In Physics Envy, Peter Middleton argues that science has had a strong influence on the course of American poetry since WWII. He focuses on poets as different as Charles Olsen, Robert Duncan, John Ashbery, and others, and how they responded to advances in science (especially physics) in the development of ambitious poetry programs and poetics. For Middleton, the major shift came in the 1970s, when the more traditional New American poetry gave way to the experiments of Language poetry, and he shows surprising correlations between how poetry was conceived and written, on the one hand, and the advances in physics, chemistry, and biology at the time, on the other. Though it was discoveries in physics (e.g., the atomic bomb) that started this science envy" after the war, Middleton finds poets borrowing and adapting language from the other sciences as well, for example, the way the language and concepts used by biologists were taken up by poets and poetry theorists to create their own recombinant poetics of language, often calling what they did, however abstract, inquiries and experiments in language. Even the ideas and language from the leading popular scientific journal,Scientific American, began appearing in poems in magazines and books. And a poet like Gary Snyder, whose work seems to be inspired by Buddhist and shamanistic sources, also draws, as Middleton shows, on ecological sciencesometimes directly from textbooks on the subject. Middleton writes a history of science and poetry that shows how they throw beneficial light on each other's dilemmas, and uncovers areas of unacknowledged exchanges of ideas between poets and scientists. As Middleton shows, poetry since WWII can often be read as a thoughtful, productive quarrel between the Oppenheimers and Watsons of science, and poets and poetic experimenters attempting an intellectual inquiry into the nature of things. Poets and poetry critics, literary historians, and those in history and philosophy of science will want to read this book.
Industry Reviews
"[A] fascinating book. Middleton's Physics Envy begs to be extended and applied to other poets and periods."-- "American Literary History"
"An original and valuable contribution to our understanding of the relations between poetry and the sciences in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Especially of interest are the close readings of articles, whole issues, and advertisements from Scientific American in relation to specific poems and sequences--a fruitful approach, and, given Scientific American's success and status as the publication presenting the public face of science in North America, an excellent way to reveal the multiplicity and nuance of poetic practice in its engagement with scientific language, values, and discoveries."-- "Katy Price, author of Loving Faster Than Light: Romance and Readers in Einstein's Universe"
"Focusing mainly on Muriel Rukeyser, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, George Oppen, Rae Armantrout, Amiri Baraka, and Jackson Mac Low, Middleton . . . examines these writers' poetry and prose to ask how their goals and aesthetics responded to the cultural primacy of the sciences, especially physics, after WW II. . . . An especially interesting chapter focuses on the magazine Scientific American, founded in 1948, aimed at both scientists and nonspecialist readers, which informed many poets. In addition to poets, Middleton considers reflections on imagination and language by scientists such as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Werner Heisenberg. . . . Recommended."-- "Choice"
"Middleton explores insightfully and sensitively how American poets from Rukeyser to Armantrout respond to poetry's de-privileging as a source of epistemological knowledge; it is genuinely exciting to see prominent scientists such as Oppenheimer and Feynman, as well as an array of mid-twentieth-century social scientists, treated as thinkers who can help us better understand Cold War-era literature. As always, Middleton is an acute analyst, writing lucidly whether treating abstruse concepts in nuclear physics or presenting the ins and outs of experimental verse. Physics Envy is a delight to read."-- "Brian M. Reed, author of Nobody's Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics"
"Published at the dawn of a sea change in American politics that is currently raising justified fears of the delegitimization of both the sciences and the humanities, Physics Envy stands tall as a reminder of the ways in which scientific and artistic inquiries into the relationship between humans and the world make up the very force that articulates what could be understood as a genuinely American field."-- "British Society for Literature and Science Reviews"
"This wonderfully crafted book offers a series of incisive and persuasive readings on a broad range of literary theorists, poets, and scientists, and Middleton's sophisticated style of analysis rewards rereading. Physics Envy offers new ways in which to understand the interactions between American poets and scientific ideas and will be of real interest to scholars working in the fields of Cold War culture, literature, and science."-- "Isis"
"We know a good deal about the cold war era's investment in science, but we know less about the extent to which poets drew upon the contributions of quantum physics, cybernetics, and relativity theory in forging a new poetics. Peter Middleton makes an excellent case for the generative impact of science on open field poetics, showing how Charles Olson, Muriel Rukeyser, Robert Duncan, and others adapted (and occasionally mis-read) the work of Heisenberg, Weiner, Schroedinger and social scientists like Kurt Lewin. Physics Envy is the definitive treatment of a vital conversation between poetic theory and scientific innovation in the postwar period."-- "Michael Davidson, author of Bleed Through: New and Selected Poems"
