Science as an Antagonist in Dannie Abse's poetry

Abstract

This article examines Dannie Abse’s attitude toward science through a close reading and analysis of some of his selected poems. He is a physician who uses poetry as a means for critique, of science in general and medicine in particular, for he believes that poems can be “subversive documents”. Abse’s poetry does function as such because as a medicine man, he is able to see things from within. In several poems, he looks at science not only as a suspect, but as an antagonist. Such antagonism is shown, for instance, through the images he portrays for the surgeons and pathologists, whose main concerns are the medical case rather than the human condition. At other times, he highlights the narcotic effects of drugs and sedatives that are given to patients who could be in need of empathic and humanistic care instead. Abse criticises the shortcomings of medical training which does not pay enough attention to the humane aspects of medical care. Science is found culprit in the evils of the twentieth century, especially the atrocities of wars because of the technologies it offered in the making of mass destruction weapons. According to Abse, scientific and technological advances are required and useful provided that they are weighed by a humane scale, inner knowledge and moral imagination. This study is limited to a literary approach to Abse’s poetic works. The antagonism of science can be further explored in the light of the scientific facts which Abse provides in his critique Medicine on Trial (Aldus Books, 1967), a trace of which can be found in almost all his subsequent literary works including his plays and novels.

Keywords

• Dannie Abse
• medical poetry
• medical humanities
• physician-poets
• moral imagination
• humane medicine