Speeding through space, the sentient, speaking sword says:
"'We won't likely crash through any crystal spheres.'" (p. 376)
Not in the galactic universe but, if Heaven, Hell and Yggdrasil exist in different universes, then the Classical-medieval cosmos will also exist somewhere else.
James Blish confusingly combines scientific and medieval cosmologies when, after Armaggedon, the black magician, Theron Ware, says:
"'Someone of Father Domenico's
-James Blish, The Day After Judgment IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 427-522 AT 4, p. 461.
Where else is medieval cosmology to be found in literature?
(i) In Dante.
(ii) Milton was transitional.
(iii) CS Lewis outlines medieval cosmology in The Discarded Image.
(iv) Each of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is based on a different medieval "planet."
(v) See the Dantean journey of a Mithraist soul in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys here.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson's THE HIGH CRUSADE also comes to mind. Because educated people of the 1340's, such as Brother Parvus, still thought in terms shaped by Ptolemaic cosmology and astronomy. As the Wersgor spaceship captured by Baron Roger was unexpectedly leaving Earth, a stunned Brother Parvus braced himself for a crash thru those crystal spheres.
Ad astra! Sean
in this interactive medium, readers (one in particular) can add points that I miss.
Kaor, Paul!
One of the many advantages of comboxes! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Medieval Latin Catholic cosmology was sort of a Christian gloss on essentially Hellenistic ideas.
The Bible says very little about those issues. The narrative voice sort of unconsciously assumes a flat earth (and that pi is precisely 3, for instance), and in general a rather Babylonian approach to cosmic structures, but it doesn't make a big thing of it -- it's not theologically central.
That came later; hence Galileo, etc.
(Apart from the fact that Galileo, while brilliant, was also an a***ole of the first order who could have driven a saint to anger.)
George Bernard Shaw said that Galileo persecuted the Pope, almost.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Yes, Galileo brought down a lot of his troubles on himself because of being quarrelsome, devious, and a spiteful backbiter. Many of the highest authorities of the Church tried to treat him with patience and forbearance.
Ad astra! Sean
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