POETRY OF THE STARSA LITERARY INTERLUDE

John C. Mannone

SWEETWATER PUBLIC LIBRARY

MAY 3, 2003

Abstract: Our literary heritage and the science of astronomy are both appreciated more by studying how the Sun, moon, stars, and planets are used in poetry. Examples of how both metaphor and physics blend will be presented through the quill of Frost, Byron, and Longfellow, as well as authors of some classic and ancient texts.

INTRODUCTION

Poetry of the Stars

The stars sing a symphony of a mystery, alas!

Which the Astronomer tries to unlock,

With eyes on the magical looking glass;..And

Physicists do marvel their spectral frock

With equations of light and size and mass;..But

Poets see the stellar bright so awestruck;

With clever words, your lonely heart he’ll bless;..For

The stars ring a harmony of a beauty unsurpassed.

John C. Mannone October 1, 2002

ASTRONOMY

AND

POETIC LITERATURE

SYNERGISM

ASTRONOMY IS GOOD FOR LITERATURELITERATURE IS GOOD FOR ASTRONOMY

LITERATURE IS REPLETE WITHASTRONOMICAL REFERENCES

LITERATURE IS ENHANCEDBY THE STELLAR METAPHORS

ASTRONOMY IS APPRECIATEDTHROUGH SUBTLE EMBELLISHMENTS

POETRY AS THE LITERARY VEHICLE

CAPTURES EMOTION EFFECTIVELY

INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC

PHILOSOPHICAL AND ANALYTICAL

ALLITERATIVE ARRAY OF ASTRONOMICAL ALLUSIONS ALL ASSORTED APPLICATIONS

METAPHORICALMETAPHYSICALMATTER OF FACTMATTER OF HISTORICAL DATES

MONTH TO MILLENIAMATTER OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE

MONUMENTALMATTER OF VALIDATIONMATTER OF LAW

MAGISTRATIVEMELADRAMATICMYSTICAL AND MAGICALMAJICALMAGNIFICENCE

LITERARY ASPECTS

OF

POETRY

POETRY

ANCIENT HEBREW POETRYWORD PICTURE (PARALLELISM OF IDEAS)

CLASSIC GREEK POETRYMETER (PARALLELISM OF TIME)

TRADITIONAL ENGLISH POETRYRHYME (PARALLELISM OF SOUND)

ANCIENT HEBREW POETRY

Symbolic parallelism through an analogy:

An artist gathers the canvas, the brushes, the paints.He sketches an outline, then carefully fills in the details.

An aesthetically pleasing picture is created,first with broad strokes, then with precise measure.

Torah (1500 BC)

As an example, recall the creation account in the Hebrew Scriptures:

Note the poetry in the general theme,Darkness, formless, and void => Light, firmament, and life

In coarse details (the broad strokes of creation),The sea, the sky, the land created =>The fish, the fowl, the animals filled the earth

In fine details,So God created man in his own image,in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.(Genesis 1: 27)

Note the repetition for emphasis, but more importantly the mirrorimaging of words for the visual effect. Note the coupled clauses.

Book of Psalms (1000 BC)

An Astronomy example,

He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down.(Psalm 104: 19)

This is actually a profound statement about the “two great lights”.

Earth’s seasons are stabilized by the Moon holding the spin axis rigidly (alternating prolonged ice ages and scorching desert ages)

Earth is in a very stable orbit around the Sun to ensure the extremelynarrow “Goldilocks” zone for habitation.

CLASSIC GREEK POETRY

The Long and the Short of it

Unlike the poetry of English and many other modern European languages, which is based on patterns of stress accent, Greek meter is based on patterns of long and short syllables.

In Greek verse, the basic unit of time is the mora; A short syllable is a single mora and a long two. Groups of syllables of up to six or even seven morae divisions, are called feet.

These patterns are the fundamental building blocks of Greek verse.

