Please read it! But maybe also bear with me while I appreciate the article by summarizing it. In this collection, Anderson tries to display every aspect of science. He therefore includes one story about telepathy and also this article, "Wellsprings...," about ideas.
In "Wellsprings...," He suggests that Homer and the poets:
celebrated great deeds;
upheld ideals;
"...fabled of wonders..." (p. 237) -
- and that sf does the same for science, evoking our potential future equivalents of:
Scylla
Polyphemus
Lotophagoi
Circe
Phaeacia
I was familiar with only three of those names and had trouble spelling the fifth. Here Anderson effortlessly combines mythological and scientific knowledge. It is all one universe. I will have to post about this article in stages.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yet another work by Poul Anderson I should reread: "Wellsprings Of Dream"! But this mention of ALL ONE UNIVERSE reminded me of how I think "Strangers", also in the same book as "Wellsprings," inverted the usual tropes about men and elves and set the events of that story on another planet. My question: can members of an intelligent race be so short lived that humans look as long lived as elves to them?
Sean
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