What I Have Learned of Light A Poetics o (1)

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What I Have Learned of Light:

A Poetics of Relativity and the Sonnet Form

Noelle Leslie dela Cruz, Ph.D.

Philosophy Department

De La Salle University Manila, Philippines avalon.rain@gmail.com

This paper aims to discuss the significations of light in two areas: first, in physics, as exemplified by the work of Albert Einstein; and second, in literature, as may be understood in terms of the metaphor or theme of light in relation to a specific poetic form, the sonnet. I present twenty poems, both in free verse and sonnet form, each one dealing with the theme of light on several levels. In doing a close reading of these works, I hope to show that, just as the nature of light unites two seemingly paradoxical qualities (i.e. its corpuscular and wave natures), it is possible to do philosophy as literature, or science as art. Although the bulk of my paper will follow the form of literary criticism, I intend to derive thereby a number of philosophical insights concerning the ontology of light and its implications for cosmology.

Keywords—relativity; Albert Einstein; light; sonnet; poetry

I. INTRODUCTION

This paper is inspired by the significance of light in Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, both special and general, and the corresponding impact of Einstein’s thought on how we see the universe and our place in it. Light, as a concept and a phenomenon, can be richly discussed on both literal and figurative levels. My aim is to investigate the intersections between the poetics and physics of light, paying special attention to poetic metaphors, symbols, and imagery concerning the nature and uses of light. I emphasize the sonnet, whose familiar fourteen-line, iambic pentameter structure is immensely suited to its purpose, which is to argue or to

illuminate. In line with this, I analyze twenty selected poems about light, addressing the import of form in relation to content. As I will show, this echoes the spirit of the wave/particle debate about the nature of light—a debate that remains contentious, as does the debate about the origins, shape, and future of our universe. In grappling with the significance of Einstein’s ideas by means of literature, I hope to show that poetry can be an important source of insight. This is especially true at the point where we seem to have reached the very limits of science.

I begin with a section on the physics of light. I briefly discuss the nature and uses of light as conceptualized in the history of scientific thinking about the subject, from the ancient Greeks to the quantum theorists. The current thinking on the nature of light asserts a duality between wave and particle. Meanwhile, the uses of light in human life involve such areas as astronomy, astrophysics, optics, and photography. Both the

nature and uses of light are highly symbolic; consequently, they are recurring motifs in the literary arts, not least of which is poetry.

The next section, on the poetics of light, demonstrates how light is utilized, first in free verse poetry and then in the sonnet form. The comparison of these two forms is undertaken with a view to bringing out the effect of the structure of a piece on its poetic message.

I end my meditation with some concluding observations about the relationship between form and thought, poetry at the limits of science, and—in the spirit of Einstein’s insistence on a meaningful universe—the import of our ways of thinking about light for the human condition.

II. THE PHYSICS OF LIGHT

The significance of light in human affairs cannot be understated. Light, by means of the Sun, is our main source of energy. It is also indispensable for vision and perception, and for our ways of orienting ourselves with respect to the cosmos. Little wonder that both religion and philosophy make use of the metaphor of light in reference to divinity and wisdom. According to Motwill and Breslin, “Light is the principal actor on the stage of the universe. It brings information from distant stars and galaxies. It tells us about the distant past. It plays a key role in our understanding of the basic laws of Nature” [1].

Although our emphasis is on the physics of light, it is useful to look into the ways mythology and religion have conceptualized light before the advent of philosophy and science. These early intuitions have certainly shaped our contemporary understanding. Egyptian mythology, with its stress on the afterlife, considers the sun god Ra to be the embodiment of resurrection. His eye represents enlightenment: “The gaze of God was light. Light was God seeing” [2]. Genesis echoes this notion as it associates creation with the appearance of light on the first day [3]. Zoroastrianism considers its supreme being, Ahura Mazda, as the god of light, whose opposite, Ahriman, is the personification of darkness [4]. This familiar dualism may be found in other belief systems, denounced as heresies within the Christian tradition, such as Manichaeism and Gnosticism [5].

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represents the world of ideas, whereas the underground cave of shadows represents its facsimile, i.e. the world of the senses, or the physical realm [6]. Plato, with his emphasis on the dialectic method of argumentation, himself represents philosophy. Having supplanted the mythological worldview, this new paradigm relies on logic and empirical observation. Nonetheless, the link between inner or spiritual vision and the perception of light, which has religious overtones, has been retained in early rationalistic accounts. For example, both Plato and Euclid thought of the eye as emanating visual rays that coalesced with sunlight. The writings of Arab philosopher Alhazen about the camera obscura (literally, “darkened chamber”) established the device as an optical model, thus making it an important precursor of modern photography [7].

It was not until the modern era that a more radical shift from religion to science took place. According to Zajonc, in the hands of modern thinkers “sight becomes a question of mechanics rather than a species of a soul-spiritual activity….” [8] In the 17th century, the intellectual giant Isaac Newton undertook numerous experiments on the nature of light and color, advancing the corpuscular theory of light. Light rays, which he was able to separate through a prism, constituted the fundamental unit of light [9]. While his contemporary Robert Hooke argued that light was a wave phenomenon, Newton’s particle theory prevailed during his lifetime [10]. His ideas became the foundation for the science of optics, which made eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes possible.

