ABRUPTO

23:49 (JPP)

O ABRUPTO FEITO PELOS SEUS LEITORES: OS POETAS ROMÂNTICOS

"Este seu post de hoje sobre "Xanadu" e a referência a Coleridge recordaram-me como os poetas românticos foram, tantas vezes, visionários em relação às coisas da Ciência. Deixo-lhe, a propósito, uma passagem surpreendente de Wordsworth, do célebre Prefácio a Lyrical Ballads (1802):

«If the labours of Men of science should ever create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the Poet will sleep then no more than at present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the Man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of science itself. The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings.»

Mas não deixa de ser curioso como o mesmo Wordsworth escreveu também, um dia, os versos:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:-
We murder to dissect.

("The Tables Turned", 1798)

(Daniela Kato)