Maths and Literature ed 2022

Mathematics and literature… two worlds that one would like to oppose and that yet observe each other, dialogue, mutually inspire each other. From Edgar Poe to Umberto Eco, from Lautréamont to Wislawa Szymborska, writers and poets express their fascination for mathematics, sprinkle their works with it, sing of its beauty in their verses. With Blaise Pascal, Lewis Carroll, Sofia Kovalewskaïa, Claude Berge, Douglas Hofstadter… we discover that one can be both a good mathematician and a fine writer. And if arithmetic and symmetry have always sculpted poetry, Oulipo members and other practitioners of constrained writing have more recently brought proof that mathematics offer formidable tools for literary creation.