Quote:
Originally Posted by Megan  I haven't read Dawkins' book--have any of you?
John Keats, whose lines Dawkins quotes with open affection, is the hinge which opens the door of this book. It is reported by the painter and critic, Benjamin Haydon that Keats, at a dinner, with Wordsworth toasted 'confusion to the memory of Newton'.
When Wordsworth asked for an explanation before he drank the toast, Keats replied 'because he destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism'. |
What about the metaphysical poets? They are referring to one specific group of poets (damn good ones) There is Donne (? or dryden?) 's use of a compass (not a magnetic one, but a measuring one) as an analogy of two lovers that never part even though apart, as posted earlier classically trained art students study anatomy almost as thoroughly as a medical student...and so on.
But again, Dawkins I think, is trying set up a false, polarized argument and also making science the God of all things. As I said he's preaching his own 'religion'
That said there might be some truth in Wordworth's words
if we only looked at a rainbow as reduced to a prism.