On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre

Author(s): Darko Suvin

Source: College English , Dec., 1972, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1972), pp. 372-382
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/375141

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DARKO SUVIN

On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre'

Science Fiction As Fiction

the last 100 years, regardless of local and
(Estrangement) short-range fluctuations. SF has particu-
THE IMPORTANCE OF science fictionlarly
(SF) affected some key strata of modern
society such as the college graduates,
in our time is on the increase. First, there
young writers, and general readers ap-
are strong indications that its popularity
preciative of new sets of values. This is
in the leading industrial nations (USA,
USSR, UK, Japan) has risen sharply aoversignificant cultural effect which goes
beyond any merely quantitative census.
Darko Suvin, who received his Ph.D. from the
Second, if one takes as differentiae of SF
University of Zagreb and teaches in the Depart-
ment of English at McGill University, haseither
pub- radically different figures (drama-
lished on drama and on theater as well as on tis personae) or a radically different con-
science fiction, both in English and in text
Serbo-
of the story, it will be found to have
croatian.
1The first version of this essay crystallized an interesting and close kinship with
out of a lecture given in the seminar on fantastic other literary sub-genres, which flour-
literature in the Yale University Slavic Depart- ished at different times and places of lit-
ment in Spring 1968. It was presented at Temple
University, Philadelphia, at the University of erary history: the Greek and Hellenistic
Toronto, and at the 1970 conference of the Sci- "blessed island' stories, the "fabulous voy-
ence Fiction Research Association at Queens-
age" from Antiquity on, the Renaissance
borough Community College, New York. I am
and Baroque "utopia" and "planetary
grateful for the opportunity of discussing it in
these places. In particular I have derived muchnovel," the Enlightenment "state (politi-
profit from personal discussion with Professor cal) novel," the modern "anticipation,"
David Porter at the University of Massachusetts,
"anti-utopia," etc. Moreover, although
J. Michael Holquist and Jacques Ehrmann at
Yale, with Mr. James Blish and Miss Judy
SF shares with myth, fantasy, fairy tale
Merril, and with my colleagues at McGill Uni-
and pastoral an opposition to naturalistic
versity, Michael Bristol, Irwin Gopnik, Myrna
Gopnik, and Donald F. Theall. This final or empiricist literary genres, it differs
version owes much to Stanislow Lem's Fan-
very significantly in approach and social
tastyka i futurologia, undoubtedly the most
function from such adjoining non-natu-
significant full-scale morphological, philosoph-
ical, and sociological survey of modern SF ralistic or meta-empirical genres. Both of
so far, which has considerably emboldened thesemecomplementary aspects, the socio-
in the further pursuit of this elusive field, even
where I differed from some of its conclusions. logical and the methodological, are being
I am also much indebted to the stimulus givenvigorously debated among writers and
by members of my graduate seminar on SF critics
in in several countries; both testify
the Department of English at McGill Univer-
to the relevance of this genre and the
sity. The final responsibility for the structure
need of scholarly discussion too.
and conclusions of the essay cannot be shifted
onto any other shoulders than mine, however In the following paper I shall argue for
little I may believe in private property overa definition of SF as the literature of cog-
ideas. "Literature" and "literary" are in this
essay synonymous with "fiction (al)". nitive estrangement. This definition seems

372

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 On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre 373

