|
|
|
|
|
|
by p4wnc6
3678 days ago
|
|
|
I feel this is a silly idea. Of course physicists (many of whom love poetry) understand the difference between a literal depiction of a real event (as is clearly the case in the Sappho poem) and an artistic description that seeks to establish value through means other than a literal description. Acting like Cuntz, et al., must have pursued the assumptions and analysis they pursued because they have some kind of infantile understanding of poetry, literal vs. non-literal depiction, literary devices, etc., is ridiculous. No one, certainly not Cuntz, et al., is going around saying all parts of poems that resemble literal descriptions must therefore be perfect eyewitness accounts of actual events. And all of that is irrelevant to the task of astronomically dating the poem by assuming a certain literal description. The result is implicitly modulo that assumption, and if the assumption turns out wrong, that's not a criticism of the work otherwise based on it. |
|
|
True. It is however, a criticism of everyone that conveniently forgot to mention that critical assumption, and that starts with the UTA press release.
Acting like Cuntz, et al., [..] have some kind of infantile understanding of poetry
That's not the most damning criticism in the article though. The most damning is that they seem to have copied entire paragraphs off Wikipedia, which suggests they have some kind of infantile understanding of science.