How do science and literature relate to today’s culture? Robert Harrison, a professor of French and Italian literature at Stanford University, explains on EpochTV’s “Bay Area Innovators” program how the two are intertwined.
“Galileo, for example, who belongs mostly to the physics department, was an extraordinary writer,” said Harrison. “Many of the even the more modern scientists like Alessandro Volta, who was so important, you know, for the electricity, was a poet as well. And then when you look at the more literary figures, people like Dante, who wrote ‘The Divine Comedy.’ He was much more than a poet, he also was at the vanguard of the astronomy of the Middle Ages, the physics and the architecture.”
The professor encourages students to pay close attention to readings and be passionate about taking in the complex works of literature.
“I think love is the currency of education and learning. That if you don’t love mathematics, you’re not going to become a really good mathematician. If you don’t love literature, you’re not going to succeed to the same degree in the learning process,” he said.
Harrison pointed out that people during the Renaissance era who started opera were enthusiastic about Greek and Roman antiquity. In an effort to imitate the ancients, they decided to write tragedies in the old Greek way and turn them into songs. One of the first people to create Italian opera was Galileo’s father, Vincenzo Galilei. He was part of a scholarly society called Florentine Camerata, which studied arts, drama, and music. Together, he and a group of scholars put together one of the first complete operas called Orpheus and Eurydice. […]
— Read More: www.theepochtimes.com
