id mystery of water were just as r.uch part of tne experience of the external world as what was involved i.i the formulae. There was a tremendous gap between what was felt to be the nature of a thing, and what one knew it was. The contemporary inability to close the gap was the result of a long process. Professor Garrett outlined the relationship between poetry and science from Chaucer to the twentieth century, and described the conflicts between the two, with readings from various poems. The twentieth century, he said, when the universe became vaster and more complex,” brought, new puzzles, he said. The universe became more mysterious and more unreal, disappearing into a mathematical subtlety. “Science now turned on man’s mind itself, with psychology beginning to explain away man’s emotions,” Professor Garrett said. “This would seem to be the final blow to man’s dignity, and you must not think badly ct modern poetry if it shows anxiety at the removal of man from God’s love.” But the despair was not final, he said. Religious questions had become real again, and poets were returning once more to speculation on religion something that would have been surprising 30 years ago. Some modem' ooetry was trying to recall to human feelings the preciousness of life.