Lines can be defined by grouping a certain kind of foot; if there are 3, it’s a trimeter; 4, a tetrameter; 5, a pentameter; etc up to seven.

short longda DUM

Iambic pentameter is the building block of about two- thirds of medieval and Renaissance English poetic forms. Words like divine, caress, bizarre, and delight sound sort of like a heartbeat: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM[da].

We hold these truths to be self-evident

Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence"

Homer (800 BC) and Hesiod (700 BC)

The dactylic, or heroic, hexameter is the meter of Epic. It is also the meter of a didactic poet like Hesiod.

“Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat and guided the raft skillfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear- which men also call the wain, and which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus- for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon.” (Homer, The Odyssey, Book V, translated Samuel Butler)

But its all Greek to me,so here is a translation…

Athens, Greece

October 1, 800 BC 8 PM Local Time

Pleiades

Polaris

Ursa Major

Sky Chart III

Arcturus

TRADITIONAL ENGLISH POETRY

Rhyme the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification.

Used in ancient East Asian poetryRarely in ancient Greek and Roman poetry.

When classical quantitative meters were replaced by accentual meters, rhyme began to develop, especially in the sacred Latin poetry of the early Christian church.

Rhyme Scheme and Structure

ASTRONOMICAL ASPECTS

IN

POETRY

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY TIME LINEAPPLICABLE TO THE POET AND THE POEM

1667 A.D. Newton discovers law of universal gravitation. 1718 A.D. Edmund Halley discovers stars move through space. 1802 A.D. William Herschel shows many double stars are binaries.1826 A.D. Olbers paradox1862 A.D. William Huggins identifies chemical elements in stars.1862 A.D. Edmund Haley discovers first white dwarf (Sirius B).1872 A.D. Henry Draper photographs of the stellar spectrum of Vega.1877 A.D. Giovanni Schiaparelli discovers "canals" of Mars.1879 A.D. Stefan-Boltzmann Law1900 A.D. Planck Radiation Law1905 A.D. Mount Wilson Observatory was established for study of the Sun.1905 A.D. Albert Einstein introduces Special Theory of Relativity1908 A.D. Hertzsprung describes giant and dwarf stars.1908 A.D. Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovers Cepheid variables.

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY TIME LINEAPPLICABLE TO THE POET AND THE POEM

1914 A.D. Hertzsprung-Russel diagram1914 A.D. Robert Goddard begins practical rocketry.1916 A.D. Albert Einstein introduces his General Theory of Relativity.1917 A.D. 100” Mt. Wilson Telescope1923 A.D. Hubble shows that galaxies exist outside the Milky Way galaxy.1926 A.D. Robert Goddard uses first liquid rocket fuel.1927 A.D. Oort shows the center of the Milky Way galaxy is in Sagittarius.1929 A.D. Edwin Hubble discover’s Hubble’s Law1930 A.D. Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.1931 A.D. Karl Jansky discovers cosmic radio waves.1932 A.D. Chadwick discovers the neutron in atom splitting experiments.1937 A.D. First radio telescope built by Grote Reber.1938 A.D. Hans Bethe proposes the proton-proton fusion process in the Sun.1948 A.D. 200” Mt. Polamar Telescope

MYTHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

IN

POETRY

Bulfinch's  Mythology

By

Thomas Bulfinch

To

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The Poet Alike Of The Many And Of The Few,This Attempt To Popularize

Mythology,And Extend The Enjoyment Of Elegant Literature,

Is Respectfully Inscribed

LITERARY INTERLUDE

THE POETRY OF ROBERT LEE FROST

1874-1963

Frost's poetry is structured within traditional metrical and rhythmical schemes; he disliked free verse (not constrained by rhyme or rhythm).

Frost's emotional range is wide and deep.

Much of his poetry is concerned with the interaction between humans and nature. Frost regarded nature as a beautiful but dangerous force.

His work shows his strong sympathy for the values of early American society.

