The World Beyond the Hill
Alexei PanshinThe World Beyond the Hill Gönderileri
The World Beyond the Hill kitaplarını, The World Beyond the Hill sözleri ve alıntılarını, The World Beyond the Hill yazarlarını, The World Beyond the Hill yorumları ve incelemelerini 1000Kitap'ta bulabilirsiniz.Certain lines of literary descent from Walpole—the Gothic romance, the rational detective story, the historical novel—could not tolerate the implausible and so abandoned transcendence in favor of a strict adherence to “the facts”. These lines became mythically sterile.
Other forms that owe something to Walpole, like heroic fantasy and the supernatural horror story, could not give up the old spirit-based transcendence. But they were not effective myth, either. They were conservative. They looked backward. They ignored “the facts.” And so they have been reckoned implausible escapist fantasy.
While other Western literary forms have favored either mystery or plausibility, SF is the line that has striven to be complete myth.
Among that which was discarded when Western man set out on his special path was traditional myth with its spirit-based transcendent symbology. The appearance and development of SF can be understood as the gradual re-establishment of myth in the Western world, starting from first principles, and phrasing itself in a new, deliberately “non-spiritual” symbolic vocabulary.
An appropriate date to mark the emergence of scientific rationalism as the leading mode of Western thought and culture is the year 1685. It is possible to argue that the old worldview still prevailed prior to that time. But after that year, we can say that the balance of opinion in Western society was in favor of rational materialism.
The year 1685 was when the last execution for witchcraft in England took place. Also in England in 1685, Isaac Newton arrived at the Universal Law of Gravitation.
Fantasy stories are not fully mythic because they cling to ancient images of transcendent possibility which no longer appear plausible. Although these may inspire us with reminders of the mysteriousness of transcendence, they are inconsistent with our best knowledge and so cannot guide us to action.