Herman Gorter (26 November 1864, Wormerveer – 15 September 1927, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels) was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in Amsterdam in the 1880s, centered on De Nieuwe Gids (The New Guide). Poetry Gorter's first book, a 4,000 verse epic poem called Mei (May), sealed his reputation as a great writer upon its publication in 1889, and is regarded as the pinnacle of Dutch Impressionist literature. Gorter rapidly followed this up with a book of short lyric poetry simply called Verzen (Verses) in 1890, which, after initial bad reviews, was equally hailed as a masterpiece. Initially Gorter was oriented towards the philosophy of Spinoza, whose major work Ethica he translated from Latin into Dutch (published in 1895). At the end of the century, he was drawn towards socialism, something he shared with most of the Tachtigers, and became the most politically involved of this group. Whilst continuing to write socialist poetry, he also became a major writer of socialist theory. He was known to have had a romantic relationship with the chemist, Ada Prins (1879–1977) from 1901. She was the first Dutch woman to hold a doctorate in chemistry. According to Zwart, Whereas Ada Prins is mostly remembered as one of Gorter’s secret lovers, she was first and foremost his educated guide into the complex and enigmatic world of twentieth-century chemistry research. Liquid crystal chemistry became an important source of inspiration for Gorter’s work and the main objective of this paper is to demonstrate her influence on Gorter’s Pan as a scientific poem.His long epic poem called Pan, written in 1912, describes a great war, which was followed by a global socialist revolution. He revised it in 1915, with the new version being published in 1916. Mei has been translated into English as May, an epic poem about youth; an extensive selection from his lyric verse has been translated as Herman Gorter: Selected Poems. ISBN 978-90-831336-52 Politics He joined the Social Democratic Labour Party (Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij or SDAP) in 1897. In 1909 he participated in a schism from the SDAP to form the Social-Democratic Party (Sociaal-Democratische Partij) of the Netherlands. Correspondence with Lenin In 1917, he hailed the Russian Revolution as the beginning of that global revolution. In June that year on medical advice he moved to Bern, Switzerland. Here he was in