to possess the unique advantage of ren- the literary mainstream of our civilization
dering justice to a literary tradition has been nearer to the first of the two
which is coherent through the ages and above-mentioned extremes. However, at
within itself, and yet distinct from non- the beginnings of a literature, the con-
fictional utopianism, from naturalistic lit- cern with a domestication of the amazing
erature, and from other non-naturalistic is very strong. Early tale-tellers tell about
fiction. It thus permits us to lay the basis amazing voyages into the next valley
of a coherent poetics of SF. where they found dog-headed people,
I should like to approach such a dis- also good rock salt which could be stolen
cussion, and this field of discourse, by or at the worst bartered for. Their stories
are a syncretic travelog and voyage im-
postulating a spectrum or spread of liter-
ary subject-matter, running from the aginaire, daydream and intelligence re-
ideal extreme of exact recreation of the port. This implies a curiosity about the
author's empirical environment2 to ex-unknown beyond the next mountain
clusive interest in a strange newness, arange (sea, ocean, solar system . ..),
novum. From the 18th to the 20th century,where the thrill of knowledge joined the
thrill of adventure.
2A virtue of discussing this seemingly periph- An island in the far-off ocean is the
eral subject of "science fiction" and its "utopian"
paradigm of the aesthetically most satis-
tradition is that one has to go back to first
principles, one cannot really assume them fying
as goal of the SF voyage, from Iambu-
given-such as in this case what is literature.
lus and Euhemerus through the classical
Usually, when discussing literature one deter-
mines what it says (its subject matter) and how utopia to Verne's island of Captain Nemo
and Wells' island of Dr. Moreau, especial-
it says what is says (the approach to its themes).
If we are talking about literature in the sense ly
of if we subsume under this the plane-
significant works possessing certain minimal
tary
aesthetic qualities rather than in the sociological island in the aether ocean-usually
sense of everything that gets published atthe a Moon-from Lucian through Cyrano
certain time or the ideological sense of all the
and Swift's mini-Moon of Laputa to the
writings on certain themes, this principle can
more precisely be formulated as a double ques-19th century. Yet the parallel paradigm
of the valley, "over the range"3 which
tion. First, epistemologically, what possibility
for aesthetic qualities is offered by different
shuts it in as a wall, is perhaps as reveal-
thematic fields ("subjects")? The answer of
dominant aesthetics at the moment is-an ab- ing. It recurs almost as frequently, from
the earliest folk tales about the sparkling
solutely equal possibility, and with this answer
our aesthetics kicks the question out of its fieldof Terrestrial Paradise and the dark
valley
into the lap of ideologists who pick it up by
valley
default and proceed to bungle it. Second, his- of the Dead, both already in Gilga-
mesh.
torically, how has such a possibility in fact been Eden is the mythological localiza-
used? Once you begin with such considerations
tion of utopian longing, just as Wells'
you come quickly up against the rather unclear
concept of realism (not the prose literary valley
move- in the Country of the Blind is still
ment in the 19th century but a meta-historical
within the liberating tradition which con-
stylistic principle), since the SF genre is often
tends that the world is not necessarily the
pigeonholded as non-realistic. I would not ob-
way if
ject but would heartily welcome such labels our present empirical valley happens
one had first persuasively defined what isto"real"
be, and that whoever thinks his valley
and what is "reality". True, this genre israises
the world, is blind. Whether island or
basic philosophical issues; but is perhaps not
valley, whether in space or (from the in-
necessary to face them in a first approach.
Therefore I shall here substitute for "realism"
dustrial and bourgeois revolutions on) in
and "reality" the concept of "the author's em-
pirical environment", which seems as immediate-3Sub-title of Samuel Butler's SF novel
ly clear as any. Erewhon.

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374 COLLEGE ENGLISH

time, the new framework is correlative toanthropological and historical approach

the new inhabitants. The aliens-uto- in the opus of Bertolt Brecht, who
pians, monsters or simply differing wanted
stran- to write "plays for a scientific
age."
gers-are a mirror to man just as the While working on a play about the
dif-
prototype scientist Galileo, he defined
fering country is a mirror for his world.
this attitude (Verfremdungseffekt) in his
But the mirror is not only a reflecting
one, it is also a transforming one, Short
virginOrganon for the Theatre (1948):
womb and alchemical dynamo: the"Amir- representation which estranges is one
ror is a crucible. which allows us to recognize its subject,
Thus, it is not only the basic human but at the same time makes it seem un-
and humanizing curiosity that gives birth familiar." And further: for somebody to
to SF. Beside an undirected inquisitive- see all normal happenings in a dubious
ness, a semantic game without clear re- light, "he would need to develop that
ferent, this genre has always been wedded detached eye with which the great Gali-
to a hope of finding in the unknown the leo observed a swinging chandelier. He
ideal environment, tribe, state, intelli- was amazed by the pendulum motion as
gence or other aspect of the Supreme if he had not expected it and could not
Good (or to a fear of and revulsion from understand its occurring, and this enabled
its contrary). At all events, the possibil- him to come at the rules by which it was
ity of other strange, co-variant coordinate governed." Thus, the look of estrange-
systems and semantic fields is assumed. ment is both cognitive and creative; and
The approach to the imaginary local- as Brecht goes on to say: "one cannot
ity, or localized daydream, practiced by simply exclaim that such an attitude per-
the genre of SF is a supposedly factual tains to science, but not to art. Why
one. Columbus' (technically or genologi- should not art, in its own way, try to
cally non-fictional) letter on the Eden he serve the great social task of mastering
glimpsed beyond the Orinoco mouth, and Life?'"4 (Later, Brecht was also to note
Swift's (technically non-factual) voyage it might be time to stop speaking in terms
to "Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubbdrib, of masters and servants altogether.)
Luggnagg and Japan," stand at the oppo-
site ends of a ban between imaginary and 4Viktor Shklovsky, "Iskusstvo kak priem",
factual possibilities. Thus SF takes off in Poetika, Petrograd 1919. In the English trans-
lation of this essay "Art as Technique", in Lee
from a fictional ("literary") hypothesis T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis eds., Russian
and develops it with extrapolating andFormalist Criticism: Four Essays, Lincoln Ne-
totalizing ("scientific") rigor-in genre, braska 1965, ostranenie is rendered somewhat
Columbus and Swift are more alike than clumsily as "defamiliarization". Cf. also the
classical survey of Victor Erlich, Russian For-
different. The effect of such factual re- malism: History-Doctrine, The Hague 1955.
porting of fictions is one of confronting a Bertolt Brecht, "Kleines Organon fiir das
Theater", in his Schriften zum Theater 7,
set normative system-a Ptolemaic-type Franfort a.M. 1964, translated in John Wil-
closed world picture-with a point of lett ed., Brecht On Theatre, New York
view or glance implying a new set of 1964. My quotation is from p. 192 and 96
of this translation, in Which I have changed
norms; in literary theory, this is known Mr. Willett's translation of Verfremdung
as the attitude of estrangement. This con- as "alienation" into my "estrangement", since
cept was first developed on non-natural- alienation evokes incorrect, indeed oppo-
site connotations: estrangement was for
(ostranenie, Viktor Shklovsky, 1917), Brecht an approach militating directly against
and most successfully underpinned by an social and cognitive alienation.

