Chemistry and Literature: Disciplines in Dynamic Equilibrium

From Firenze University Press Journal: Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry

Luigi Dei, Department of Chemistry ‘Ugo Schiff’, University of Florence

The editorial team of Firenze University Press poses the question: “Can chemistry and literature speak to each other? At first glance, these two worlds seem almost impossible to reconcile.”

Reflecting on the link between chemistry and literature is an arduous and complex undertaking that can be approached in basically two ways: by scouring the literary works of the various epochs in search of links with chemical thought or by reasoning only on those literary works that are manifestly imbued with chemistry (Primo Levi first and foremost, but also, Gadda, Calvino and Sinisgalli in Italy, or, in the world arena, Sacks, Hoffmann, Goethe and Wells as typical examples).

In both cases, the risk of concluding that, regardless of the approach, no suture or integration can be established due to the inherent, abnormal distance between the two disciplines is highly probable.

The attempt that I am proposing in this meditation on such apparently antithetical universes of knowledge is to try to take a third way, which starts from an intriguing hypothesis of the electronic engineer Ludovico Ristori, very shrewd and particularly open to the contamination of knowledge.

In an article he published on the ‘Scienza in Rete’ (Science on the Net) website, entitled Scienza e letteratura, discipline in equilibrio dinamico (Science and literature, disciplines in dynamic equilibrium), he begins by asking whether science and literature are opposing worlds, or entities that interact dynamically, finding different equilibriums depending on historical moments and protagonists.

This reflection invites readers to consider not only historical interactions between disciplines, but also the potential for dialogue between seemingly distant fields today.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Substantia-3435
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