Imaginary voyage
Encyclopedia
Imaginary voyage is a kind of narrative in which utopia
n or satirical
representation (or some popular science
content) is put into a fictional frame of travel
account.
and novel
istic forms. Two known examples from Greek literature are Euhemerus
' Sacred History and Iambulus’ Islands of the Sun. Their utopian islands are apparently modeled from mythological Fortunate Isles
.
Lucian
's True History
parodizes the whole genre of imaginary voyage, and in his foreword Lucian cites Iambulus as one of objects of parody. Photius states though in his Bibliotheca
that its main object was Antonius Diogenes
' The incredible wonders beyond Thule, a genre blending of fantastic voyage and Greek romance which popularized Pythagorean
teachings.
The first to revive this form in the Modern era was Thomas More
in his Utopia
(1515), to be followed a century later by proliferation of utopian islands: Johannes Valentinus Andreae
's Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio (1619), Tommaso Campanella
's The City of the Sun
(1623), Francis Bacon
's New Atlantis
(1627), Jacob Bidermann
's Utopia (1640), Denis Veiras' The history of the Sevarambi (1675), Gabriel de Foigny
's La Terre australe connue (1676), Gabriel Daniel
's Voyage du monde de Descartes (1690), François Lefebvre's Relation du voyage de l’isle d’Eutopie (1711), as well as many others.
Lucian's satirical line was exploited by François Rabelais
' Gargantua and Pantagruel
(1532) and developed later on in Joseph Hall's Mundus alter et idem (1607), François Hédelin's Histoire du temps (1654), Cyrano de Bergerac
's Histoire comique contenant les États et Empires de la Lune (1657) and Fragments d’histoire comique contenant les États et Empires du Soleil (1662), Charles Sorel's Nouvelle Découverte du Royaume de Frisquemore (1662), Margaret Cavendish
's The Blazing World
(1666), Joshua Barnes
' Gerania (1675), Bernard de Fontenelle's Relation de l’île de Bornéo (1686), Daniel Defoe
's The Consolidator (1705), and most notably in Jonathan Swift
's Gulliver's Travels
(1726).
Imaginary voyage has become a natural medium for promoting new astronomic ideas. First literary space flights after Lucian were: Juan Maldonado
's Somnium (1541), Johann Kepler's Somnium (1634), Francis Godwin
's The Man in the Moone (1638), John Wilkins
' The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638), Athanasius Kircher
's Itinerarium extaticum (1656), David Russen's Iter lunare (1703), Diego de Torres Villarroel
's Viaje fantástico (1723), Eberhard Kindermann's Die geischwinde Reise auf dem Luftschiff nach der obern Welt (1744) - the first flight to planets, Robert Paltock
's The life and adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751), Voltaire
's Micromégas
(1752).
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n or satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
representation (or some popular science
Popular science
Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...
content) is put into a fictional frame of travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
account.
History
It is very archaic narrative technique preceding romanceRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
istic forms. Two known examples from Greek literature are Euhemerus
Euhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...
' Sacred History and Iambulus’ Islands of the Sun. Their utopian islands are apparently modeled from mythological Fortunate Isles
Fortunate Isles
In the Fortunate Isles, also called the Isles of the Blessed , heroes and other favored mortals in Greek mythology and Celtic mythology were received by the gods into a winterless blissful paradise...
.
Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
's True History
True History
True History or True Story is a travel tale by the Greek-speaking Syrian author Lucian of Samosata, the earliest known fiction about travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare. Written in the 2nd century, the novel has been referred to as "the first known text that...
parodizes the whole genre of imaginary voyage, and in his foreword Lucian cites Iambulus as one of objects of parody. Photius states though in his Bibliotheca
Bibliotheca (Photius)
The Bibliotheca or Myriobiblon was a 9th century work of Byzantine Patriarch Photius, dedicated to his brother and composed of 279 reviews of books which he had read. It was not meant to be used as a reference work, but was widely used as such in the 9th century, and is generally seen as the first...
that its main object was Antonius Diogenes
Antonius Diogenes
Antonius Diogenes was the author of a Greek romance, whom scholars have placed in the 2nd century CE. His age was unknown even to Photius, who has preserved an outline of his romance. It consisted of twenty-four books, was written in the form of a dialogue about travels, and bore the title of The...
' The incredible wonders beyond Thule, a genre blending of fantastic voyage and Greek romance which popularized Pythagorean
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
teachings.
The first to revive this form in the Modern era was Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
in his Utopia
Utopia (book)
Utopia is a work of fiction by Thomas More published in 1516...
