1

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadnt meant my answers literally. Calvin Trillin If we lived in a world without literature, learning only the sciences, would we be the same people? Does the human race need literature at all, does it have any worth whatsoever except as entertainment? Do people actually learn from literature? These are all questions that divide the human race into two separate sections, those who believe in the power of literature, and those who see it as impoverished compared to the social sciences in its ability to teach us about ourselves. However we need not be so divided on this issue. Literature is as rich a teacher as science, but merely differs in technique. Literature offers knowledge to those that seek it, gives experience to those who understand it, and pleasure to those that love it. Science on the other hand imparts knowledge, leads to experience, and gives pleasure to the few who love it. Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature. Paul Valery Literature embraces all arts, sciences, knowledge and cultures. It is the product of particular physical and social environments. It encompasses the whole human life and activities of man. It is the expression of human emotions and feelings, views and opinions, awareness and ambition, imagination and ideas, actions and reactions and the mysterious and the mystical. Literature deals both with the real and the romantic-the grand and the grotesque, and mundane and the spiritual. All low and high, trifle and serious sentimental and humorous, beautiful and ugly and comic and tragic themes are reflected in the mighty mirror of literature. As it is, all the creative writers reflect the tendencies of the age in which they live. Science that is creative like literature could not fail to impress and influence the great thinkers and writers of the various generations. In fact the modern developments in science and technology have so changed man's environments and mode of life, and his conception of the universe and his place in its, that the historian has had to revise his opinions about the fundamental shifts in human history. In the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, many now see the most significant change in man's fortune and future since the dawn of modern civilization. Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Northrop Frye However they differ in some important respects. Science is an exact realm of numbers and averages and measurements. The last time you read a romance novel, were there charts showing the Freudian prediction of the average persons love life? Literature does not have the same kind of exactitude that is offered by Science. But it does offer precision in another way. Literature often is the description of one or a few peoples lives in detail. It is from these detailed case studies as a scientist would call them, which we can learn.It is the argument of science that people are similar and thus scientific averages do have some relevance to humans. Yes people often do share similar characteristics, and behave similarly if coming from the same society. And thus,

a detailed insight into one persons' life could give you an insight on the lives of others. In a way Literature allows you to live thousands of lives in a short time, and gain a little experience from each of them. Science on the other hand, offers you charts and tables to which you must apply the situations of daily life. It is in this fundamental way that literature and science are different. Literature offers you insight which you apply to life, in science; you apply life to your theories. It's just a matter of whether life is the cookie cutter or the dough. The immense extension of scientific knowledge during last four centuries has unfortunately resulted in a division which has arisen between the scientists on the one hand and the student of humanities on the other. In fact of present distinction between science and humanities and specialization in them, is the natural result of great mass and intricacy of knowledge; but the search of all the scientists and the humanists, is for truth and human well beings. Science is overwhelming all human activities and is bound to effect all the laymen, the scholars and the writers. Science is both an end in itself as a search for truth, and also a means of promoting human happiness. It must, therefore, be considered not merely as a technique but also as an instrument of great philosophic and social significance. Literature is essentially an interpretation of life, and literary form, a technique for its, expression. As such it must concern itself with science and technology increasingly because our lives are now inexactly bound up with the developments in this field. Literature could make that last sentence because it does not need to back up every little thing with two thousand pieces of measurable accurate evidence. It can think in leaps and bounds with very little touch with hard facts. Science can describe an incident, but it can't make you feel anything about it. Literature on the other hand, gives you insight and feelings into other peoples minds. For example, it is much more beneficial to read a book about Egypt, than to read a scientific report on it. Through the characters in the book you can get a feel for the culture that the scientific report would not have. A world without literature would also leave science wanting. Many scientists would agree that without literature, science would not be the same. It would be colder, and less human. Humans are not creatures of precision and logic, or we would have rulers for hands, and calculators for hearts. Most people would prefer to sit down and pick up a science fiction novel than a book on astrophysics. Also, writers do not have to be very skilled to be able to teach. Scientists who teach have had to train and learn for many years before they can do so. However, Joe Blow could sit down and write a book on life in the streets of Amsterdam, and we would learn something. Literature can almost always teach you something; proficiency in it merely accelerates and improves the teaching process. This is not to say that science is useless however. Social sciences and literature complement each other well in understanding humans and their behavior. Science teaches us the how, while literature teaches us the why. Literature takes us into peoples' minds; science takes their minds and categorizes them. This is why literature will always be perceived as being more human, because it relates to emotions rather than to logic, and humans are creatures of emotion. Science cannot describe certain things. How does science describe love? It can give all the physical ramifications of it, psychology can give us the probable actions done by a person in love, but it can't make us understand what it is to be in love. Literature can give you some experience, although it be a limited, third person sort of experience. And of course, the only way to know an emotion is to experience it. Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing. Thomas Huxley

Modern writers cannot help themselves getting deeply involved and express keen interest in the field of science and technology. Some of the modern writers who deplore our essentially technological twentieth century culture, have much of value to say about its evil results. But the future of literature must lie with new writers who can interpret and guide true humanistic values the new scientific culture which has now come to stay. Science being the only common denominator among the peoples of the world can be ' called the religion of the modern world. From the seventeenth century onwards, there have been writers who have appreciated these values and found science as a legitimate subject for imaginative composition and literature as a means for interpretation of science in terms of human life. When we read and enjoy various literary forms, we are transported to the period to which they belong and live and feel with the people. Literature makes our life fuller and deeper. Elizabethan literature makes us keenly aware about the romance and adventures of the great period. The writings of eighteenth century writers take us into the wonderful world of travels and adventures; and the many twentieth century writers on scientific themes, feed our curiosity for unknown wonders and suspense and make us strongly aware about the physical world around us. Science has advanced in the spectacular fashion in recent history because scientists have been greedy for new knowledge about the universe. The writers on science subjects make the reader keenly aware about scientific methods and achievements. The growth of physical sciences has had great influence on general literature apart from imaginative writing about specific themes. For examples, the invention of printing in the fifteenth century ultimately made possible the literature of mass appeal in the late eighteenth century. And today science has created rivals for its own printing machine, in presentation of literature through cinema, radio and television in spoken and usually dramatized form. Scientific films, scripts and discoveries projected through audio visual aids have great impact on the minds of the people. This has greatly influenced both literary technique and the aesthetic receptivity of the public. Again, the foundation of the Royal Society in 1662, with its insistence on a plain style of writing by its fellows, was one of the causes of change in prose style in the seventeenth century and the beginning of modern prose. Dryden critical essays afford the best example of the new plain and simple prose. The Society freely admitted both men of letters and scientists in its early days. The Deism of eighteenth century, reflected though with some reservations, in A Pope's Essay On Man, was as much the , result of the mechanist ideas implicit in Newton's Principia Mathematica as of locker's Essay concerning Human Understanding because the concept of the Universe as a machine negates all ideas of divine except the idea of God as the Great Creator who started the machine in the first place. This resulted in the revolt against science and scientific rationalism by William Blake and John Keats during the Romantic Revival. In the nineteenth century the discoveries of the geologists led by Sir Charles Lyell, and later reinforced by the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Huxley, led to the literature wholly concerned with the doubts and scepticism produced by the scientific discoveries on the fundamental religious beliefs. Another aspect of the literary relationships of science and technology is theme of social and industrial reforms in a number of nineteenth century verse and prose, fiction protesting against man's use of technology following on the industrial revolution. When industrialism was new in England, it roused indignant protest on account of its ruthlessness and destruction of beauty. They were eloquently expressed by Carlyle in his book Past and Present. The twentieth century saw a new change in literature side by side with development in science and technology, science has entered general fiction and drama in variety of ways. Industrialism and scientific research appear as new themes in the novels as diverse as D. H. Lawrence's Woman in Love Nigel Belchin's The Small Back Room and Sir Charles Snow's the new

