The Poetry of Knowledge and the ’Two Cultures’

This book argues that poetry is compatible with systematic knowledge including science, and indeed inherent in it; it also discusses particular poems that engage with such knowledge, including those of Lucretius, Vergil, and Vita Sackville-West. The book argues that there are substantial similarities between knowledge-making and poetry-making, for example in their being shaped by language, including metaphor, and in their seeking unity in the world, under the impulse of eros and pleasure. The book also discusses some of the obstacles to a 'poetry of knowledge', including scientific objectivism, the Kantian tradition in philosophy, and the separation of the 'two cultures' in our academic and intellectual institutions. The book is designed to be accessible to all those interested in the issue of the 'two cultures', or in the role of poetry and of science in contemporary culture.

This book argues that poetry is compatible with systematic knowledge including science, and indeed inherent in it; it also discusses particular poems that engage with such knowledge, including those of Lucretius, Vergil, and Vita Sackville-West. The book argues that there are substantial similarities between knowledge-making and poetry-making, for example in their being shaped by language, including metaphor, and in their seeking unity in the world, under the impulse oferos and pleasure. The book also discusses some of the obstacles to a ‘poetry of knowledge’, including scientific objectivism, the Kantian tradition in philosophy, and the separation of the ‘two cultures’ in our academic and intellectual institutions. The book is designed to be accessible to all those interested in the issue of the ‘two cultures’, or in the role of poetry and of science in contemporary culture.

1. Unity in Knowledge;Eros and the Cosmological Urge.- 2. Unity in Poetry.- 3. The Death of Objectivism; Constructivism and Implication.- 4. Viewpoints in Poetry: Hesiod, Sackville-West, Vergil.- 5. The Fascination of Knowledge. Natural Creativity, Time's Arrow, and Reciprocity.- 6. Knowledge as a Story; Bodily Knowledge, Emotional and Aesthetics Components; Knowledge and Information.- 7. Acquisition of Language and Knowledge. Logicial Positivism and Structural Linguistics.- 8. Metaphor in Cognition, Poetry and Science.- 9. Pleasure as the Heart of Poetry and Science: Lucretius.- 10. Thinking in Poetry: Heidegger on Memorialising and Dis-closure; Vergil and Comprehensiveness.- 11. Dualism and Duel-ism: Kant and the Separation of Poetry from 'Pure' Reason.- 12. The Two Cultures; the Strangeness of Knowledge; the Demand for Originality.- 13. Epilogue: Three Poems of Knowledge.