A century later, Thomas Young passed two separate beams of light through two slits, which created interference patterns like ripples, such as what waves might produce [11]. This famous experiment overturned the Newtonian view. And since waves apparently needed a medium in order to propagate, the wave theory of light necessitated the existence of a

luminiferous ether, “a fluid that fills the universe and is, roughly or exactly, at rest with respect to the average motion of the stars” [12].

In the 19th century, an important shift in thinking about light drew attention to its relationship with other forces, such as electricity and magnetism, to say nothing of reinforcing its nature as a wave. This was made possible by Michael Faraday’s experiments, which in turn led to James Clerk Maxwell’s groundbreaking Electromagnetic Theory of Light. Faraday hooked separate coils of wire to a battery and to a galvanometer, respectively, and found that the meter detected a current at the moment of closing and opening the battery switch. An electrical wave caused by sudden changes in the current travelled through space between the coils [13]. Building on Faraday’s insights, Maxwell concluded that “Electromagnetic force travels as a wave, and electromagnetic waves have two components: an electric field and a magnetic field that vibrate at right angles to one another” [14]. As Park quotes Maxwell, “‘… light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws’” [15].

Maxwell’s theory has several important implications. First, it led to the eventual rejection of the luminiferous ether. The existence of force fields having been demonstrated, it now made sense to think of force as more of a thing than an action

[16]. This negated the need for an invisible fluid to explain the movement of light, since an electromagnetic wave could propagate in a vacuum [17]. In any case, the existence of the ether was problematic in that it contradicted the mechanical view of the universe and its only function seemed to be to permit the motion of light waves through space. Sure enough, in 1887 the existence of the ether was conclusively disproved by another famous experiment. A.A. Michelson and E.W. Morley performed a test intended to detect the ether wind through its influence on light waves. They used the interferometer, a device developed by Michelson, which split a light beam into two, sent them on different directions, and then brought them back together. If one part falls out of step with the other, so to speak, by means of a change of speed, the interferometer would detect interference bands when the beams are recombined. One beam was sent along the Earth’s orbital motion, the other in the opposite direction. If the ether wind existed, it would produce a resistance in the beam travelling across it, which would result in an interference pattern on the interferometer. However, there was no interference pattern, and regardless of where the device was directed, the light beams travelled at the same speed. Thus, Michelson and Morley concluded that there was no ether wind [18].

A second implication of Maxwell’s theory is that it allowed scientists to eventually situate light within the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves, which also include radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays [19]. All of these forms of radiation reveal rich information about the universe, as the field of astrophysics shows1. The color spectrum is itself explicable in terms of different wavelengths of light, from high-frequency blue to low-frequency red [21]. We can deduce the direction toward which stars and galaxies move, via the principle of the Doppler effect. According to this principle, “A source of light approaching the observer will show a shift in its spectrum toward the blue end. A light source that is receding will be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum” [22]. Indeed, it was the redshift phenomenon that led Edwin Hubble to conclude that the universe was expanding.

Last but not least, Maxwell’s theory allowed for the accurate measurement of the speed of light2 [23]. The equation

1_{In August 2015, BBC News reports that the Galaxy and Mass Assembly}

(GAMA) survey uses numerous space and ground-based telescopes to measure the energy output of over 200,000 galaxies across as broad a wavelength as possible. The data showed a decline in the energy output of stars, in support of the cosmological theory that the universe is flattening [20].

2_{Coming up with a reasonable value for the speed of light had been a}

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he derived for the electromagnetic field led him to predict that an oscillating charge would give rise to an electromagnetic wave, which travelled at a fixed speed [26]. He measured this speed, which amounted to around 186,000 miles per second. On a practical level, knowledge of the speed of light allowed astronomers to measure immense cosmic distances.

The advent of quantum physics would shift scientists’ view about the nature of light from wave back to particle, and finally toward a mind-boggling wave-particle duality. Max Planck, a scientist who had been working in the field of thermodynamics, posited that energy existed only in distinct packages or “quanta” [27]. The word “quantum” itself was coined by Einstein in reference to the smallest units of energy [28]. Quantum experiments therefore reduce light to its weakest possible level [29], i.e. to the level of the photon, the “basic quantum of electromagnetic energy” [30]. The photon came to be called such as a homonym for the parts of the atom according to Ernest Rutherford’s model: the nucleus which contains the central mass and the electrons and protons that orbit it [31].

Planck came up with a formula for calculating the energy of oscillators, or vibrating bodies, using a value that came to be known as Planck’s constant. This powerful equation, which links the energy of an electromagnetic wave to its frequency, can calculate “the intensity of radiation emitted at any wavelength from any material at any temperature” [32]. Einstein’s application of Planck’s theory to the phenomenon of photoelectric effect led to the quantum theory of light, the view that “light itself may be quantized, existing only in discrete units” [33].

The photoelectric or photoionization effect had been established by German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who found that some forms of electromagnetic energy, such as ultraviolet light, can knock electrons out of their orbits, thus producing an electric current [34]. In a 1905 paper for which he won the Nobel Prize, Einstein improved on Hertz’s theory using Planck’s formula. He concluded that it was not the wattage but the wavelength that enabled electromagnetic energy to strip electrons from atoms: “… electrons absorbed the energy of the incoming light and carried it away with them” [35]. (Indeed, Einstein’s explanation accounts for the penetrating power of X-rays, which are on the high-frequency end of the electromagnetic spectrum [36]). In other words, Einstein showed that the photoelectric effect was the result of a photon striking an electron—implying that light, at its most basic level, was behaving like a particle.

