Do Poetry and Science Have Interesting and Important Things in Common? Some Thoughts on 'Parsimony' and 'Provisionality'

The current kinds of, and opportunities for, connections between poetry and science are examined. Possible reasons are briefly explored for how the conventional view arose that poetry and science are polar opposites and a proposition is made that we may look for a more intimate kind of relationship...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Interdisciplinary science reviews 2014-03, Vol.39 (1), p.6-20
Main Author: Saunders, Lesley
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
experimentation
Humanities
Language
parsimony
Poetry
provisionality
Science
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Summary:The current kinds of, and opportunities for, connections between poetry and science are examined. Possible reasons are briefly explored for how the conventional view arose that poetry and science are polar opposites and a proposition is made that we may look for a more intimate kind of relationship between them in the specialized uses of language; the relationship between science and poetry is thereby distinguished from that between science and other arts/humanities. In particular, the notions of 'parsimony' and 'provisionality' are deployed in order to inquire into the experimental and indeterminate phenomena that science and poetry are each culturally primed to investigate and interpret.
ISSN:0308-0188
1743-2790
DOI:10.1179/0308018813Z.00000000071