“THERE ONCE WAS A BREATHY BABOON”
By:
January 20, 2024
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
There once was a breathy baboon
Who always breathed down a bassoon,
For he said, “It appears
That in billions of years
I shall certainly hit on a tune.”
— This 1939 limerick by the astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Sir Arthur Eddington helps us to understand probability. Eddington made major contributions to astrophysics and to general relativity.
Not technically a Radium Age poem… but Eddington was such an important figure during the Radium Age….
I’ve also seen the baboon’s adjective as “brainy.”
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.