Poetry and Music: Translations for the Soul

As we have observed in the previous chapters, it is the whole human being—thinking and feeling, curious and exploring—who is involved in creation of new knowledge. Hence, the key to the scientific creativity is in its artistic counterpart, and vice versa. The “romantic science” of the beginning of the nineteenth century was situated in the rapid innovations of cultural activities in the post-Napoleonic era. Literature, music, and of course visual arts were leading the way. As a highly educated medicine man and Naturforscher, Carus was also a literary scholar, fascinated by all the literary and scientific work by Goethe and constantly seeking the evaluations of the old man in Weimar. He was an ardent music lover and participant in the musical events in Dresden all over his life there. At the same time, he was under the spell of Dante’s Comedy (This was the original title of 1321, indicating the belonging of this text to the “low” literature (in vernacular), in contrast to tragedy which was the higher-level literary genre. The addition of Divine was made by Giovanni Boccaccio. First printed version with the title La Divina Commedia dates to 1555.) for all of his adult life. This fascination is crucial for understanding the credo of Carus across all the intellectual domains in which he was active.