Literature and Chemistry

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Группа авторов. Literature and Chemistry

LITERATURE AND CHEMISTRY: ARTS AND CRAFTS OF TRANSFORMATION

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE: RECIPROCITY AND RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCES

LITERATURE AND CHEMISTRY: THE STATE OF THE FIELD

CHEMISTRY AND LIFE-WRITING

A SCIENCE WITH AN AMBIGUOUS REPUTATION

HISTORIES OF ALCHEMY

CHEMISTRIES OF PERSONAL INTERACTION

AFFINITIES OF POETRY AND CHEMISTRY

EARTH, AIR, FIRE, AND WATER VERSUS THE PERIODIC TABLE

LITERATURE, CHEMISTRY, AND THE SUBLIME

WORKS CITED

PRIMO LEVI’S CHEMICAL SENSORIUM

THE CHEMIST

THE CHEMIST-WRITER

THE EMPIRICIST

“THE MNEMAGOGUES”

THE SENSES

OTHER SENSES

WORKS CITED

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND CHEMISTRY: PRIMO LEVI AND OLIVER SACKS

INTRODUCTION

THE CHEMISTRY OF WRITING

THE PERIODIC TABLE – AN ALLOY OF LITERARY GENRES

CHEMISTRY AS BILDUNG

THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY

THE DOUBLE NATURE OF CHEMISTRY

EKPHRASIS

CONCLUDING REMARKS

WORKS CITED

FROM “THE LIFE OF THE SPINOSIST” TO “LIFE”: HUMPHRY DAVY, CHEMIST AND POET

THE ANNUAL ANTHOLOGY AND BRISTOL, 1799-1801

FROM MANUSCRIPT TO PRINTED POEM

“LIFE” (1823)

CONCLUSION

WORKS CITED

AN UNLIKELY CANDIDATE FOR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE: THE NOSTALGIC LUDWIG BOLTZMANN IN ELDORADO

THE DESCENT OF A POLYMATH

ENTER THE ITALIAN PHILOSOPHER AS GUIDE

TEXTUAL NOSTALGICS

DEATH AFTER ELDORADO

THE UNLIKELY CANDIDATE GROPES FOR NARRATIVE

WORKS CITED

RAYMOND QUENEAU’S “THE SONG OF STYRENE”

INTRODUCTION

PERCEPTIONS: VISUAL, AURAL, AND COGNITIVE

THE FREEDOM OF TONE AND THE HUMOUR

TOWARDS A RENEWED ENCYCLOPAEDISM

THE CONTEXT

RAYMOND QUENEAU IN 1957

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

THE METHOD OF COMPOSITION

CONCLUSION

WORKS CITED

THE INVISIBLE SCIENCE? CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE FICTION, AND POPULAR CULTURE

FUNCTIONS OF CHEMISTRY IN SCIENCE FICTION

CHEMISTRY AND DISCOVERY IN ALASTAIR REYNOLDS’S REVELATION SPACE

CHEMISTRY AND LIFE IN PAUL McAULEY’S THE QUIET WAR

CHEMISTRY AND THE PROJECT OF SCIENCE IN GREG EGAN’S THE CLOCKWORK ROCKET

WORKS CITED

IN THE ZONE: THE STRUGATSKII BROTHERS AND THE POETICS OF POLLUTION IN RUSSIAN SCIENCE FICTION

THE BROTHERS STRUGATSKII AND VERNADSKII’S BIOSPHERE

THE INHABITED ISLAND

ROADSIDE PICNIC

CONCLUSION

WORKS CITED

ALCHEMISTS AND ALCHEMY IN ITALIAN LITERATURE FROM ITS ORIGINS TO GALILEO GALILEI

THE MIDDLE AGES: FROM THE FIRST TUSCAN POETS TO DANTE AND CECCO D’ASCOLI

THE RENAISSANCE – FROM LEONARDO TO ARIOSTO

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: GALILEO GALILEI – BETWEEN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

WORKS CITED

ON THE ROLE OF ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE FROM PETER THE GREAT TO THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD

WORKS CITED

THE LITERARY DISTORTIONS OF ALCHEMY

NATHALIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER

GUSTAV MEYRINK’S THE ANGEL OF THE WESTERN WINDOW

MARGUERITE YOURCENAR’S THE ABYSS

CONCLUSIONS

WORKS CITED

DEMONIC AFFINITIES: ON THE CHEMICAL ANALOGY IN GOETHE’S DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN

THE OXYMORONIC NATURE OF THE TERM “WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFT”

GOETHE’S USE OF THE TERM WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFT

NECESSITY AND FREEDOM

THE TWO COUPLES COMPARED

THE ELEMENT OF REPULSION

AN UNCANNY ANALOGY

THE MONSTROUS EVIL

THE NOVEL AS TRAGEDY

WORKS CITED

STRINDBERG, CHEMISTRY, AND THE DIVINE

STRINDBERG’S CHEMICAL TEXTS AND HOW TO READ THEM

CHEMISTS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE FICTION OF AUGUST STRINDBERG

WORKS CITED

THE MYSTICAL POWER OF CHEMISTRY – A BLIND SPOT IN DAG SOLSTAD’S FIRST NOVEL, IRR! GRØNT!

