A Sonnet - to Science - Edgar Allan Poe

           Edgar Allen Poe wrote “Sonnet - To Science” to show his anger and sorrow at the way 

science has over explained the world and caused it to lose that special feeling of wonder and 

mystery. Poe is disturbed by the lack of magic, or rather the lack of belief and trust in it, in the 

modern world.   The imagination is crumbling because of science’s explanation for everything. No 

one needs to think about why things might be because they can simply look it up in a book, if they 

were bothered to try. 


	Poe feels that the sense of wonder that our universe has always inspired us with is 

disappearing because science’s explanation is so practical and logical. It is not at all romantic or 

mysterious. Poe also comments on how willing we are to believe scientific explanations. More 

people have believed in folk tales than in science. Why do we take scientists’ word for it? Maybe it 

is because we can test things like gravity ourselves, but isn’t the twisted tree of a Hamadryad just 

as much proof? A few short centuries ago, scientists knew putting leeches on sick people would 

cure all ills. Today, we know that blood loss can kill you. To quote a great movie, “Men in Black,” 

“Imagine what we’ll know tomorrow.” Poe describes science as one “Who alterest all things with 

thy peering eyes.” Science is continually changing and we are perfectly willing to forget what they 

claimed yesterday and to believe in the latest scientific discovery.  


	Poe calls science a vulture because it preys on a story’s weakest link. It finds the 

inconsistency and strikes, tearing in with relish. The wings of science are “dull realities” in that 

they don’t inspire awe, they aren’t mystical, and they are the “real world” truths that people are 

always trying to make us see. Science makes out the world to be not nearly as strange and 

wonderful as the tales of magic would have you believe, even though it really is.   Poe would see 

the world as a place of endless opportunities where anything could happen, but he feels that 

science has robbed him of his dreams.  


	Poe tells the truth in that science has disproved Diana, goddess of the moon, from existing 

or Elves from haunting the land. He gives the legends and science a name and a character to show 

themselves by. The legends become goddesses and little people, while science is the evil vulture 

who is driving them from their homes. The poem brings to mind an evil tyrant driving defenseless 

men, women, and children from their homelands, and it makes you want to scream at them to fight 

back. I shouldn’t say defenseless, but their only defense is the belief that people hold in them. 

When that belief dies, so does the power of the story to comfort and inspire. You see a vulture 

preying on innocent people, and you realize why Poe considers science as a criminal, robbing 

people of their ability to think for themselves. 


	 You see culture and tradition disappear with only children’s stories to remind us of the 

beliefs that our world once cherished. Poe’s technique works on our emotions. It reminds us of 

growing up and being forced to give up our fairy tales to face the “real world.” The world is 

growing up and moving on, but, like us, it doesn’t need to give up its dreams to face the new age. 

It isn’t necessary and it isn’t right. It’s really just that that Poe is protesting.  


	Poe mixes enough sarcasm into his poem to make you have to read it twice to see where he 

is actually serious. I like “A Sonnet - To Science” because it makes you think. In reading it, you 

don’t simply learn that Poe doesn’t approve of science taking over myth; you learn why Poe 

doesn’t like it. You step into his shoes and see stories of trolls and dreams of unicorns fade away. 

You see the emotions they symbolized fade in to the background. He is so bitter. You begin to lose 

hope. This poem really affected me. I never before thought about how science might cause the 

lose of belief in things that can’t be proved. A loss of faith. What a terrible thought.






"Sonnet-To Science"
Science! ture daughter of Old Time thou art! 
  Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
  Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How shoud he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
  Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
  Albiet he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
  And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek shelter in some happier star?
  Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
- Edgar Allan Poe