Showing posts with label Marilynne Robinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marilynne Robinson. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Eureka ~
"Eureka (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe which he subtitled "A Prose Poem", though it has also been subtitled as "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe". Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Poe's intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man's relationship with God, whom he compares to an author. It is dedicated to the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.[1][2] Though it is generally considered a literary work, some of Poe's ideas anticipate discoveries of the 20th century.[3] Indeed a critical analysis of the scientific content of Eureka reveals a non-causal correspondence with modern cosmology due to the assumption of an evolving Universe, but excludes the anachronistic anticipation of relativistic concepts such as black holes.[4][5]
Eureka was received poorly in Poe's day and generally described as absurd, even by friends. Modern critics continue to debate the significance of Eureka and some doubt its seriousness, in part because of Poe's many incorrect assumptions and his comedic descriptions of well-known historical minds. It is presented as a poem, and many compare it with his fiction work, especially science fiction stories such as "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". His attempts at discovering the truth also follow his own tradition of "ratiocination", a term used in his detective fiction tales. Poe's suggestion that the soul continues to thrive even after death also parallels with works in which characters reappear from beyond the grave such as "Ligeia". The essay is oddly transcendental, considering Poe's disdain for the movement. He considered it his greatest work and claimed it was more important than the discovery of gravity."
"Eureka (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe which he subtitled "A Prose Poem", though it has also been subtitled as "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe". Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Poe's intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man's relationship with God, whom he compares to an author. It is dedicated to the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.[1][2] Though it is generally considered a literary work, some of Poe's ideas anticipate discoveries of the 20th century.[3] Indeed a critical analysis of the scientific content of Eureka reveals a non-causal correspondence with modern cosmology due to the assumption of an evolving Universe, but excludes the anachronistic anticipation of relativistic concepts such as black holes.[4][5]
Eureka was received poorly in Poe's day and generally described as absurd, even by friends. Modern critics continue to debate the significance of Eureka and some doubt its seriousness, in part because of Poe's many incorrect assumptions and his comedic descriptions of well-known historical minds. It is presented as a poem, and many compare it with his fiction work, especially science fiction stories such as "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". His attempts at discovering the truth also follow his own tradition of "ratiocination", a term used in his detective fiction tales. Poe's suggestion that the soul continues to thrive even after death also parallels with works in which characters reappear from beyond the grave such as "Ligeia". The essay is oddly transcendental, considering Poe's disdain for the movement. He considered it his greatest work and claimed it was more important than the discovery of gravity."
"In 1848 Poe wrote a cosmology. The most remarkable thing about it is that it anticipates in many respects the account of the origins of the universe we associate with modern physics. Poe said the universe was born out of the explosion of an infinitesimal point. He proceeded to this conclusion by means of intuition and his own kind of reasoning, which, like everything about him, is so elegant as to seem suspect. He deduced that the irregular distribution of matter, in the form of stars, was the work of gravity. In such a universe gravity would therefore cause the universe to fall in on itself, to contract again to an infinitesimal point which would again explode.
What the fate of the universe might be remains an open question in contemporary physics, of course, and theories about it like Poe's are entirely respectable now, with the difference that, being Poe, he was persuaded the universe is at present contracting toward its end. He saw in the rhythm of it all a great beating heart. In his hands this is a frightening image. Still, the theory is consistent with theories now, that our universe may be only one in a series, in any case not a unique event. We know now about the accelerating expansion of the universe. Poe would have loved dark matter and dark energy, even though they come at the cost of his ultimate vision of the narrowing perimeters of reality, so often imagined in his greatest tales."
Marilynne Robinson "Cosmology"
When I Was a Child I Read Books
What the fate of the universe might be remains an open question in contemporary physics, of course, and theories about it like Poe's are entirely respectable now, with the difference that, being Poe, he was persuaded the universe is at present contracting toward its end. He saw in the rhythm of it all a great beating heart. In his hands this is a frightening image. Still, the theory is consistent with theories now, that our universe may be only one in a series, in any case not a unique event. We know now about the accelerating expansion of the universe. Poe would have loved dark matter and dark energy, even though they come at the cost of his ultimate vision of the narrowing perimeters of reality, so often imagined in his greatest tales."