So is light a wave or a particle? Unfortunately, the quantum world turns out to be inhospitable to clear conclusions. Single-photon interference experiments, conducted to test the quantum theory of light, yielded paradoxical results. The experiments involved passing a beam of light through two separate slits. Individual photons, if they are discrete particles, should go

was focused to pass through a gap and was reflected by a mirror. It then retraced its path and was eclipsed when it hit the disc between notches. Fizeau measured the time it took for light to make a round-trip journey, factoring in the eclipses and the rotation of the wheel at the time of the eclipses. The value he arrived at deviated only 4% from the currently accepted figure [25].

through either one or the other slit, leaving their mark on the other side on a section of photographic film, presumably creating a random pattern. But as the photons accumulate on the film over time, interference patterns emerge, such as what would form if light were a continuous wave. The paradox is that “The solitary photon does indeed interfere with itself. One thing—the photon—seems somehow simultaneously related to two distinct paths” [37]. In quantum mechanics, this phenomenon is called “nonlocality,” which is “the situation that exists when an action at one place influences an action at another place but there is no apparent link of cause and effect between them” [38]. Depending on the circumstances, which are also influenced by the very act of scientific measurement or investigation, light can behave as a wave (as in the case of diffraction) or a particle (as in the case of the photoelectric effect).

French physicist Louis de Broglie believed that light’s wave-particle duality was also a characteristic of electrons. In fact, according to the science of quantum mechanics developed by Werner Heisenberg, this quantum ambiguity concerning the nature of light pervades the whole world [39]. However, as it is not our intention here to settle this issue or resolve the apparent paradox, we shall move on to the last part of this section on the physics of light, which has to do with the import of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.

Whether light is a wave or a particle is immaterial to Einstein’s special theory of relativity [40]. Whatever light’s nature is, relativity describes the constancy of its speed in a vacuum regardless of the respective motions of its source and observer. This notion contradicts Newtonian mechanics, according to which the speed of a moving object—without exception--is relative to the motion of both source and observer.

For example, if I were on a train moving west at 90 mph and I lob a baseball down the aisle in the opposite direction at 100 mph, a stationary observer along the railroad track would perceive the ball moving at 10 mph, i.e. the difference between the velocity of the ball as I throw it and the velocity of the train going the opposite direction. From my perspective, however, I observe the ball moving at 100 mph, because in my inertial frame of reference, I am at rest and it is only the ball that is moving.

For the most part, the special theory of relativity affirms the Newtonian principle that “the laws of nature… are the same for everyone in uniform steady motion, that is to say, in an inertial frame of reference” [41]. However, relativity deviates from Newton’s paradigm when it comes to the speed of light: the speed of light in a vacuum remains constant in all inertial frames [42]. As Bennett notes, “the absoluteness of the speed of light is an experimentally verified fact,” as demonstrated by Michelson and Morley’s experiment, mentioned earlier [43]. Returning to the previous example, if I turn on a flashlight while on the moving train, the speed of the beam will be 186,000 miles per second both for me and for the stationary observer along the railroad track.

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object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and time almost comes to a full stop. The laws of the universe are such that “Asking how you can go faster than light is somewhat like asking how you can walk north from the North Pole (from which all directions are south)” [44].

Obviously, Einstein’s physics is incommensurate with Newton’s, the physics of “common sense,” as it were. Not only does relativity recognize the phenomenon of light as an exception to Newton’s laws of motion, it also rejects familiar principles: (1) that time is independent of space, (2) that an object has absolute mass and dimensions, and (3) that the amount of matter in the universe is always constant, i.e. it can neither be created nor destroyed.

Newton rejected the Aristotelian idea of absolute rest, i.e. he thought that there is no absolute position in space inasmuch as motion is relative to inertial frames of reference. However, he did subscribe to the idea of an absolute time; “now” is the same for everyone [45]. “Space” and “time” for Newton are fixed entities in which things move, as when I drive from my house to my place of work, covering a distance of 15 miles in 45 minutes. Fourty-five minutes is the same for everyone regardless of whether they are moving, how fast, and in what direction. However, an alternative way of conceiving of “space” and “time” is in terms of dynamic quantities that interact with moving bodies and forces, so that “space-time” turns out to have a variable structure. The special theory of relativity posits that as an object approaches the speed of light, time dilates or slows down [46]. As per the famous Twin Paradox3, it is in principle possible for you to leave your identical twin on earth as you travel in a spaceship moving near the speed of light. Upon your return, you will find that 10 years have elapsed in your home planet while you have only aged six months.

An object moving at the speed of light also gains mass and contracts in length. This is in keeping with Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, which states that the total rest energy of a body is the product of its mass and the square of the speed of light (c), a constant number. As the velocity of a body increases, its energy and mass increase proportionately. This equation essentially indicates that—contrary to Newton’s law of conservation of mass—matter can be converted into energy, and vice versa4. A practical example of this transmutation of matter into energy concerns the Sun, which converts the immense energies of atomic nuclei into light [49].

