The time Poe threw shade on science

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Frankenstein was a Gothic cautionary tale against the excesses of science.
Much has been written already (e.g.: here, here and here) about Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet—To Science” (1829), in which Poe laments the advent of the scientific era, with its “dull realities,” threatening to wipe out the Romanticism of human imagination, dreams, mythology and even to eradicate “the poet” (Poe)’s private “dream” by unmasking all the mysteries of life.

Here is the entire poem, one of only three sonnets known to have been inked by he-of-the-Gothic-inclinations.  The other two are “Sonnet—To Zante” (1837) and “To My Mother” (1849).  I have divided the fourteen lines to demarcate the three quatrains and closing couplet, for ease of reference.

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?

“Sonnet—To Science” is regarded well enough to be usually included in the Edgar Allan Poe sections of popular poetry anthologies, such as the Columbia Anthology, Treasury of American Poetry, and American Poetry: 19th Century, to name just three.

The links cited above sufficiently mine the meaning of the poem, so I want to take up where they leave off to make three broad observations:

·         First, “Sonnet to Science,” though competent and ambitious, is a fairly straightforward poem and there is a risk at over-interpreting it.  Poe was just 20 years-old when he wrote it, and it shows a young man who is trying to highlight his poetic chops, showing that he can opine on lofty matters, much like the English Romantic poets he admired during his youth. For this reason, it lacks the mellifluous meter we often associate with Poe and has a somewhat derivative feel.  The language and phrasing of the poem—particularly, in the first quatrain—recall Shakespeare’s work (which Poe adored in youth), especially the Bard’s no. CXVI (“Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds”), no. XIX (“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws”), and his archaic usage (thou, thee, alterest, preyest, etc.).

·         Second, “Sonnet to Science,” is what I would call part of Poe’s bridge poetry; it is straddling two thematic pockets of his work—namely, the poems of his early youth, and his adult poems.  As a bridge piece, it foreshadows recurring themes in Poe’s later work.  In the third quatrain, Poe drops various mythological references.  He mentions Diana dragged from her car, a reference to Artemis (the Greek form of the goddess) and her golden chariot.  Poe will mention “Dian” in “Ulalume” (1847), where he portrays her traveling through the constellations.  Poe weaves a starry imagery through various other poems (“Evening Star,” “The Sleeper,” “Israfel”).

·         Third, Poe also refers to other mythological creatures in “Sonnet to Science,” including a Hamadryad (a nymph), a Naiad (a water spirit) and the Elfin (magical inhabitants of the forest).  The haunted netherworlds of poems from this period (“Al Aaraaf,” “Fairy-Land,” “The Sleeper”) will mature to more sinister specters and ghouls in later poems (“The Haunted Palace,” “Ulalume,” “Dream-Land”).

So, apart from what it tells us about the poet’s wariness toward the Industrial Revolution and his lamenting the twilight of Romanticism, “Sonnet to Science” is also a guidepost in the development of Poe’s poetic style.


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