Alan Sokal has questioned the postmodern assertion that 'science is ... a "myth'', a "narration" ... a "social construction'" (1998: x). This dissertation examines his reasons for rejecting this allegedly postmodern declaration. Firstly, it suggests that the basis for Sol'1ll's contention that a 'true' world exists beyond one's awareness of it extends to an attack on modem philosophy, and is not limited to its postmodern component. Then, it describes defences of the 'linguistic construction' of science as thinly veiled attempts at emulating scientific discourses. In a more speculative vein, the dissertation goes on to evaluate claims made against science in terms of its connection to warfare; its insensitivity to mythology, and its generally misdirected values. It is in terms of value that the dissertation detects an analogous relationship between the discourses of mythology and science. Finally, a playful 'postmodern' reading is attempted of Sol'1ll's use of fiction in establishing the truth of his assertions. / English Studies / M.A.(English)

Alan Sokal has questioned the postmodern assertion that 'science is ... a "myth'', a "narration" ... a "social construction'" (1998: x). This dissertation examines his reasons for rejecting this allegedly postmodern declaration. Firstly, it suggests that the basis for Sol'1ll's contention that a 'true' world exists beyond one's awareness of it extends to an attack on modem philosophy, and is not limited to its postmodern component. Then, it describes defences of the 'linguistic construction' of science as thinly veiled attempts at emulating scientific discourses. In a more speculative vein, the dissertation goes on to evaluate claims made against science in terms of its connection to warfare; its insensitivity to mythology, and its generally misdirected values. It is in terms of value that the dissertation detects an analogous relationship between the discourses of mythology and science. Finally, a playful 'postmodern' reading is attempted of Sol'1ll's use of fiction in establishing the truth of his assertions. / English Studies / M.A.(English)

The aim of this thesis is to arrive at a characterisation of twentieth century poetry and science by means of a detailed study of the work of four poets who engaged extensively with science and whose writing lives spanned the greater part of the period. The study of science in the work of the four chosen poets, Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 – 1978), Judith Wright (1915 – 2000), Edwin Morgan (1920 – 2010), and Miroslav Holub (1923 – 1998), is preceded by a literature survey and an initial theoretical chapter. This initial part of the thesis outlines the interdisciplinary history of the academic subject of poetry and science, addressing, amongst other things, the challenges presented by the episodes known as the ‘two cultures' and the ‘science wars'. Seeking to offer a perspective on poetry and science more aligned to scientific materialism than is typical in the interdiscipline, a systemic challenge to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is put forward in the first chapter. Additionally, the founding work of poetry and science, I. A. Richards's Science and Poetry (1926), is assessed both in the context in which it was written, and from a contemporary viewpoint; and, as one way to understand science in poetry, a theory of the creative misreading of science is developed, loosely based on Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence (1973). The detailed study of science in poetry commences in Chapter II with Hugh MacDiarmid's late work in English, dating from his period on the Shetland Island of Whalsay (1933 – 1941). The thesis in this chapter is that this work can be seen as a radical integration of poetry and science; this concept is considered in a variety of ways including through a computational model, originally suggested by Robert Crawford. The Australian poet Judith Wright, the subject of Chapter III, is less well known to poetry and science, but a detailed engagement with physics can be identified, including her use of four-dimensional imagery, which has considerable support from background evidence. Biology in her poetry is also studied in the light of recent work by John Holmes. In Chapter IV, science in the poetry of Edwin Morgan is discussed in terms of its origin and development, from the perspective of the mythologised science in his science fiction poetry, and from the ‘hard' technological perspective of his computer poems. Morgan's work is cast in relief by readings which are against the grain of some but not all of his published comments. The thesis rounds on its theme of materialism with the fifth and final chapter which studies the work of Miroslav Holub, a poet and practising scientist in communist-era Prague. Holub's work, it is argued, represents a rare and important literary expression of scientific materialism. The focus on materialism in the thesis is not mechanistic, nor exclusive of the domain of the imagination; instead it frames the contrast between the original science and the transformed poetic version. The thesis is drawn together in a short conclusion.