INTRODUCTION

THE PLOT

DESTROYING THE MYTH OF COLUMBUS

KARSTEN AND JOHN – CHEMICAL RESEARCHERS AND ROLE MODELS

CHEMISTRY AS RELIGION

HOMONCULUS

WORKS CITED

“THE PHOSPHORESCENCE OF PUTREFACTION AND THE SCENT OF THUNDERSTORMS”: APPROACHING A BAUDELAIREAN METAPHOR BY WAY OF LITERATURE AND CHEMISTRY

PHOSPHORESCENCE: NATURAL PHENOMENA WITH SUPERNATURAL CONNOTATIONS

THE ISOLATION OF PHOSPHORUS

AN EXPERIMENT ON PHOSPHORESCENCE IN THE AIR-PUMP

PHOSPHORUS THERAPIES FOR PHOSPHORESCENT BRAINS

PHOSPHORIC NERVE FLUID FLOWING INTO NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION

BAUDELAIRE’S (PSEUDO)SCIENTIFIC SUPERNATURALISM

“THE PHOSPHORESCENCE OF PUTREFACTION AND THE SCENT OF THUNDERSTORMS”

ENTRANCING OPPOSITES

RETURN TO ALCHEMY

CONJUNCTIONS OF EARTH AND FIRE: MÉLANCOLIQUE ET ARDENT

WORKS CITED

PASTERNAK’S WASSERMANN TEST

CONTEMPORARY INTERDISCIPLINARY ACTIVITY

“THE WASSERMANN TEST”

MY SISTER LIFE

METONYMICAL CHAINS AND SEITENKETTEN

PASTERNAK’S LITERARY WASSERMANN TEST

WORKS CITED

“DER STEIN DER WEISEN IST BLAU”: ALCHEMISTIC THOUGHT IN KONRAD BAYER’S LITERARY WORK

DER STEIN DER WEISEN: A KEY TO INSIGHT AND LINGUISTIC “READYMADE”

WITTGENSTEIN

HERMETICAL GEOGRAPHY

ABSOLUTE PRESENCE

WORKS CITED

CONTRIBUTORS

Отрывок из книги

Edited by

Margareth Hagen and Margery Vibe Skagen

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We do not have the very small of elementary particles or the soaring large of galaxies. Chemistry lacks that easy ladder to the sublime of boundlessness, of the downward or outward freeways to infinity. (Hoffmann, p. 150)

The layman or woman would not always agree. The idea that the same molecular structures that constitute the chemical building blocks of our living brains and bodies are to be found in the remotest nebulae of the cosmos is a source of fright and fascination. Just thinking about the conjunction of the universal and the particular, or the macro- and microscopic avenues underlying vast and small material phenomena, is enough to overwhelm most imaginations. The chemical and alchemical sublime is not absent from the literary examples presented in this volume. And for Hoffmann too, chemistry has its wonders. In his article he points to functional aspects of chemistry that touch upon the sublime, some of which are metaphorically transferable to our context of literary creation and scholarship. As seen in the chemical process of sublimation, in which a solid is transformed into gas and then back to a solid, change is “the defining essence of chemistry” (p. 152).19 The chemical object’s potential for change is an aspect of the dynamic sublime (p. 154).20 Furthermore, Hoffmann recognises a “median sublime” in “the living middle of human beings and molecules in equilibrium”, in the captured energy “suspended in a multidimensional space defined by crisscrossing polarities”, with its potential for reaction in one direction or the other. In our context of chemical and literary affinities, we note that the precarious state of balance between opposing forces, which some slight but decisive perturbation will release, is also an infinite source of narrative if we follow the basic schema of classical structuralism: when action is sparked off by some initial provocation and the characters are compelled to respond to the consequential trials and choices of the complication until the dilemmas are resolved through processes of separation and reconnection, allowing a new state of equilibrium to emerge, awaiting new narratives of transformation in turn.

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