Einstein’s special theory of relativity, developed in 1905, was called such to distinguish it from the general theory of relativity, which he formulated a decade later. Calder calls this theory “Einstein’s cleverest brainchild” [50]. It augments the special theory by factoring in gravity (and by doing so, tells us about what happens to light when affected by gravity). Against the Newtonian notion that gravity is the attractive force between two bodies, Einstein’s paradigm conceives of it rather as a quality of the curvature of space-time.

3_{Bennett notes that this thought experiment only constitutes a “paradox” if we}

look at it from a “common sense” or Newtonian perspective [47].

4_{Bova notes that relativity}_revises_{the conservation law in this way: “the}

amount of matter-plus-energy in the universe cannot be changed, but matter can be converted into energy and vice versa” [48].

It’s important to note that Einstein jettisons classical Euclidian geometry (in which, for example, parallel lines never meet and the shortest distance between two points is a line). Instead, he uses a four-dimensional Riemannian geometry, in which time is one of the dimensions5 [51]. The shortest distance between two points in curved space is called a geodesic [53]. One of Einstein’s key assumptions is that “space-time is not flat, as had been previously assumed: it is curved, or ‘warped,’ by the distribution of mass and energy in it” [54].

Thus, when it comes to gravity, as Gardner explains, it is not that the sun attracts the planets, or that the center of the earth pulls at the apple hanging on the branch. Rather, large bodies create dents in the surrounding space-time [55]. Consequently, whatever other bodies are there—say, the moon in the vicinity of the earth—would either fall into an orbit around the massive distorting object, or be deviated from their original path6. Light is no exception: a beam passing by a massive object would bend due to gravity, creating what is called a parallax distortion. Mass also increases proportionally with gravity, and time tends to slow down in a very strong gravitational field [57].

Einstein’s ideas underpin the theories at the very edge of contemporary physics, for example, theories about black holes, dark matter, and the origins, shape, and end of our universe. While Newtonian concepts are useful for explaining a vast number of phenomena on earth (i.e. those involving weak gravity and velocities much less than that of light), we need to go beyond them if we want an accurate picture of cosmic reality, as Stannard argues [58]. Our understanding of light would certainly be severely impoverished were we not to take relativity into consideration.

III. THE POETICS OF LIGHT

In his anthology of works entitled In Another Light,

Filipino poet and literary critic Gémino Abad memorably traces the connection between light and the poetic form: “The poet’s task… is always to try and see things in another light; and the critic’s task is merely a variation—to see the poem by its own light” [59]. Abad adopts Wallace Stevens’ implicit hierarchy between imagination and reason, whereby the former governs the latter in the literary sensibility. Abad emphasizes the poem as an artistic object, which implies the freedom of the artist. The work of poetry, as experience, is primarily one of

5_{Gardner explains the alternatives to Euclidian geometry, such as elliptical}

geometry (in which parallel lines meet at the poles of the ellipse) and hyperbolic geometry (in which parallel lines deviate from each other). The differences among these geometries are determined by the curvature of space: If it is exactly zero, space is a plane that goes on forever; if it is more than zero, space is an ellipse that closes back on itself; and if it is less than zero, space is a hyperbola that also extends to infinity. Riemannian geometry, like the latter two geometries, is non-Euclidian; however, unlike them, it does not have a constant curvature, allowing objects to undergo distortions as they move from one place to another [52].

6_{One advantage of Einstein’s view of gravity over Newton’s is that it solves}

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transfiguration [60]. Illumination or understanding has to do with creativity in both crafting and reading literary works.

Poetry has also been compared to a light-oriented art: photography. Sandler makes the case that, particularly in the work of Russian artist Arkady Dragomoshchenko, both poetry and photography function as a form of “second order representation.” Both perform the task of making visible “the idea of the thing” or “the mind’s work” [61]. This echoes Abad’s description of the light-work of poetry, so to speak, as fundamentally (though not wholly) rational and philosophical.

But what is the connection between the physics and poetics of light, insofar as both are distinct ways of conceptualizing the same phenomenon? First, it’s important to look into definitions and forms. A rather hackneyed description for poetry is “heightened language,” which pertains to the artistic use of words to convey meaning. According to Tiempo, in the age of free verse, it has become challenging to tell the difference between poetry and prose. Many beginning poets tend to produce what is essentially prose cut up into stanzas. Thus, she underlines the distinction between the two forms:

Prose is direct statement and direct exposition, whether written in versified lines

or in paragraphs. On the other hand, poetry has traditionally been acknowledged as indirect, as structured in metaphor…. [62]

The governing element in poetry is “the structuring of metaphor,” which operates in two ways: first, through a highly symbolic image or situation; and second, through the use of “internal” literary instruments. The latter are the “less visible” earmarks of poetic form, involving “tone, nuances, understatement, suggestiveness, indirection, thematic tension, contrast, ellipses, fresh stratagems and insights, inventive reproductive use of words….” and the like. Apart from these internal limits, there are also external ones, which refer to the more obvious mechanical characteristics such as “length, formation of lines, meter, rhyme, rhythm, euphonic diction patterns, juxtaposition, typographical idiosyncrasies,” etc. [63]. In Tiempo’s taxonomy of poetic forms, the external limits do not by themselves determine the difference between prose and poetry, which means that there can be prose-like poems and poem-like prose. Rather, the key determining factor is the metaphoric operation7.

