SHELLEY AS A SCIENTIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 7 (Supplement)

SHELLEY AS A SCIENTIST.

AN AMERICAN CRITICISM.

When a scientist writes on,a poet his conclusions are bound to bo interesting. This certainly is the case when Professor A. N. Whitehead, F.R.S., of Harvard University, deals with Shelley, in his book, " Science and the Modern World." Dr. Whitehead is concerned mainly with ■ the poet s relation t-o science, and he- urges the importance of realising Shelley's absorption with scientific ideas. He writes: "It is unfortunate that Shelley's literary critics have in tins respect so little of Shelley in their own mentality." He goes 011 to say: "What the hilis were to youth of Wordsworth, a chemical laboratory was to Shelley. . . If Shelley had been born 100 years later the twentieth century would have seen a Newton among chemists." Professor Whitehead gives many examples of this interest of Shelley in science. He points out that in the fourth act of " Prometheus Unbound " the earth and the moon converse in the language of accurate science. Thus the earth s exclamation: The vapocoui ex - ''.ation not to bo confined! . - , 13 the poetic version of the text book s " expansive force of pases." Also, according to the professor, the stanza, spoken by earth: I spin beneath my pyramid of nisht., Which points into the heaven a dreaming delight, . . Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep: . As a youth lulled in love dreams faintly sighing . , . Under the shadow of his beauty lying. Which round his rest, a watch of light and warmth doth keep, could have been written only with a definite geometrical diagram in the poet's mind. Without it the last lino,, which gives poetic imagery to the light surrounding night's pyramid, could not occur to anyone. *