by He is famous for discovering aspects of the periodic table, for inventing a lamp in 1815 that would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of miners and as an electrochemical pioneer.
But it is the unpublished poetry of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy – and the fascinating connections between his poems and his scientific discoveries – that are now electrifying students.
Researchers at Lancaster University have discovered that Davy secretly wrote hundreds of poems in the same notebooks he used to record his pioneering electrochemical experiments, discoveries and discoveries.
Almost all of these poems – including the one published on Sunday Observer for the first time – which they have never read before and offer fascinating insights into the inner workings of one of the most extraordinary scientific minds of the 19th century.
“Poetry is just everywhere,” said Sharon Ruston, professor of English at Lancaster University, who, with the help of nine other academics and nearly 3,500 volunteers around the world, has spent the past four years transcribing 11,417 pages of Davy’s many 200 years. old notebooks.
“You understand the man himself and his thought processes as he works his way through things.”
A friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the poet laureate Robert Southey, Davy, Ruston said, was born “before we had this idea that there was a separation between the arts and the sciences”, and published only a few poems in his life, which he praised his famous friends.
But the notebooks show that his dedication to his craft was so strong that lines of poetry were “pushing for space, sometimes, with accounts of chemical discoveries”, and are found on “pages where you can tell, from the state of the page, that he is doing chemical experiments”.
These pages, which are torn, burned or have “various impressions from the work he is doing”, suggest that Davy even wrote poetry in his laboratory, where he was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis.
Ruston said: “He’s writing about nitrous oxide or galvanism. But then there are also lines of poetry. Both of these things are happening to him simultaneously. He is trying to figure out what the world is and how to understand the world.”
One of the most exciting finds is a poem written by Davy about the ruins he saw in Greece and Rome while on a continental tour between 1813 and 1815, which is interspersed with scientific notes about the materials used in the ruins and sculptures.
“This trip is an important time in Davy’s life,” Ruston said.
It was during this trip across Europe to protect Michael Faraday, who would go on to invent the first electric generator, that Davy discovered the elemental nature of iodine and that diamonds are made of carbon.
She said: “It blows their minds because you realize that one substance can take very different forms. So Davy has this world view, that nothing in the world can be created or destroyed. Matter is all around us, but it is constantly changing slowly into new forms.” Ruston sees a “symbiotic relationship” between Davy’s science and his poetry. “They work with each other.”
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For example, he would write about the chemical reasons why leaves change color and then a few pages later he would compose a poem about the color of leaves. He was thinking and writing about his thoughts, Ruston said, “in both ways: poetry and science. And in his poetry, you can see his scientific knowledge, and in his science you see poetic language and persuasive rhetoric, and his facility in expressing himself.”
Mark Miodownik, professor of materials and society at University College London, said the discovery of Davy’s poems was significant because it shows that “you can’t be a great scientist and not be a creative person. The idea that the creative industries are only for the arts and humanities is a modern fallacy.”
Poetry was a private part of Davy’s creative process. “I think he couldn’t help himself. He’s so shocked and surprised that he had to do it – things were running around and around in his head and he had to get them out,” said Miodownik.
The notebooks also contain doodle-like sketches of landscapes and faces, as well as notes on buying a candlestick and other things that aren’t. “We have the pages where he isolates potassium with electrolysis. But in the middle of it, he mentioned this person and their address,” Ruston said.
Her team discovered it was a reference to a tailor. “We think he was thinking about how he is going to announce his amazing discovery at the Royal Society and he would need a new suit to do that,” she said.
One of the poems found in Davy’s notebooks, published for the first time
His great moments on the fate of Manx;
That raises a moral lesson for our eyes
Stronger and more significant than the lore
Taught by the Sages and contained in mental tombs.
To raise and satisfy a temple
Imperial pride and luxury. The world
A million slaves were taught to raise the stake
Equipped for barbarous sports. In which the blood
Of Man who sheds. Master of the universe
Image of eternal majesty
Stung by the beast’s relentless bites
The rack was brought from Egypt.
Ancient Greece was robbed of all its gods
Her temples were damaged.
And the divinities that Phidias sculpted
Brought in captivity to the capitol
What is left now, broken pillars & shafts
A pile of ruins. Witness those massive walls
When a hundred thousand voices rang out once
The dying gladiator; silence reigns
And terrible loneliness – still there is a spirit
Within these ruins.