In this section, I shall be presenting and critiquing examples of poems about light, first in free verse and then in the form of the sonnet. As one of the traditional or standard formats8 of poetry, the sonnet is particularly illustrative of the meaning of light as illumination, because of its traditional use as a vehicle for reasoning or argument. The Italian word

sonetto, meaning “a small song,” points to its lyrical and courtly origins; a perennial subject of this poetic form is erotic love [65]. However, more importantly, its succinct

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In this sense, Tiempo’s framework accommodates the new style of language poetry. The latter militates against the formalist tradition with its affinity for prose, resistance to rhyme and meter, and the rejection of a unified authorial voice [64].

8

These also include the villanelle, the sestina, the pantoum, the ode, the limerick, the haiku, and the renga, among others.

line structure tends to lend itself to the development of an idea and its related summation.

In English, the sonnet typically follows the cadence most natural to speech, i.e. iambic pentameter (a five-stress, ten-syllable line) [66]. It usually contains a volta or turn, an often clear division in thought that separates the first part (the premises, as it were) and the second part (the conclusion) [67]. The sonnet tends to be “asymmetrical” or “top-heavy,” since the presentation of the opposition often demands more space than its inevitable resolution [68].

In terms of rhyme scheme and versification, the two main types of sonnets—named after their most famous practitioners—are the Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakesperean sonnet. A third form was developed by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spencer, called the Spenserian sonnet or “the link,” distinguished by its interlacing rhyme scheme [69]. Levin describes the variations in the sonnet structure as follows:

Sometimes the sonnet looks like a little rectangular box….; sometimes we see a bipartite structure with a white space, a gap, separating the first eight lines (the octave) from the second six (the sestet). Sometimes we see a form subdivided into two quatrains or four-line units, followed by two tercets (units of three lines) or we see a series of three quatrains, and then a single couplet (two lines) standing alone. [70]

In the succeeding analysis, I begin with free verse poems followed by sonnets. The comparison of the sonnet with free verse is intended to emphasize the effect of structure on content, i.e. on how the poetic piece makes use of the metaphor, symbol, and imagery of light.

My survey of free verse poetry about light yields at least four distinct themes:

A. Light as knowledge

This theme runs through works that refer to scientific discovery, intuitive understanding, philosophical analysis, and education. These views of knowledge run the gamut from negative to positive, admiring to critical, alluding to different physical characteristics of light to convey meaning.

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In her well-known short poem “Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant—,” Emily Dickinson compares the Truth with light. It must be told “slant,” or with a certain angle or prevarication. It is described as “Too bright for our infirm Delight,” as how lightning appears to children for whom the phenomenon must be explained. “The Truth must dazzle gradually,” else the alternative is blindness [72].

Delight’s uneasy relationship with light is also mentioned in Richard Eberhart’s “‘A Hard Intellectual Light,’” seeming to echo Dickinson’s advice to temper the glare. Light is cast as the opposite of all delight, which it kills. Shining from the perspective of distance, it tends to expose the body’s desires, protecting it and yet causing pain at the same time: “For the hard intellectual light/ Will lay the flesh with nails.” The light becomes a symbol of “The moral grandeur of man,” the culmination of all our noble pursuits—at least “Until my hard vision blears,/ And Poverty and Death return….” The poem ends with a tone of resignation, similar to Bishop’s piece, as the hard intellectual light “… brings the solemn, inward pain/ Of truth into the heart again” [73].

Finally, “Care of Light” by Gémino Abad, told from the first person, reminisces about the author’s much-loved retired teacher, whose deserted house he visits nightly in order to switch on certain lights inside it and out: the lamp in the library, “the vigil light for the Sacred Heart,” the bulb outside the kitchen, and the halogen lights “below the front eaves.” He tells of how his teacher, who “needs to be always in control,” lives now with her sister because she has become “old and frail” and “can hardly walk,/ deaf and half-blind, and often ill….” As the author faithfully performs his duty, he recalls the same sense of duty and purpose exhibited by his teacher during his student days. “… her shoulders hunched,” she would “teach with a passion that, before the imperious glare/ of her questioning, drove us bleating/ on the open plain of the world’s sharp winds.” In the last paragraph, the author likens himself to an iconic character in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince (not named in the poem): “I’m her lamplighter on her silent asteroid….” At day’s end, he walks down his teacher’s street under the light of the street lamps, expecting that “the sun too will rise/ tomorrow, and I shall be back” [74].

All of these poems about light as knowledge express a certain reverence for it, constructing it as an awesome force that inspires the passion to learn. The first three are cautionary tales about our fascination with light, which can be beyond the mind’s finite capacity to understand. This tragic finale leads to the ultimate disillusionment of the Man-Moth; the jaded cynicism of a Truth told “slant”; and the stark dichotomy between the eager pleasures of the body and the harsh austerity of rationality and logic. Of the four pieces, it is Abad’s “Care of Light” that presents knowledge as an absolute good, though it qualifies this claim by contextualizing it within the author’s own experiences with a valiant and inspiring teacher. In the hands of a responsible mentor, knowledge becomes a virtue worthy of the faithful performance of our duties.

B. Light as life force or spirit

A couple of pieces evoke the religious significance of light, associating it with the energy of the soul or psyche and with mystical experience.

