Open AccessChanges in Celestial Journey Literature: 1400-1650
Author(s) -
Alan S. Weber
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
culture and cosmos
Language(s) - English
DOI - 10.46472/cc.0101.0207
Subject(s) - celestial sphere , kepler , narrative , literature , milestone , celestial mechanics , poetry , history , philosophy , art , astronomy , physics , stars , archaeology
This study investigates an important historical phase in the curiously hybrid genre of the celestial journey narrative which has produced not only important scientific texts, such as Macrobius's Somnium Scipionis, but also some of Western Europe's finest poems, including Dante's Divine Comedy. I would like to compare Christine de Pizan's Chemin de Long Estude of 1403, which describes the author's celestial journey through the heavenly spheres, to another milestone in celestial voyage literature, Francis Godwin's English work The Man in the Moone of 1638. These two literary and historical endpoints illustrate the changes in European technical astronomy which occurred between 1400 and 1650, and also reveal the shift which occurred in the very nature of the celestial voyage genre. I will also briefly review other closely related early modern celestial voyage narratives written by Johannes Kepler and Bishop John Wilkins.