Marilynne Robinson "Cosmology"
When I Was a Child I Read Books
Sunday, June 9, 2013
WHEN I WAS A CHILD I READ BOOKS ~
"I have spent most of my life studying American history and
literature. I have studied other histories and literatures largely
to gain perspective on this civilization. The magnanimity of its
greatest laws and institutions as well as its finest poetry and
philosophy move me very deeply. I know that there are numberless
acts of generosity, moral as well as material, carried out
among its people every hour of the day. But the language of
public life has lost the character of generosity, and the largeness
of spirit that has created and supported the best of our
institutions and brought reform to the worst of them has been
erased out of historical memory. On both sides the sole motive
force in our past is now said to have been capitalism. On both
sides capitalism is understood as grasping materialism that has
somehow or other yielded the comforts and liberties of modern
life. Capitalism thus understood is seen on one side as providential,
so good in its effects that it reduces Scripture with its
do-unto-others to shibboleth. The other side sees it as more or
less corrupting and contemptible but beyond human powers to resist.
And no one offers a definition of it. But in these days when
its imperium is granted by virtually anyone who attends to
such things, our great public education system is being starved
and abandoned, and our prisons have declined to levels that
disgrace us. The economics of the moment, and of the last several
decades, is a corrosive influence, undermining everything
it touches, from our industrial strength to our research capacity
to the well-being of our children. I am not the first to suggest
that it is undermining our politics as well.
What if good institutions were in fact the products of good
intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be the rigor
and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be the realism are
making us forget the origins of the greatness we lay claim to—
power and wealth as secondary consequences of the progress
of freedom, or, as Whitman would prefer. Democracy? After all,
these things rose together. The air is thick now with "the
people," a phrase that is meant to give authority to the claims
and the grievances of those who use it. That it is often invoked
in good faith one may doubt, but the fact that resort is had to it
to feel that ultimately authority and reason do and should be
with the people. Then the old impulse that lay behind the dis-
semination of information and learning, the will to ensure
that the public will be competent to make the weightiest decisions
and to conform society to its best sense of the possible
should be as powerful as it ever has been, and more powerful
because of the fragility of the contemporary world. Instead we
have slack and underfinanced journalism and the ebbing away of
resources from our universities, libraries, and schools. The liber-
ation of the human individual as a social value required optimism,
which it also amply justified. This loyalty to democracy is the
American value I fear we are gravely in danger of losing."
"I have spent most of my life studying American history and
literature. I have studied other histories and literatures largely
to gain perspective on this civilization. The magnanimity of its
greatest laws and institutions as well as its finest poetry and
philosophy move me very deeply. I know that there are numberless
acts of generosity, moral as well as material, carried out
among its people every hour of the day. But the language of
public life has lost the character of generosity, and the largeness
of spirit that has created and supported the best of our
institutions and brought reform to the worst of them has been
erased out of historical memory. On both sides the sole motive
force in our past is now said to have been capitalism. On both
sides capitalism is understood as grasping materialism that has
somehow or other yielded the comforts and liberties of modern
life. Capitalism thus understood is seen on one side as providential,
so good in its effects that it reduces Scripture with its
do-unto-others to shibboleth. The other side sees it as more or
less corrupting and contemptible but beyond human powers to resist.
And no one offers a definition of it. But in these days when
its imperium is granted by virtually anyone who attends to
such things, our great public education system is being starved
and abandoned, and our prisons have declined to levels that
disgrace us. The economics of the moment, and of the last several
decades, is a corrosive influence, undermining everything
it touches, from our industrial strength to our research capacity
to the well-being of our children. I am not the first to suggest
that it is undermining our politics as well.
What if good institutions were in fact the products of good
intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be the rigor
and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be the realism are
making us forget the origins of the greatness we lay claim to—
power and wealth as secondary consequences of the progress
of freedom, or, as Whitman would prefer. Democracy? After all,
these things rose together. The air is thick now with "the
people," a phrase that is meant to give authority to the claims
and the grievances of those who use it. That it is often invoked
in good faith one may doubt, but the fact that resort is had to it
to feel that ultimately authority and reason do and should be
with the people. Then the old impulse that lay behind the dis-
semination of information and learning, the will to ensure
that the public will be competent to make the weightiest decisions
and to conform society to its best sense of the possible
should be as powerful as it ever has been, and more powerful
because of the fragility of the contemporary world. Instead we
have slack and underfinanced journalism and the ebbing away of
resources from our universities, libraries, and schools. The liber-
ation of the human individual as a social value required optimism,
which it also amply justified. This loyalty to democracy is the
American value I fear we are gravely in danger of losing."
Marilynne Robinson
When I Was a Child I Read Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012
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