“SHINING WITH SOUND IN THE UNTRANSLATABLE DARK”—REBECCA ELSON’S POETRY OF COSMIC WISDOM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2024.3.07Keywords:
Rebecca Elson, fragmentation, wholeness, unselfing, aweAbstract
“Shining with sound in the untranslatable dark”—Rebecca Elson’s Poetry of Cosmic Wisdom. Despite having left us only a small body of verse, collected in the posthumously published A Responsibility to Awe (2001), Montreal-born astrophysicist and poet Rebecca Elson impresses through a particular sensibility resulting from the unlikely union of positivist certitude and existential angst informed by an acute sense of one’s biological finitude. In this paper, intended both as a recuperative effort and an interpretive exercise, we will try to shed light on how poetry, as Elson’s case demonstrates, can be a fundamentally ecological effort and a disciplined quest for belonging, reminding us that even the most unremarkable aspects of our everyday existence are irrevocably linked to our profound connections with the universe.
"Strălucind de sunet în întunericul intraductibil"—poezia de înțelepciune cosmică a Rebeccăi Elson. În ciuda faptului că ne-a lăsat un număr restrâns de versuri, adunate în volumul postum A Responsibility to Awe (2001), astrofiziciana și poeta Rebecca Elson, născută la Montreal, impresionează printr-o sensibilitate deosebită, rezultată din contopirea neobișnuită a certitudinii pozitiviste și a angoasei existențiale inspirate de un sentiment acut al propriei finitudini biologice. În această lucrare, concepută atât ca efort de recuperare, cât și ca exercițiu de interpretare, vom încerca să punem în lumină modul în care poezia, așa cum demonstrează cazul lui Elson, poate fi un demers esențialmente ecologic și o căutare disciplinată a apartenenței, amintindu-ne că până și cele mai banale aspecte ale existenței noastre cotidiene sunt irevocabil legate de conexiunile noastre profunde cu universul.
Cuvinte-cheie: Rebecca Elson, fragmentare, integralitate, uitare de sine, venerație.
Article history: Received 15 May 2024; Revised 15 August 2024; Accepted 10 September 2024; Available online 30 September 2024; Available print 30 September 2024.
References
Albright, Daniel. 1997. Quantum Poetics: Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and the Science of Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Armitage, Simon. 2006. “Modelling the Universe: Poetry, Science and the Art of Metaphor.” Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science, edited by Robert Crawford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 110–22.
Barthélémy, Pierre. 2021. “Les poèmes de Rebecca Elson, étoile filée.” Le Monde, 2 June 2021, sec. Science et Médecine.
Beer, Gillian. 1996. Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bell, Ian F. A. 1981. Critic as Scientist. London and New York: Methuen.
Bell Burnell, Jocelyn. 2006. “Astronomy and Poetry.” In Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science, edited by Robert Crawford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 125–140.
Berry, Wendell. 2001. Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. Berkeley: Counterpoint.
Bohm, David. 2002. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge.
---. 2004. On Creativity. London: Routledge.
Burnside, John. 2006. “A Science of Belonging: Poetry as Ecology.” In Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science, edited by Robert Crawford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 91–106.
Crawford, Robert, ed. 2006. Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
---. 2006. “Introduction”. In Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science, edited by Robert Crawford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–10.
Crossland, Rachel. 2017. “Poetry as Popular Science: Rebecca Elson’s ‘Responsibility to Awe’.” Paper presented at the 12th Annual Conference of the British Society for Literature and Science, University of Bristol, 6th April 2017.
Elson, Rebecca. 2018. A Responsibility to Awe. Carcanet Classics. Kindle.
Fiske, Ingrid. 2001. “The Poetic Mystery of Dark Matter.” Nature 414 (6866): 845–46. https://doi.org/10.1038/414845a.
Fritz, Leah. 2002. “Awesome Responsibility”. PN Review 28 (3): 71–72.
Heisenberg, Werner. 1972. “Science and Religion.” In Physics and Beyond. Encounters and Conversations, 82–92. New York: Harper & Row.
Heuschling, Sophie. 2019. “‘Don’t Ask the Questions You’ve Been Taught by Science’: Rebecca Elson’s Astronomical Poetry.” Journal of Literature and Science 12 (2): 43–61.
Howard, Peter. 2002. “Dark Matter in Poetic Measure.” Physics World Jan 2002: 48-49.
Keltner, Dacher. 2023. Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. New York: Penguin Press.
Midgley, Mary. 2006. Science and Poetry. London: Routledge.
Murdoch, Iris. 1985. The Sovereignty of Good. London: Ark Paperbacks.
Murphy Paul, Annie. 2021. The Extended Mind. The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. New York: Mariner Books.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1974. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Skelton, John. 2003. “Death and Dying in Literature.” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 9:211–20. https://doi.org/10.1192/apt.9.3.211.
Snow, C. P. 1998. The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, Edward O. 1999. Consilience. The Unity of Knowledge. New York and Toronto: Vintage Books.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
©Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Philologia. Published by Babeș-Bolyai University.