Cyrano de Bergerac’s Epistemological Bodies
“Pregnant with a Thousand Definitions”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11060944 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sylvie Romanowski (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | Part 3 |
| Pages | 414-432 |
| Publication date | 1998-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Fiction Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-7729 • E-ISSN: 2327-6207 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/sfs.25.3.0414 |
| OpenAlex | W2475269880 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) wrote imaginary voyages to the Moon and to the Sun, both often titled together L’Autre Monde. These fantastic voyages, filled with extremely diverse events and beings of various kinds, both human and non-human, enable the author to imagine non-traditional forms of society, physics, travel, language, sensory perception, and philosophy. Generally. Cyrano wishes to refute the traditional Christian, geocentric, and Aristotelian views of the universe, and in order to do so, he bases himself in two alternative sciences, or visions of the world, available to him in his day, the atomistic and the alchemical visions. Critics have generally tended to view Cyrano as either materialist or hermetic, but I consider him to be interested in both these systems of knowledge. The body is the particular entity where these two systems of knowledge meet and interact, for it is Cyrano’s view that the body is part of knowing—i.e., for him knowledge may be a matter of the spirit, but it is always embodied. Cyrano wants to imagine new ways of thinking about humanity and the universe: to this end, he uses reversals, an easy way to jolt and amuse the reader, but he also goes far beyond reversals to imagine, With great freedom, multiple possibilities for understanding the body, the mind, philosophy, and the universe. (SR)
Epistemology · Sociology · French Literature and Criticism · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Philosophy · Renaissance Literature and Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |