Episode 6 - Mind your Matter: Science and Victorian Poetry

LitSciPod: The Literature and Science Podcast

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: The sixth episode of the second series of LitSciPod is all about analogy and language shared between literature (especially poetry), science, and science writing. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Greg Tate (@drgregorytate), Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of St Andrews. Greg shares his research on matter, form, and rhythm in nineteenth century poetry and the physical sciences. He asks why there is so much poetry in the science writing of the period (and even today) and what that says about the connections between literature and science. Greg also discusses how Hardy’s poetry draws on Einstein’s theory of relativity, why the concept of the ether is so important to science and poetry. At the end of the episode, you can hear Greg read an excerpt from Mathilde Blind’s The Ascent of Man (1889). Episode resources (in order of appearance): Introduction: Michael Faraday’s letter to sister Margaret quoted in Dafydd Tomos (ed.), Michael Faraday in Wales, including Faraday’s Journal of his Tour through Wales in 1819 (Denbigh, 1972), 58. T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915) Robert Frost, ‘A Patch of Old Snow’ (1916) Interview: Greg Tate, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and the Physical Sciences: Poetical Matter (Palgrave, 2019) William Whewell’s review of J. Herschel's Preliminary discourse on the study of Natural Philosophy in The Quarterly Review 45.90 (1831), pp. 374-407. Thomas Hardy, ‘The Absolute Explains’ (1924) Hilaire Belloc, ‘The Fake Newdigate Poem’ (~1894) Patrick Guthrie Tait and Balfour Steward, The Unseen Universe (1875) Be sure to check out our new Tumblr page, which includes bonus material for each episode: https://litscipod.tumblr.com/.