“The Groundhog” by Richard Eberhart is memorable for its unusual imagery: the corpse of a groundhog, a large rodent native to North America, described over time as aflame with energy until it is white and desiccated. The poem opens in June, when the persona comes upon a dead groundhog. “There lowly in the vigorous summer/ His form began its senseless change.” Out of macabre curiosity, he pokes the maggot-infested body with a stick, and “The fever arose, became a flame/ And Vigour circumscribed the skies,/ Immense energy in the sun….” A few months later, in autumn, he returns to the spot “to see/ The sap gone out of the groundhog,” though its skeletal form has retained some moisture. The next summer, “There was only a little hair left,/ And bones bleaching in the sunlight/ Beautiful as architecture;/ I watched them like a geometer….” After three years, there is no sign of the groundhog. The persona, touched by its absence, reflects upon great people in history, thinking “Of Alexander in his tent;/ Of Montaigne in his tower,/ Of Saint Theresa in her wild lament” [75].

The other poem, “The Properties of Light” by Eric Gamalinda, describes mystical places distinguished by their quality of light. It opens in “Mid-October in Central Park,” where the persona beholds an elm. It is “burning with a light/ grown accustomed to its own magnificence.” He is reminded of how he “used to imagine/ the chakra like this—a hole in the soul/ from the top of the head, where the light of knowing/ can shimmer through….” He recalls his brother’s religious epiphany “as we sat chanting in a temple in Manila,” and compares it with his own encounters with a similar spiritual light “on a river in Bangkok, or pixeled across/ the shattered facades of Prague….” He then returns to the elm and contemplates all the places the same light has travelled: “it has passed all over the world, has given shape/ to cities, cast glamour over the eyes of the skeptic,/ so that it comes to me informed with the wonder/ of many beings.” He compares his soul with the tree, “ringed with changes” and “as old as light,” concluding that “there is no other way to live than this,/ still, grateful, and full of longing” [76].

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C. Light as power and danger

Two poems associate the glint of light, whether from a powerful animal’s eyes or a butcher’s knife, with the potential for violence.

William Blake’s famous lyrical poem “Tyger, Tyger” is an ode to the puissant aspect of Nature, which exists side by side with its quiescent part. The first stanza addresses the titular creature: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The poem goes on to describe the vital characteristics of the animal that rightfully make it the lord of the jungle: the fire of its eyes; its powerful shoulder, sinews, and heart; and the “furnace” of its brain. The Tyger embodies “deadly terrors,” and the poet wonders, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” [77].

Meanwhile, “Butcher Shop” by Charles Simic takes place at night, all the more to emphasize the fluorescent glow inside a butcher’s store, “like the light in which the convict digs his tunnel.” Peering into the window, the persona sees a stained apron hanging on a hook, “The blood on it smeared into a map/ Of the great continents of blood….” There are also “knives that glitter like altars/ In a dark church,” where people consign “the cripple” and “the imbecile.” Finally, there is “a wooden block where bones are broken” and which the poet—a consumer of meat—describes as a place “Where I am fed.” The poem ends with him hearing a voice deep in the night [78].

While the poems are not about light per se, they use the imagery of light to introduce animalistic reality. Blake’s Tyger evokes our fascination with what is inherently dangerous, as do the inanimate objects in Simic’s butcher shop. These fearful things are spotlighted at nighttime, when their potential for violence “burns bright” or “glitters.” Both poems underscore animals’ natural tendency for violence, whether they are human or non-human, and the “fearful symmetry” of killing and devouring each other in order to survive.

D. Light as creativity and imagination

A last batch of free verse poems deals with different kinds of imagining: romantic, artistic, and social. They associate light with the human being’s creative capacity to picture a possible outcome or truth, no matter how difficult or challenging it is to achieve it.

“The Secret of Light” by James Wright, a prose poem set in Verona, is told from the perspective of a man sitting on a park bench. As he enjoys the morning by the riverside, he sees a “startling” woman whose hair he goes into some detail to describe: “Her hair is black as the inmost secret of light in a perfectly cut diamond, a perilous black, a secret light that must have been studied for many years before the anxious and disciplined craftsman could achieve the necessary balance between courage and skill to stroke the strange stone and take the one chance he would ever have to bring that secret to light.” Before he could approach her, however, she walks away. The persona knows he would never see her again: “I am afraid her secret might never come to light in my lifetime.” Nonetheless, he entertains the thought that she would bring “some other man’s secret face to light, as somebody brought mine.” He declares that the emptiness of the park bench

abandoned by the woman makes him happy. Turning his face toward the river, he feels the wind brush against him. “I feel like the light of the river Adige,” he writes, concluding, “By this time, we are both an open secret” [79].

The second poem, “The Forge” by Seamus Heaney, utilizes the contrast between darkness and light as it describes the craft of the blacksmith, a symbol for the artist. “All I know is a door into the dark,” the poem begins. From the outside, the persona hears “the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring” and imagines “The unpredictable fantail of sparks.” He believes the anvil occupies the center of the room, like an altar, with one end like a unicorn’s horn and the other end square. Finally, he imagines the blacksmith who labors over it, occasionally peering out of his door. Then he returns to his work, “grunts and goes in, with a slam and a flick/ To beat real iron out, to work the bellows” [80].