(1515), to be followed a century later by proliferation of utopian islands: Johannes Valentinus Andreae
Johannes Valentinus Andreae
Johannes Valentinus Andreae , a.k.a. Johannes Valentinus Andreä or Johann Valentin Andreae, was a German theologian, who claimed to be the author of the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 one of the three founding works of...
's Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio (1619), Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella OP , baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.-Biography:...
's The City of the Sun
The City of the Sun
The City of the Sun is a philosophical work by the Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. It is an important early utopian work.The work was written in Italian in 1602, shortly after Campanella's imprisonment for heresy and sedition...
(1623), Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
's New Atlantis
New Atlantis
New Atlantis and similar can mean:*New Atlantis, a novel by Sir Francis Bacon*The New Atlantis, founded in 2003, a journal about the social and political dimensions of science and technology...
(1627), Jacob Bidermann
Jacob Bidermann
Jacob Bidermann was born in the Austrian village of Ehingen, about 30 miles southwest of Ulm. He was a Jesuit priest and professor of theology, but is remembered mostly for his plays....
's Utopia (1640), Denis Veiras' The history of the Sevarambi (1675), Gabriel de Foigny
Gabriel de Foigny
Gabriel de Foigny is the author of an important utopia, La Terre Australe connue, 1676.-Life:All we know about Foigny, including his identity , is based exclusively on the second edition of Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique...
's La Terre australe connue (1676), Gabriel Daniel
Gabriel Daniel
Gabriel Daniel , French Jesuit historian, was born in Rouen.He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the order at the age of eighteen, and became superior at Paris.-Works:...
's Voyage du monde de Descartes (1690), François Lefebvre's Relation du voyage de l’isle d’Eutopie (1711), as well as many others.
Lucian's satirical line was exploited by François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
' Gargantua and Pantagruel
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father and his son and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein...
(1532) and developed later on in Joseph Hall's Mundus alter et idem (1607), François Hédelin's Histoire du temps (1654), Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac
Hercule-Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duelist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand...
's Histoire comique contenant les États et Empires de la Lune (1657) and Fragments d’histoire comique contenant les États et Empires du Soleil (1662), Charles Sorel's Nouvelle Découverte du Royaume de Frisquemore (1662), Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was an English aristocrat, a prolific writer, and a scientist. Born Margaret Lucas, she was the youngest sister of prominent royalists Sir John Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas...
's The Blazing World
The Blazing World
The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, better known as The Blazing World, is a 1666 work of prose fiction by English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle....
(1666), Joshua Barnes
Joshua Barnes
Joshua Barnes , was an English scholar.He was born in London, the son of Edward Barnes, a merchant taylor.Educated at Christ's Hospital and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he was in 1695 chosen Regius Professor of Greek, a language which he wrote and spoke with the utmost facility.One of his first...
' Gerania (1675), Bernard de Fontenelle's Relation de l’île de Bornéo (1686), Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
's The Consolidator (1705), and most notably in Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
(1726).
Imaginary voyage has become a natural medium for promoting new astronomic ideas. First literary space flights after Lucian were: Juan Maldonado
Juan Maldonado
Juan Maldonado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and exegete.-Life:...
's Somnium (1541), Johann Kepler's Somnium (1634), Francis Godwin
Francis Godwin
Francis Godwin was an English divine, Bishop of Llandaff and of Hereford.-Life:He was the son of Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath and Wells, born at Hannington, Northamptonshire...
's The Man in the Moone (1638), John Wilkins
John Wilkins
John Wilkins FRS was an English clergyman, natural philosopher and author, as well as a founder of the Invisible College and one of the founders of the Royal Society, and Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death....
' The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638), Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...
's Itinerarium extaticum (1656), David Russen's Iter lunare (1703), Diego de Torres Villarroel
Diego de Torres Villarroel
Diego de Torres Villarroel was a Spanish writer, poet, dramatist, doctor, mathematician, priest and professor of the University of Salamanca. His most famous work is his autobiography, Vida, ascendencia, nacimiento, crianza y aventuras del Doctor Don Diego de Torres Villarroel .-Life:Villarroel...
's Viaje fantástico (1723), Eberhard Kindermann's Die geischwinde Reise auf dem Luftschiff nach der obern Welt (1744) - the first flight to planets, Robert Paltock
Robert Paltock
Robert Paltock was an English novelist and attorney. His most famous work is The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man .Paltock was admired by Walter Scott, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb....
's The life and adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751), Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's Micromégas
Micromégas
"Micromégas" is a short story by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. It is a significant development in the history of literature because it originates ideas which helped create the genre of science fiction....
(1752).
Literature
- Fantastic voyage, in: Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. by John Clute, 1993
- David Winston. Iambulus’ Islands of the Sun and Hellenistic Literary Utopias, in: Science Fiction Studies #10 = Volume 3, Part 3 = November 1976