Flame Far Too Hot by Katy Price.pdf (134.11 kB)
Flame far too hot: William Empson's non-Euclidean predicament
journal contribution
posted on 2023-08-30, 13:25 authored by Katy PriceWilliam Empson’s poem ‘Letter I’ (1928–35) appears to anticipate the black hole, using the idea of a dying star from which no light escapes as a metaphor for unrequited passion. Closer inspection of the Cambridge undergraduate context in which the poem was written, along with the other source materials incorporated besides Arthur Eddington in the poem, reveals the motivation behind Empson’s playful engagement with the limits of what was possible under general relativity. Empson’s attempt to follow the metaphysical example of John Donne, using the new cosmology of the 1920s, led him to explore an extreme astro-physical condition that Eddington had dismissed as absurd, and that still had an uncertain scientific status in the 1930s.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
30Issue number
4Page range
312-322Publication title
Interdisciplinary Science ReviewsISSN
1743-2790External DOI
Publisher
Taylor & FrancisFile version
- Accepted version
Language
- eng