A Star in a Stone Boat The Star-Splitter

* Fire and Ice The Freedom of the Moon Fireflies in the Garden Acquainted with the Night Canis Major On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations Lost in Heaven Moon Compasses The Lesson for Today The Literate Farmer and the Planet Venus Were I in Trouble Bravado On Making Certain Anything Has Happened In the Long Night Astrometaphysical

The Milky Way is a Cow PathSome Science FictionTwo Leading Lights Etherealizing Why Wait for Science Take Something Like a Star

Choose Something Like a StarRobert Frost 1947

 O Star (the fairest one in sight),We grant your loftiness the rightTo some obscurity of cloud --It will not do to say of night,Since dark is what brings out your light.Some mystery becomes the proud.But to be wholly taciturnIn your reserve is not allowed.Say something to us we can learnBy heart and when alone repeat.Say something! And it says ``I burn.''But say with what degree of heat.

Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.Use language we can comprehend.Tell us what elements you blend.It gives us strangely little aid,But does tell something in the end.And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,Not even stooping from its sphere,It asks little of us here.It asks of us a certain height,So when at times the mob is swayedTo carry praise of blame too far,We may choose something like a starTo stay our minds on and be staid.

Choose Something Like a Star Robert Frost 1947

Frost refers to Keat’s poem, “Bright Star” (1819); an Eremite is a hermit detached and watching, much like a muse. The star is detached from the Earth as if lofty and watchful. The star cannot tell him about the meaning of life, only what the “heavens declare”.

Blackbody radiation was understood turn of the 20th century. Star light peak wavelength gives star’s surface temperature [lambda, meters = 0.0029/T (K)].

Elemental analysis from star light was understood (Huggins 1862). Stellar spectroscopy was well established by the middle of 20th century. It was taught in basic college science courses and amateur astronomers would have been privy at that time.

STARS APPEAR AS COLORED JEWELSCLASSIFIED TO BY COLOR AND TEMPERATURE

The Star-SplitterRobert Frost 1923

You know Orien always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains…

So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talkOf heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,

Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,He burned his house down for the fire insurance

And spent the proceeds on a telescopeTo satisfy a life-long curiosity

About our place among the infinities…

…not plantsAs on a farm, but planets, evening starsThat varied in their hue from red to green.He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.His new job gave him leisure for star-gazing.Often he bid me come and have a lookUp the brass barrel, velvet black inside,At a star quaking in the other end.I recollect a night of broken cloudsAnd underfoot snow melted down to ice,And melting further in the wind to mud.Bradford and I had out the telescope.

We spread our two legs as it spread its three,Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,And standing at our leisure till the day broke,Said some of the best things we ever said.That telescope was christened the Star-splitter,Because it didn't do a thing but splitA star in two or three the way you splitA globule of quicksilver in your hand…

Orion Constellation Clear New England Sky December 1947

Starry Night Backyard

6” Clark Refractor

Diffraction Limited Angular Resolution

= 2.5 x 105 /D (arcsecond)

Star Splitter Robert Frost 1923

1802 A.D. William Herschel shows many double stars are binaries.

January 31, 1862, while testing the lens of the Dearborn Telescope, Alvan Graham discovered the faint companion (a white dwarf) to Sirius. The German astronomer Bessel, years before had predicted this companion from the wobbling motion of that brightest star in the sky. 

THE POETRY OF ANN AND JANE TAYLOR

1782-1866 1783-1824

These sisters were well known poem and hymn writers who lived in Stockwell Street, Colchester

The Star

Ann and Jane Taylor 1806 

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,How I wonder what you are !Up above the world so high,Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,When she nothing shines upon,Then you show your little light,Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the trav'ller in the dark,Thanks you for your tiny spark,He could not see which way to go,If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,And often thro' my curtains peep,For you never shut your eye,Till the sun is in the sky.