man. Likewise discoveries in psychology and psycho-analysis have been one of the most powerful influences on the post 1918 novel. The new trend is demonstrated by James Joyce in the use of stream of consciousness narrative method, in importance of sex in D. H. Lawrence or in the behaviour interpretation of character and human action in the novels of Aldous Huxley. Scientific and industrial themes also sometimes form the subject matter of some international drama,. Capek's play R.U.R., Elmen Rice's drama The Adding Machine; and in England Norman Nicholsons verse play "Prophesy to the wind and The Bunning Glass by Charles Morgan are some of the examples. Modern Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Biography and autobiography, fantasy; utopia and anti-utopia, history of science space. Travels, ocean discoveries and scientific methods in literary criticism, all express the new tendencies of the scientific age. There are number of magazines and journals that exclusively deal with scientific research, inventions and discoveries that have changed and are constantly changing our life, our views about the physical world and even religious beliefs. The earliest literary contacts with science were in poetry. Didactic poems which are in effect versified scientific expositions are the 'first verse composition. This type of poetry because rarer as science grew more and more complex. Medieval science is repeated in the poetry of Dante and Chaucer. In the 17 th century, the New Philosophy' supplied imagery for many poets who did not necessarily accepted all its findings. Samuel Butler found subject matter for his satire in science. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was chiefly the philosophic implications of new science which concerned the poets. Blake and Keats were opposed to science, whereasWordsworth showed his disapproval for industrialism in his long poem. The Excursion and disparages science in his poem the Tables Turned. An yhow, his lyrical Ballads show acceptance of science as subject matter of poetry. In the nineteenth century Tenyson's poem In Memorian' is the most note worthy poem reflecting the impact of science on religious thoughts of the time . In the twentieth century several poets have taken their pens to express scientific and technological themes, and ever more have borrowed their imagery from science. Some of the nineteenth century poets like Day Lewis, Auden and Spencer were popularly known as Pylon School because of their fondness for machine imagery. The breakdown of the old traditional decorative style in poetry in our century, can be traced to the influence of scientific ideas. Two specific forms which the imaginative treatment of science in prose has taken are: (I) Science Fiction and (II) Scientific Utopias. Fiction falls, under two main divisions fantasia of prose and space travel stories by H. G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mary w. Shelley, Jules Verne and Olaf Stepledon. Samuel Butler, H. G. Wells and E. M. Forster tried their hands at scientific utopias which became anti-utopias in case of writers who hold the view that science, human nature being what it is more likely to used for evil than for good. Fantasia of possibility or narrative of adventures was a natural corollary of Industrial Revolution. M. W. Shelley's Frankenstein (1817) is the earliest example. H. G. Wells is the most famous exponent of the new form, which because debased later on in the hands of well experienced writers. With some modern writers the fantasia of possibility has taken the form of a narrative of inventions of scientific warfare which has brought our civilization to an end. Stories dealing with the flight of human beings to the planets are very old in origin. The first example was Lucian's True History written in the second century A. D. The other examples that followed are by Kepler (1834), Bishop F. Gordwin (1683), John Wilkins (1838) and Cyranco de Bergerac (1657). Their stories are merely type of 'Voyage Imagin ire' as the mode of flight they adopt were never remotely scientific. Romances featuring space travel on a pseudo-scientific basis only developed in the 19th century with the stories of Edgar Poe, and Jules Verne. H. G. Wells was their main follower in the 20 th century. The form received a new impetus with the development of rocket missiles and atomic science in the Second Great War. Stapledon and G. S. Lewis stress the social, political and moral impact of space travel and compel us to think of moral aspects of man's use of scientific inventions.

The role of science in producing utopia (or anti-utopia. according to the point of view) a theme of universal interest today, was first discussed by Campanella in the book City of the Sun (1602).The first English utopia connected with science was Lord bacon's New Atlantis (1627). Bacon was not concerned with social legislation at all but fond of sole recipe for utopia in application of science to industry. The utopian ideas strongly featuring science for good or evil, were frequently expressed by later writers. Some of these works, for example Swift's Voyage to laputa in Gulliver's Travels and Erewhon by Butler are, strictly speaking, neither utopia nor anti-utopia but description of way of life in strange lands used as means of criticizing aspects of European civilization. The frequent attempts in this direction in the twentieth century, express progressive disbelief in man's ability to use science only for human good; and growing belief that science is rapidly becoming not man's servant but his master. It is also proved by events. Thus for more than four centuries, in some respects since the beginnings of literature, there has been relationship between science and literature. Today whether for good or evil, science is at the hub of our way of life. The more its nature and potentialities are discussed in imaginative literature, the more likelihood is there that its influence may be for good. A great future waits for a literature which is contemporary in the sense that it is concerned with the personal and moral problems of human beings, not in isolation but in the social background of a technological world and for such writers that can provide guidance in the solution of the problems which science has presented to mankind. It is heartening to note that progress in science and its great future are engaging the attention of the writers who wish to popularize science and bring home its blessings by presenting the desired themes on cinematograph and television. Now scientific ideas are knocking at the doors of common men. Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life. J. Robert Oppenheimer In conclusion It is said that we should not pick one or the other, but continue to let them complement each other. There is a time for hard facts and evidence, and there is a time for poems and soliloquies. There is a time for Einstein and Pasteur as there is a time for Shakespeare and Tolkien. Human beings are a composite of their primal emotions, and their need for structure and organization. Thus, without one or the other, we would not be humans anymore. Literature in its broad sense the deliberate, creative and imaginative use of language is humanitys most sophisticated device for exploring its own condition. Science itself and the knowledge that science gives us also falls within that purview. Poets, novelists, dramatists and scientists themselves respond to new knowledge as they receive it. If the broad foundations of that knowledge remain in place, for all that the details may have changed; their responses remain as pertinent today as they were when they were first set down. By reading literature alongside science today, we can explore what it is to live in the world science reveals to us, not for the present moment only, but for as long as that science remains a satisfactory account of the world we live in. Do not all charms y At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angels wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,

Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine Unweave a rainbow.

TOTAL WORDS :3401