Finally, “Zero Gravity” by Eric Gamalinda paints an elegiac picture of a family, who once gathered together to watch news of the first moon landing on TV. The luminescent glow of the historic event caught on video, enmeshed with the light of the TV screen, fills the living room. The persona imagines the surface of the moon as “angel heavy,/ idea-pure.” He describes its dunes as “lit/ like ancient silk, like clandestine pearl.” The moment shared by the family is filled with the hope that humankind feels on the occasion of a landmark achievement. However, tragic events are foreshadowed by the following lines: “It didn’t matter,/ at that moment, where our lives would lead:/ father would disown one brother,/ one sister was going to die. Not yet unhappy,/ we were ready to walk on the moon.” The poem ends with a description of the future as “a religion we could believe in” [81].

All three poems are future-oriented, in which light functions as a means of seeing the possible. Each narrator tries to picture a desired outcome not yet in his grasp: a romantic encounter, a finished metalwork, and familial happiness. Each event is suffused with light, such as the contrasting brightness of a woman’s black hair under the sun, sparks from a smithy, and televised moon glow. In each case, the imagined scenario does not actually come into fruition, but its mere possibility is enough to give energy to the piece.

In sum, free verse poetry about light mostly seems to emphasize day-to-day conceptions about light, especially as it pertains to practical realms of activities (e.g. science and education, religion, art, family). In contrast, sonnets about light present a more high-brow interpretation, tending to deal with more abstract philosophical or speculative issues that have no easy answers. The pieces discussed below predate their free verse cousins by decades or centuries, exhibiting the more sober tone of poetry from an earlier age. They associate light with comparatively lofty concepts. The following themes emerge from my survey of sonnets about light:

A. Light as law and source of meaning

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“Lucifer in Starlight” by George Meredith imagines the Prince of Darkness hovering over the earth “On a starred night.” He passes over Africa’s sands and the Arctic snows. But his ascendance is arrested as he approaches the stars, and remembers the old revolt he once led against heaven. He cowers before the stars, which “Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,/ The army of unalterable law” [82].

Meanwhile, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus praises a new landmark or center. In her sonnet written for immigrants coming to a new land, Lazarus compares the newly erected statue of Liberty with the legendary Colossus of ancient Greece. She draws attention to the torch in Liberty’s hand, “whose flame/ Is the imprisoned lightning,” beckoning those who have nowhere to go. As the famous lines go, “‘Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free….’” Lady Liberty shines her lamp over these refugees and guides them toward “the golden door” [83].

The next two sonnets begin with the image of darkness, thereby stressing the importance of illumination. In “At A Lunar Eclipse,” Thomas Hardy reflects upon the shadow of the earth on the moon, marveling at how such a placid image could barely convey “the troubled form I know…” and the “continents of moil and misery.” “So small a shade” is an inadequate gauge of the enormity of conflict and suffering on earth, where there is “Nation at war with nation….” [84].

Finally, Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with The Night” describes the sojourn of a lonely wanderer who has “walked out in rain—and back in rain” and “outwalked the furthest city light.” He passes by a watchman, to whom he declines to give an explanation for his wandering. While he hears a distant cry, he realizes that it is not intended to “call me back or say good-by….” He describes the moon as “One luminary clock against the sky,” which “Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right” [85]. Just like Hardy’s poem, this one diagnoses the human condition as infected by solitary meaninglessness or nihilism.

All the above sonnets, with the exception of the one by Lazarus, refer to heavenly bodies—the moon and constellations—as symbols of order. Meredith’s piece adopts a more traditional view as it argues that even Lucifer, the leader of the rebels, must eventually bow down to the universal law. However, Hardy’s and Frost’s pieces are more pessimistic. They describe the moon as being more ambiguous than previously thought: Hardy captures it during a moment of eclipse, while Frost simply describes it as ultimately inscrutable. In contrast, Lazarus’s sonnet replaces the heavenly source of light with a human torch. In light of a new nation-state and its ideals of democracy and freedom, it seems that human intervention can be more reliable than divine illumination.

B. Light as romantic illusion

Another set of sonnets underscore the deceptive nature of light, whether it is moonlight, firelight, or starlight. This is an unusual interpretation especially when contrasted with the theme of light as knowledge. It presents the obverse of that aspect of light as brightness, pointing to its potential to cause a form of blindness.

“Sad Steps” by Philip Larkin, an 18-line sonnet-like piece, alludes to an older sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, from the latter’s Astrophil and Stella. Sidney’s piece begins with the line “With how sad steps, O Moon, though climb’st the skies!” [86]. Sidney imagines the moon as not immune to Cupid’s arrows, as dwelling in a place where love affairs—as on earth—are also fraught with unrequited or rejected passions. The title of Larkin’s piece takes off from Sidney’s opening line, and argues against this naïve imposition of human sentiments upon the moon. It is told from the point of view of an old man who gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and, passing by his window, is “startled by/ The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.” The moon is described as “High and preposterous and separate,” and derides romantic interpretations of it: “Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!/ O wolves of memory! Immensements! No….” The poem concludes that such idealized views are the reserved for the young [87].

The second sonnet, “Firelight” by Edward Arlington Robinson, situates the illusions of light in the context of an intimate relationship of a certain duration. Two people who have been together for a decade “seek each other’s eyes at intervals/ Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls/ For love’s obliteration of the crowd.” They remain mostly silent, basking in their assured togetherness. However, the next stanza shines a different light on their relationship, characterizing their silence as a way of concealing their real thoughts. Their monogamous fidelity has been achieved at the expense of “one somewhere alone,” while there exists another man who “would be hers if he had known” the woman’s thoughts [88].

