"Space being(don't forget to remember)Curved": An Interdisciplinary Study of the Fourth Dimension in E. E. Cummings, Einstein, Cubism, and Futurism

• Main Authors: Yu-Hsiu Brenda Hsu, 許毓秀
• Other Authors: J. B. Rollins
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52519970658608537442

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國語文研究所 === 89 === My study endeavors to offer an interdisciplinary reading of E. E. Cummings's poetry through horizontal comparison (scientific and artistic visualizations of a four-dimensional spacetime) and vertical exploration (Italian Futurism, Analytical Cubism and Cummings). Pushing back the frontiers of poetry by mental and verbal gymnastics, Cummings's poetic achievements run parallel with breakthroughs in the new realm of spacetime reached by contemporary physicists (Einstein) and painters (the Italian Futurists and the Analytical Cubists) insofar as they all open up unrestricted access to a four- or higher-dimensional spacetime world, thereby establishing a benchmark for discussion of a provocative and cutting-edge concept of space and time. Marching to the beat of the same drummer, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, Cubist and Futurist paintings and Cummings's poempictures contributed to the formation of the Zeitgeist of the early twentieth century, which was a growing climate of revolt against the fixed, monotonous, and absolute. While bringing forth revolutionary views of time and space, both artists and scientists pointed to and visualized another realm of reality-atemporality-in opposition to a time-bound realm. In this realm, constraints of clock time and three spatial dimensions gave way to a higher-dimensional configuration devoid of the flow of time. In a nutshell, I argue that the presence of a fourth dimension in science or art not only was born of a shared struggle against the highly homogeneous and stiffened mentality, but also stood as a pathfinder which pointed to another form of truth. My evidence for the presence of a four-dimensional concept will come largely in depictions of simultaneity, which serves as a linchpin in the analysis of the four-dimensional world in this study. In other words, I invoke the phenomenon of simultaneity in time and space illustrated in artistic or scientific work to buttress my argument that an ideal realm of a four-dimensional continuum inhabited some artists', poets' and scientists' minds in the first quarter of the twentieth century. My reading of Cummings's poetry centers on the presence and characterization of both spatial and temporal fourth dimensions and rides on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity alongside Minkowski's geometrically four-dimensional construction. Similarities and uniformity between the concepts of simultaneity in Cummings's poetry and in Italian Futurism and Analytical Cubism are also examined. In addition, Cummings called attention to his personal philosophy of an "illimitable now," by which he steered away from the tyranny of accustomed and long-recognized beliefs in one unified time and space. While taking on the illimitable and immeasurable nature of four-dimensional space, Cummings's "illimitable now" also manifests an identical engagement with a higher form of reality. Finally, I point out that there is a gap between scientists and non-scientists which not only casts light on a deficiency of dialogue between them, but also discloses a fertile field of scholarship on Cummings's potential points of likeness to scientific studies. Indeed, I intend to foster or create a dialogue between science and literature in this study.