Nov 07 2008
The History of Science Fiction
It’s that time again, history Friday! This week we will be looking at the roots of Science Fiction.
Seems pretty simple right? That’s what I thought as well, but like all my ideas it’s rarely as smooth as it should be.
The problem is with what is science fiction. This is a question I have tackled before with my writing, and at its simplest it is fiction with a scientific base. Science fiction topics today include aliens, space travel, technology contradicting natural law, and application of scientific principles that are only premises right now.
Even today things which were once science fiction are now becoming fact. We’ve found possible earth like planets in other solar systems, becoming more adept at nanotechnology, cloning, robots, on and on. However, as you move backwards our knowledge of the universe gets smaller and smaller.
Literature has been around for thousands of years, with the oldest known literary work being from Babylonia over 3000 years ago. It was only 500 years later that scientific approach started to be used by the Greeks, and while it was a huge leap for scientific progress, it was the realm of philosophers.
The line between science fiction and fantasy has always been fussy, but never more so than when you eliminate science from the world. I found the most difficult part of this search was deciding if it was true Sci-fi.
The first story of flight beyond earth is found in Lucian of Samosata’s writings from the 2nd century. In his story Icaromenippus the main character sprouts wings and flies to the moon, clearly science fiction right? I don’t think so honestly. Da Vinci didn’t even postulate his flying machines until the 15th century. This is the realm of fantasy.
Fast forward to 1627; to one of the fathers of modern Science, Sir Francis Bacon. He used fiction to illustrate his new methods of philosophy - that they should be using inductive reasoning and make laws from facts, rather than the logical appeal (or syllogism) approach that was popular.
Sir Bacon wrote The New Atlantis in 1623, but was released after his death in 1626. Specifically of the Utopian genre, it explores experimental science, and has a large number of scientific themes such as genetic manipulation, telescopes, telephones, flight, artificial metals, and factories. While some of these don’t seem like science fiction, they were innovative at the time. It also shows that logical thought is required for peaceful living.
His work is public domain, so check it out on Project Gutenberg.