The third sonnet, “Light Sonnet for the Lover of a Dark” by Mike Nelson, is also about romantic love, and portrays a modern-day romance. A man reminisces about a woman he has been with when he “was not much more than a boy,” when he mistakenly believed that “a woman could mean/ everything….” He recalls a nighttime argument they have had, during which the woman brushes her hair from her face. He suddenly has an epiphany and likens the scene to “what happened in a planetarium/ when the lights faded out and the stars came on….” He insists that such an effect causes the onlooker to become “Fooled/ by the illusion so the mystery/ could take place.” He ends with the following advice to himself, about the woman and about the artificial stars: “Just try and forget it” [89].

All three poems that refer to the illusory nature of light also relate the deception to romantic love. Larkin criticizes the lovesick attitude that causes us to appropriate the moon itself, while Robinson and Nelson warn of the strange love light that romantic partners manufacture. When in love, the message goes, one tends to see the other as one wishes to see him or her, rather than how he or she truly is.

C. Light as marker of time and being

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The persona in John Milton’s “When I Consider How My Light is Spent” is an old man, said to be the poet himself, reflecting upon his past achievements as his vision starts to dim from cataracts [90]. He imagines being chided by his Maker after telling Him of his modest accomplishments. He wonders to himself: “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?” Against this unjust notion, Patience replies, “God doth not need/ Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best/ Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best” [91]. Thus, the poem is an attempt of the poet to reassure himself (and whoever similarly needs such an assurance) that one’s best efforts are indeed enough.

Meanwhile, “To the Sun-Dial” by John Quincy Adams addresses an inanimate object of such pedestrian yet important use for humans: the sun-dial. This solar timepiece is first described as easily and rightly upstaged by light, since it tells the time by means of shadows cast by the movement of the sun. “This silent herald of Time’s silent flight” is but “Shade, who canst only show how others shine!” It is only a “Dark, sullen witness of resplendent light….” However, the second stanza reminds the reader of the true existential import of the sun-dial, for its “counsels faithful, just, and wise/…. bid us seize the moments as they pass….” This ordinary object stands still in order to “give eternity to Time” [92].

These pieces that relate light with temporality necessarily bring out the unique human perspective on flux and eternity. Not being immortal gods, we pay special attention to the minute changes of light, which reflect the changes in our lives. They are reminiscent of the religious view of light, described in the preceding section, which linked light to inner vision and spirituality. The physical failure of Milton’s eyesight causes him to reflect upon whether his one life has properly served God. Meanwhile, the sun-dial, with its careful shadow labor, allows us brief visions of no less than eternity.

IV. CONCLUSION

The foregoing analysis of free verse poems and sonnets about light calls attention to the capacity of poetic form to shape thought. While the free verse pieces tend to be meandering observations about the practical uses of light, the sonnets are carefully structured pieces of reasoning well aware of their own space constraints. Thus, the sonnet’s engagement with the light as metaphor and symbol rises to the level of philosophy, bringing out themes that have a special import in the fields of metaphysics (light as law and source of meaning), epistemology (light as romantic illusion), and phenomenology (light as marker of time and being). The volta or turn in the sonnet piece embodies a symbolic movement from darkness to enlightenment, which the reader familiar with the sonnet form has come to expect. Consequently, free verse poetry—coming as it does after the heyday of the traditional poetic forms—is held up to a higher standard with regard to the capacity of a literary piece to make a point. For poetry does have a point, though it is expressed in its own logic.

The foregoing juxtaposition of physics and poetics has also brought out key similarities in the way that science and literature conceptualize light. Of particular interest to us is the groundbreaking way of understanding the phenomenon in terms of Einstein’s theories of relativity. Certain aspects of

light’s nature are echoed in the sonnets, which had been written long before Einstein’s revolution against Newtonian physics. One is the notion that the speed of light is a universal constant in a cosmos where both motion and time are relative. Meredith’s “Lucifer in Starlight” and Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” affirm this idea, describing different sources of light (stars, torches) as reliable orientation points. Another is the notion that light is both a wave and a particle, as demonstrated by physical experiments that are equally valid within their own paradigms. Poems about light, both free verse pieces and sonnets, offer well-argued themes that occasionally contradict themselves. While light can be understood as knowledge, it can also be a source of illusion. While light represents life force or spirit, it can also signal violence and death. This points to the poetic recognition that light is essentially a paradox.

In sum, poetry seems to have presaged everything we have learned so far about light from relativity. This seems to indicate that, as we are confronted with the multifaceted phenomenon of light, poetic ways of thought have an edge over scientific ones. This is not to deny that each discipline fulfills its own designated purpose, so that what science accomplishes cannot be relegated to artists (and vice versa). This is only to point out that, as we approach the limits of empirical testing, scientific thought itself starts to evince certain speculative philosophical—even poetic—tendencies. As Zajonc writes, “I would have all physicists be poets” [93].

[1] Motwill and A. Breslin. Let There Be Light: The Story of Light from Atoms to Galaxies. London: Imperial College Press, 2008, p. 22.

[2] A. Zajonc. Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 39.

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