The term aesthetic is often misleading as it can be interpreted in many different ways. I have thought it to suggest a relation to a natural beauty of life. For clarification purposes, I have taken the term to focus on a more artistic connotation, imaginative and yet beautiful at the same time. Through my interpretation, I have been able to set up a direct comparison between scientific and aesthetic, as novels like the Time Machine are less aesthetic as Darwin suggests.
In his autobiography, Charles Darwin begins with the notion that his mind has evolved from liking poets like Milton, Wordsworth and Coleridge to that of novels. From here, Darwin begins to suggest that not only people, but plants and animals belong to the evolutionary world, but so do works of literary art. Darwin goes on to say that books of “history, biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subject interest me as much as they ever did” and yet, he places them at a more degenerate level that of poetry. While I first thought this idea to be crazy, I can only agree with him when looking at the works within the (d)evolution cluster.
While the novels Darwin liked may not be based on scientific facts, the reader was asked to accept the pseudoscience facts in order to accept the novel. For instance, in the Time Machine, while I know that there is no such thing as a time machine, I am asked to accept the fact that the man had built a time machine and traveled to the future. This does not require me to use my imagination on how he got there, as there seems to be answer on HOW the time traveler arrived to the place of the Morlocks and Elois. The Time Machine uses “factual scientific theories” like the fourth dimension, which hinders the full use of the imagination as science becomes entangled with fantasy. On page four, the time traveler tells his guest, “there are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time.” The time traveler tells us how to think and how to interpret his findings, as we are given his opinion on things like the description of the Elois and the Morlocks, instead of leaving it to our imagination. Thus, it seems as if the natural occurrences within the novel become tampered by the facts and the plot descriptions found within the novel.
On the other hand, in the poems of May Kendall, we are not aware of our surrounding, beyond just a brief description of the scenery. We get an idea that both the philanthropist and the man with the trilobite are alone, but we, as readers, do not know how this has happened. We do not know the age, the physical appearance, or even the time in which Kendall’s poems take place. Thus, the reader is forced to use their own imagination to place man at the point of meeting. There is nothing definite in the poems, allowing for the interpretations to be openly accepted with years to come.
In addition to the lack of forced scientific theory in the poems, there seems to be a natural representation of science. The only thing scientific present within these poems is the acceptance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the key term being natural. The only unnatural occurrence within the poems would be the fact that both creatures talk with man. And yet, when the conversation between man and the trilobite or the jellyfish and philanthropist is over, we are not forced to accept any one idea, but rather we are allowed to reflect on the conversation and choose how we interpret the poem, freely.
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I was grateful for the fact that you opened your second blog with an eye to defining your terms, especially considering that “aesthetic,” as you mention, can have different valences of meaning. What puzzled me, however, was the distinction you were making b/w the natural and the artistic; both appeared to work off of the same idea of “beauty,” and so I was left wondering about the precise definition of each, and their source. What sparked my interest was the relationship you set up b/w the aesthetic and the scientific, whereby the aesthetic was aligned w/ the imagination and the scientific aligned w/ empirical data. As you say: “Thus, it seems as if the natural occurrences within the novel become tampered [tempered?] by the facts and the plot descriptions found within the novel.” This is an intriguing statement, but I’m not sure I understand how this links back to Darwin’s idea of a literary evolution. Your comments on May Kendall’s poetry, while lacking some definitive textual (i.e. cited) evidence, are wonderful. I like very much the notion that we are essentially w/o place in these poems, and that it is up to us, the reader, to locate not only ourselves but the human and creature beings as well. Again, however, I do not understand the necessary link to Darwin’s literary evolution. Do you, in the end, agree or disagree w/ Darwin’s assessment of poetry vs. prose? (And why, exactly?) Your response is insinuated, but never stated directly. And given the amount of proofreading errors, the post reads a bit rushed. Be careful that you allow yourself that fourth dimension of time to fully realize the strength of your ideas!
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