A Voyage to the Moon

by Cyrano de Bergerac and Archibald Lovell

Book Overview

"L'Autre monde" par Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac. Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac etait un ecrivain francais (1619-1655)." This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1535195819
• ISBN13: 9781535195812
• Release Date: July 2016
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An early work of science fiction from Cyrano de Bergerac

"Voyage dans la lune" ("Voyage to the Moon"), or more specifically, "L'autre monde ou les Etates et les empires de la lune" ("Other Worlds of the States and Empires of the Moon") was published shortly after the death of Cyrano de Bergerac in 1655. It should not surprise anyone that the real Cyrano was different from the tragicomic protagonist of Edmond Rostand's classic play, which was but loosely based on the life of the courtier, soldier, poet, essayist and accomplished gentleman. "Voyage dans la lune" is of interest because it is arguably one of the very first works in the field of what we would not recognize as science fiction. True, the work, like Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" and Voltaire's "Micromegas" published a century later, is primarily a satire in the service of philosophical speculation. Cyrano's protagonist ends up in a "topsy-turvy world" where youth is valued and repression is rarely seen. Of course this also allows the author to engage in satire as we are initially shocked by this radically different society, but eventually you have to stop and think that maybe de Bergerac is making a point.But as much as "Voyage dans la lune" is a call for philosophical reform it is also clearly science fiction. Like the later works of Verne and Wells there are elements of prescience in this story (e.g., Newton's first law of motion). But more important, these stories reflect the Baconian principles of modern science focusing on how matter is composed and interactions with other matter. Thus Cyrano is able to talk about the harmony and influences of the celestial globes and open the mind of his readers to the splendor of the universe as well.I can appreciate that you would not want to have "Other Worlds" as assigned reading in a Science Fiction course. However, I do think that it is important to point to this work as evidence for how the scientific revolution was inspiring not only scientists but writers in the middle of the 17th-century. This is almost two centuries before Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" and other works like Edward Bellamy's dystopian novel "Looking Backward" and those of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells brought the field into full flower.