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ERIC Number: EJ790182
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2002
Pages: 14
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-8510
EISSN: N/A
Poetry and Scientific Exposition: An Analysis of Two Forms of Symbolic Representation
Cooper, Monica Wengrowicz
Journal of Aesthetic Education, v36 n1 p86-99 Spr 2002
Art and science are generally thought to be two different forms of human activity. When speaking of "arts," one normally uses the term to encompass diverse types of art such as painting, poetry, and music, even though the modes of symbolization in the different arts are based on different characters such as notes, lines, and words. Science, however, communicates its findings using the same symbolization scheme as the literary arts, namely, the English language. The book "Languages of Art" by Nelson Goodman provides a set of categories that purportedly serve to analyze a symbolic representation in its form as well as in its referent. The exercise of examining the way in which a scientific paper is written and its comparison to a literary piece might allow one to understand where the work of art and the work of science are each located, as well as their means of symbolic representation. The questions one might ask are: how is the symbolization scheme used differently in the two activities? How different are the written symbols of the literary arts from those of science and in what way? How are the different meanings conveyed and what is the realm of those meanings? Is a scientific paper a literary art, and if not, why not? Is a literary piece fulfilling a scientific function? If the two forms are different, how do words "stretch" to do both tasks? Where does the work of art reside? Where does the work of science reside? The exercise of comparison for the purpose of analysis and understanding can be a very powerful means of illuminating features hitherto unseen, and Goodman's work can be very useful in guiding an exploration into a symbolic work. Goodman's analytical categories are used in this article in a novel way, namely directly applied to particular instances of symbolic representations: (1) "The Bells," a poem by Edgar Allen Poe; and (2) "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids--A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid," a scientific article by Watson and Crick. This approach is shown to yield an understanding of the way in which poetry and scientific writings have to be read. (Contains 8 notes.)
University of Illinois Press. 1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. Tel: 217-244-0626; Fax: 217-244-8082; e-mail: journals@uillinois.edu; Web site: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/main.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A