Abstract

Emily Dickinson's and Herman Melville's poetics of nature and the divine are deeply intertwined. In their writing, they often use natural imagery and symbolism to explore their philosophical and religious beliefs. Dickinson's poems, for example, often depict nature as a source of both beauty and mystery, while Melville's novels often explore the relationship between the individual and the vastness of the natural world. Nick Montfort and Noah Wardrip-Fruin's generative poem "Sea and Spar Between" draws on Dickinson and Melville's work in several ways. First, the poem uses natural imagery and symbolism to create a vast and ever-changing poetic landscape. Second, the poem explores many of the same metaphysical questions that Dickinson and Melville explored, such as the nature of God, the relationship between the individual and the universe, and the meaning of human existence.
However, Montfort and Strickland's poem also reinterprets Dickinson and Melville's poetics of nature and the divine in several ways. For example, the poem's use of a computer algorithm to generate stanzas results in a fragmented and disorienting reading experience. This fragmentation challenges traditional notions of poetic form and meaning, and it suggests that the natural world and the divine are not as easily knowable as Dickinson and Melville sometimes suggested. This paper will explore how Montfort and Strickland's poem reinterprets Dickinson and Melville's poetics of nature and the divine. It will do so through a close analysis of the poem's use of natural imagery and symbolism, a comparison of the poem's depiction of nature and the divine to Dickinson and Melville's depictions. A consideration of the role of the computer algorithm in the poem's reinterpretation of Dickinson and Melville's poetics, and a discussion of the implications of Montfort and Strickland's poem for our understanding of the natural world and the divine. This paper will be of interest to scholars of digital humanities, literary studies, and religious studies. It will also be of interest to a general audience, as it explores the relationship between nature, the divine, and technology, which are all themes that are relevant to contemporary society.

Key words: Nature, Divine, Poetics, Spar, Sea, Dickinson