Thursday, January 12, 2012

Thoughts on "Keats and the Glories of the Brain"


            First off, I would like to start out by emphasizing how fascinating I believe it is to look at things through a different light, and in the case of British Romanticism and the Science of the Mind, this is a very outdated light. Many would not see the point in this, but I enjoy thinking about how people used to view things. Think about the first time someone saw a brain. As it is described in “Keats and the Glories of the Brain”, early anatomists originally viewed it as simply a “spongy, inorganized, pulpy substance” (p. 118). Today, that sounds foolish to even a child. It makes you wonder how we were able to make discoveries such as neurons or synapses or activation potentials, and it opens the mind to numerous possibilities. What things do we view today as “spongy, inorganized, pulpy” things? If knowledge truly has no limit, what will we discover in the next 20 years? 50 years? This mentality is what I was overcome with when I read “Keats and the Glories of the Brain”. Even the brain itself is still somewhat of a mystery, and it makes you wonder what things we have yet to learn about the organ that controls us.
            “Keats and the Glories of the Brain” offers a brief description of the scientific research that was undergone during the 18th century regarding the brain, and how knowledge about the true purpose of the brain was finally brought to light. During this period of discovery, scientists when from viewing the brain as a mound of grey mush to a bundle of hollow tubes to finally a network of nerves that were able to communicate with one another. More interestingly, the chapter also weaves in the ties of a poet of the time, John Keats, who actually had an interest in these scientific discoveries and attended several lectures by the leading anatomists of the time, taking detailed notes.
            After reading three of Keats’ poems, I can’t help but wonder why he had such an interest in science. He stepped outside his literary comfort zone into the science realm, and not only did he immerse himself in it, but he seemed to have a firm grasp on the new discoveries relating to the brain. In “Keats and the Glories of the Brain”, it is mention that Keats wrote in his notes that “a fluid, like that of the electric is secreted in the brain which is thence communicated along the nerves” (p. 122). We know from the scientific discoveries that have taken place since then that Keats is referring to the actions of neurons and neurotransmitters that send messages throughout the body. It is peculiar that a poet from the 18th century was so fascinated by this idea. What was a poet doing attending lectures about anatomy?
I have an idea of exactly what was going through Keats mind. I love to write for fun. Usually when I write, I make it a game, where I try to convey an idea without explicitly describing it. Writing is a mind game. It is all about how you word things and how you can convey a message to your audience. This conveyance takes a certain amount of manipulation or persuasion. If this is accepted, then it is logical to say that Keats was interested in how people think. In fact, it makes perfect sense that Keats was interested in the scientific discoveries regarding the brain; it controls how people think.
            Keats’ curiosity suggests that he was one of the first people to consider the idea of cognitive science. When you read his poetry, he takes an idea and plants it in your mind. He takes his literary shovel, digs a hole that initially is filled with curiosity, and then fills it with an idea. He clearly understands the connection between the words on the paper and how they are related to the audience’s thinking process. His interest in science as well as his clear skill with words suggests that he was at least aware of the idea of cognition, and this is interesting in terms of the origins of cognitive science as both an idea and a studied subject.
            

1 comment:

  1. Hi Karli—

    Good openings ideas here. A few answers to some of your questions. Keats was indeed “interested in how people think,” both as a poet, and at large. I love the way you’re thinking about writing as a cognitive act: communication as a rhetorical game in figuring out what minds (and what kind of minds) you’re reaching and how to persuade, inform, reveal, show beauty. He was actually the son of a “hostler”—a fancy older term for a groomsman who works with horses in the stables. Keats’ parents both died early, however, (his father died from a skull fracture after falling from a horse) and he registered as a medical student at Guy’s, becoming an apprentice surgeon. He was the oldest of four, and though he had some financial help, money issues were always present. Most teachers have forgotten all this in retrospect when they talk about Keats, and only remember a beaming Romantic boy, writing his verse. But it is perhaps more appropriate to say it’s surprising that Keats was a poet than that he was a surgeon, attending Cowper’s lectures.

    As you probably saw from the readings in Brain, Mind, and Medicine, the long eighteenth-century view of electricity wasn’t quite at neurons yet, but certainly stretching toward… And Keats (considering Cavendish who came before—and many more before her) was far from the first poet to be interested in early neuroscience. I’d be interested to see how you’d approach earlier figures like Cavendish, Swift, and Sterne. When you do, see if you can quote from the literary material as well as the secondary readings to get some practice in “close reading.” Dig into the poem or passage you’ve chosen—much like the shovel you mention—and see if you can unpack how it’s working to do the very type of cognitive-rhetorical persuasion you describe: how does a poet or writer try to reach us? How does one line build into the next? What metaphors are they borrowing to draw us in? Specific word choice, rhymes, syntax, etc…?

    A quick practical note: You probably missed this part since you needed to take care of things that first class, but in the future, try to engage readings in your blog that are for the *upcoming* week. Here, it would have been Cavendish, Descartes, C.U.M. Smith, etc... For Saturday, go ahead and post on the readings for Week 3 on Attention.

    Great start!

    best,
    NP

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