The Science of Poetry: Poetic Process as Evolution in Mandel'shtam's “Conversation about Dante”

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the humanities and science by focusing on Osip Mandel'shtam's “Conversation about Dante.” Noting the importance of natural science for Mandel'shtam's treatise, I argue that Mandel'shtam makes use of the methods of the natural sciences in developing a complex theory of the poetic process. He encounters the scientific method of analysis in his reading of the natural scientists, written about in his travelogue “Journey to Armenia,” as well as various shorter pieces accompanying it. Mandel'shtam begins with a proposition of isomorphism between poetry and nature. Ultimately, I argue that the scientific method allows Mandel'shtam to theorize the poetic process as a dialogue between author and reader in which cultural kinship between its participants is established as a break within their individuality and a recognition of the authority of the “poetic impulse” or “instinct.” In turn, envisioning the poetic process as a dialogue that paradoxically suspends and transcends the individuality of its participants allows Mandel'shtam simultaneously to insist on the necessity of submission to the authority of the poetic message and to endow poetry with political autonomy.