32802 Science fiction may seem resolutely modern,

but the genre could actually be considered hundreds of ages or thousands of years old. There are the alien green "children of Woolpit", who appeared in 12th-century Suffolk and were reported to have spoken a language no one could understand. There's also the story of Eilmer the 11th-century monk, who constructed a pair of wings and flew from the top of Malmesbury Abbey. And there's the Voynich Manuscript, a 15th-century book written in an unknowable script, full of illustrations of otherworldly plants and surreal landscapes. The countless religious constellations full of fantastic gods, glorious goddesses, white angles, black devils, brown drugs, green pastures, the dark woods, colorful flowers, delicious foods, perfect sex and endless heavens, hellfires & 'inbetween locations for all living things alive & dead in whatever form, scape or depth anyone might desire, fear, image, dream/scream' in, out & about with 'impossible actualities' from us?! These are just some of the science fictions to be discovered within the literatures and cultures during, after & before the Middle Ages & there are of course also tale to be found of robots entertaining royal Courts, communities speculating about utopian or dystopian futures and literary maps measuring and exploring the outer reaches of time and space, body and mind! The influence of the genre we call "fantasy" which often looks back to the medieval past in order to escape a techno-scientific future, means that the Middle Ages have rarely been associated with science fiction. But, as we have found, peering into the complex history of the genre, while also examining the scientific achievements of the medieval period, reveals that things are not quite what they seem. Science fiction is quite particularly troublesome when it comes to matters of classification & origin? Indeed, there remains no agreed-upon definition of the genre. A variety of commentators have located the beginnings of SF in the early-20th-century explosion of pulp magazines, and in the work of Hugo Gernsback {1884-1967}, who proposed the term "scientifiction" when editing and publishing the first issue of Amazing Stories, in 1926. "By 'scientifiction'," HG wrote, "I mean a Jules Verne, HG Wells & Edgar Allan Poe type of story - a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact & prophetic vision ... Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading - they are always instructive ..." But HG was already looking backwards in time to earlier writers & storytellers to define SF! His "definition", too, was one that could also be applied to literary & social creations from much further into the past. In fact 'myDi' is also consisting of fine imaginary examples and eternal 'sky-islands made out of our own endless recollections, happenings, strange plays, pictures & beautifully invented "scientific" facts/feelings & fictions'!
28 sep 2018 - bewerkt op 30 sep 2018 - meld ongepast verhaal
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