WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:03.720 align:middle line:84% I was just writing a piece of criticism 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:05.790 align:middle line:84% on Edgar Allan Poe, which I don't 00:00:05.790 --> 00:00:07.110 align:middle line:90% seem to be able to stop doing. 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:11.460 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:14.460 align:middle line:84% I reread "The Raven" in the process, 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:19.980 align:middle line:84% and it struck me how oddly similar this new poem 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:23.040 align:middle line:84% of Voznesensky's is to "The Raven." 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:29.340 align:middle line:84% In "The Raven," given a bird which replies nevermore, 00:00:29.340 --> 00:00:33.690 align:middle line:84% we have a hero who indulges in some kind of nervous hilarity 00:00:33.690 --> 00:00:36.540 align:middle line:84% and, finally, in extreme self torture, 00:00:36.540 --> 00:00:39.570 align:middle line:90% using the nevermore on himself. 00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:41.700 align:middle line:84% The dial tone is doing something of the same thing 00:00:41.700 --> 00:00:43.170 align:middle line:90% for Voznesensky here. 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:46.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:46.570 --> 00:00:53.690 align:middle line:84% Here's a Russian poet who's in exile in America. 00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:59.710 align:middle line:84% His name is Nikolai Morshen, and he's especially interesting 00:00:59.710 --> 00:01:02.410 align:middle line:84% because his imagination is so thoroughly 00:01:02.410 --> 00:01:07.240 align:middle line:84% able to cope with science, as you'll 00:01:07.240 --> 00:01:11.560 align:middle line:90% see in this untitled poem. 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:14.770 align:middle line:84% "Nights rolled upon the river's face, 00:01:14.770 --> 00:01:18.800 align:middle line:84% volcanoes flared and overflowed, and ferns, 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:22.180 align:middle line:84% which towered into space, with paleozoic flashes 00:01:22.180 --> 00:01:25.570 align:middle line:84% glowed when, with his Slavic eye, 00:01:25.570 --> 00:01:29.470 align:middle line:84% there crept a saurian from paludal slime-- 00:01:29.470 --> 00:01:33.820 align:middle line:84% my reptile ancestor-- and stepped on the dry land 00:01:33.820 --> 00:01:36.580 align:middle line:90% for the first time. 00:01:36.580 --> 00:01:38.350 align:middle line:84% He did not then, of course, predict 00:01:38.350 --> 00:01:42.220 align:middle line:84% the spate of future generation, of linked phenomena 00:01:42.220 --> 00:01:45.490 align:middle line:84% in strict and indistinguishable relation, 00:01:45.490 --> 00:01:48.580 align:middle line:84% or me, in that concatenation, in whose 00:01:48.580 --> 00:01:52.870 align:middle line:90% world Planck and Blok connect! 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:55.930 align:middle line:84% But I... what breed am I, what kind? 00:01:55.930 --> 00:01:58.810 align:middle line:90% What are my past, my destiny? 00:01:58.810 --> 00:02:02.020 align:middle line:84% How should that far one be divined whose modest forebear 00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:07.120 align:middle line:84% I shall be, whose world's pure miracle to me, whose deeds, 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.360 align:middle line:90% the manner of whose mind? 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:13.750 align:middle line:84% Hundreds of years will pass, perhaps millions, 00:02:13.750 --> 00:02:16.660 align:middle line:84% and then he will be there, remembering us 00:02:16.660 --> 00:02:23.080 align:middle line:84% across that lapse, our strange third partner, and our heir. 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.900 align:middle line:84% And then what magic time will do! 00:02:25.900 --> 00:02:29.410 align:middle line:84% All distances will coalesce, and all awareness 00:02:29.410 --> 00:02:32.470 align:middle line:84% flow into the heaven of his consciousness. 00:02:32.470 --> 00:02:37.660 align:middle line:84% From grey mist will materialize his predecessors, one and all, 00:02:37.660 --> 00:02:43.810 align:middle line:84% whatever their degree or size, no matter how obscure or small. 00:02:43.810 --> 00:02:48.100 align:middle line:84% And to that joyous herd, that throng bound from creation 00:02:48.100 --> 00:02:50.530 align:middle line:84% and before, you too shall certainly 00:02:50.530 --> 00:02:54.160 align:middle line:84% belong, o my reptilian ancestor." 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:57.030 align:middle line:90% 00:02:57.030 --> 00:03:01.020 align:middle line:84% That's a scientist's poem, which involves 00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:05.900 align:middle line:84% a vision very like that of Teilhard de Chardin, I think.