"Sonnet -- To Science"
by Edgar Allan Poe
SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Discussion Questions:
1. Why does Poe use so many allusions to mythology and fantasy in a poem that's supposed to be about science?
2. Why write this poem in the form of a sonnet, which is usually used for love poetry?
1. He's talking about the way science has overrun these things. He's saying that SCIENCE has dragged Diana from her car and driven the Hamadryad from the wood and all that. I think it's about the difference science has made in the world, that instead of believing in all these mythological things we've started to pay more attention to science, or that science has disproven mythology so no one pays it much heed anymore.
ReplyDeleteThat definitely is a big theme here. He's sayin science hasn't just replaced mythology, I think -- it's actively driven it away.
Delete2. I don't know - I think he's using it as the opposite of a love poem - "How should he love thee?" and writing it as a sonnet kind of emphasizes the fact. Or, as it says in The Lord of the Rings, "He loves and hates the Ring". He hates how science has kind of ruined fantastical things by grounding everything in dull realities, but people also love all the scientific advances because they have a better understanding of the world.
ReplyDeleteIt does feel ironic -- a poem form usually used for love poetry, but used to talk about something kind of the opposite of love and emotion and romance.
Delete1. In the first two lines, he says "SCIENCE! True daughter of Old Time thou art. Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
ReplyDeleteI think ALTEREST is the key word here. The things that science studies have always been around, but science itself, that is the study of the natural world, has not. So I think he mentions mythology and fantasy because they're not true, and Science reveals that.
Oh, interesting! That science is altering our perceptions of things, not the things themselves. I can see that.
Delete2. Maybe as like a rhetorical device of some sort? Because in the poem he seems like he's kind of "upset" with Science, because it ruins all the sweet imaginings of poets, and gives instead harsh facts. So he's using the sonnet form kind to give a kind of ironic feel to it?
ReplyDeleteI definitely think he chose it to be ironic. "Here's what I don't love about science."
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