Literature and Chemistry

Literature and Chemistry: Elective Affinities investigates literary and chemical encounters, from medieval alchemy to contemporary science fiction, in works of, among others, Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire, Strindberg, Pasternak, and Primo Levi as well as literary writing by scientists such as Humphry Davy, Ludwig Boltzmann and Oliver Sachs.

Sixteen scholars break new ground in demonstrating chemistry's particular status as one of the sciences in which humanities should interest itself, the overlaps and reciprocities of the two fields, and - perhaps most importantly - chemistry's role in the production of narrative, metaphor, and literary form.

The anthology makes the silent presence of chemistry everywhere moreperceptible, uncovering its historical and present appeal to material sensitivity, imagination, and creativity, as well as its call for philosophical and ethical concern, and for wonder.