'Tis your bright and tiny spark,Lights the trav'ller in the dark :Tho' I know not what you are,Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

The Star Ann and Jane Taylor 1806

Starlight is actually too faint to light your path; however, celestial navigation has been very useful to explorers.

Possibly, there seems to be a subtle reference to the Star of Bethlehemguiding the weary travelers.

The atmosphere bends the light of stars, distant points of light; the turbulence in the upper atmosphere causes a constant shimmering (scintillation)- stars twinkle.

Planets are much closer; their reflected light is randomized. This smoothes-out any twinkle.

THE POETRY OF LORD BYRON (George Gordon) 1788-1824

A poetic chronicle of travels and thoughts of a wayward, wild, immoral youth who grows weary of his ways and seeks to gain a surer foothold on life by traveling to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Baltics.

Reflects on the fierce culture of the Albanians and the past glory of Greece, on Waterloo and Napoleon in Belgium, on the Alps, the Rhine and the battles fought there.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,If in your bright leaves we could read the fate

Of men and empires-'tis to be forgivenThat, in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal stateAnd claim a kindred with you: for ye are

A beauty and a mystery, and createIn us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life have namedThemselves a star. (Canto III, part lxxxviii)

THE POETRY OF JOHN KEATS1795-1821

John Keats was born in 1795 in Moorfields, England, the son of a stableman. His father died when John was eight, his mother died of tuberculosis whenHe was fourteen. At fifteen, apprenticed as an apothecary-surgeon. Soon after, John left the medical field to focus primarily on poetry, inspired by Shakespeare.

Few poets ascend to the level of John Keats. He was 26 when he died of tuberculosis,

He was considered, along with Wordsworth, to be the Romantic poet of the 19th century.

"When I have fears that I may cease to be" is an expression of Keats's melancholy. When he wrote this poem, he was still quite sick and it was obvious that his ill-health was not improving. As a consequence, he developed a negative outlook on life. He expressed himself with the following poem, one I consider to be among his finest.

BRIGHT STAR John Keats 1819

Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art--          Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,          Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task

          Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

          Of snow upon the mountains and the moors- No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

          Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,          Awake forever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,          And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

THE POETRY OF HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 1807-1882

First great American poet.

A master of metrical verse- he favored hexameters.

“It is a curious of fact of looking through the telescope to make one feel warm in a cold night; that is, to forget the body wholly. The souls seems to exert its supremacy and to walk among the stars.” (January 5, 1848 Journal entry concerning the Great Telescope at Harvard)

THE LIGHT OF STARSLongfellow 1838

The night is come, but not too soon;And sinking silently,

All silently, the little moonDrops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heavenBut the cold light of stars;

And the first watch of night is givenTo the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?The star of love and dreams?

O no! from that blue tent above,A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise, When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies, The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand And smile upon my pain;

Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light But the cold light of stars;

I give the first watch of the night To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast,

Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, That readest this brief psalm,

As one by one thy hopes depart, Be resolute and calm.

O fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.

"This poem was written on a beautiful summer night. The moon, a little strip of silver, was just setting behind the groves of Mount Auburn, and the planet Mars blazing in the southeast. There was a singular light in the sky; and the air was cool and still” (written ex post facto to his wife Fanny Longfellow Oct 6, 1846)

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANALYSIS of THE LIGHT OF STARS: LONGFELLOW’S MARS IN PERIHELION OPPOSITION

By John C. Mannone

Has been submitted for publication in Sky and Telescope

THE POETRY OF JOYCE KILMER1886-1918

Killed in the service of his country.

Like his famous poem, “Trees,”

“Stars” is simplistic but profound.

STARS Kilmer 1914

Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,Are you errant strands of Lady Mary's hair?

As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?

Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.

Now and then a winged child turns his merry faceDown toward the spinning world -- what a funny place!

Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.

Christ's Troop, Mary's Guard, God's own men,Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.Every steel-born spark that flies where God's battles are,Flashes past the face of God, and is a star.