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 On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre 375

In SF, the attitude of estrangement-
used by Brecht in a different way, within
a still predominantly "realistic" context-
has grown into the formal framework of
the genre.
Science Fiction As Cognition
(Critique and Science)
The use of estrangement both as under-
lying attitude and dominant formal de-
vice is found also in the myth, a ritual
and religious approach looking in its own
way beneath the empiric surface. How-
ever, SF sees the norms of any age, in-
cluding emphatically its own, as unique,
changeable, and therefore subject to cog-
nitive glance. The myth is diametrically
opposed to the cognitive approach since
it conceives human relations as fixed, and
supernaturally determined, emphatically
denying Montaigne's: "la constance
meme n'est qu'un branle plus languissant."
The myth absolutizes and even personifies
apparently constant motifs from the slug-
gish periods with low social dynamics.
Conversely, SF, which is organized by
extrapolating the variable and future- fly--that a humble third son could be ex-
bearing elements from the empirical en-
vironment, clusters in the great whirlpool
periods of history, such as the 16-17th
and 19-20th centuries. Where the myth
claims to explain once and for all the
essence of phenomena, SF posits them
first as problems and then explores where
they lead to; it sees the mythical static
identity as an illusion, usually as fraud, in Therefore, SF retrogressing into fairy-
the best case only as a temporary realiza-
tion of potentially limitless contingencies. cess-monster triangle in astronautic cos-
It does not ask about The Man or The
World, but which man?: in which kind
of world?: and why such a man in such
a kind of world? As a literary genre,
is just as opposed to supernatural anti-cognitive
trangement as to empiricism (natural-
ism).
SF is, then a literary genre whose nec-
essary and sufficient conditions are the
presence and interaction of estrangement
and cognition, and whose main formal
device is an imaginative framework al-
ternative to the author's empirical en-
vironment.
The estrangement differentiates it from
the "realistic" literary mainstream of 18th
to 20th century. The cognition differen-
tiates it not only from myth, but also
from the fairy tale and the fantasy. The
fairy tale also doubts the laws of the
author's empirical world, but it escapes
out of its horizons and into a closed col-
lateral world indifferent toward cognitive
possibilities. It does not use imagination as
a means to understand the tendencies in
reality, but as an end sufficient unto itself
and cut off from the real contingencies.
The stock fairy-tale accessory, such as
the flying carpet, evades the empirical
law of physical gravity-as the hero
evades social gravity-by imagining its
opposite. The wishfulfilling element is its
strength and weakness, for it never pre-
tends that a carpet could be expected to
pected to become a king-while there is
gravity. It just posits another world be-
side yours where some carpets do, magi-
cally, fly, and some paupers do, magical-
ly, become princes, and into which you
cross purely by an act of faith and fancy.
Anything is possible in a fairy tale, be-
cause a fairy tale is manifestly impossible.
tale (e.g. "space opera" with a hero-prin-
tume) is committing creative suicide.
Even less congenial to SF is the fantasy
(ghost, horror, Gothic, weird) tale, a
SF committed to the interposition of
genre
es- laws into the empirical en-
vironment. Where the fairy tale was in-
different, the fantasy is inimical to the

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376 COLLEGE ENGLISH

empirical world and its laws. The thesis hope can fertilize the SF field as an anti-
dote to pragmatism, commercialism,
could be defended that the fantasy is sig-
nificant insofar as it is impure and fails
other-directedness and technocracy.
to establish a super-ordinated maleficentClaiming a Galilean or Brunoan es-
world of its own, causing a grotesque trangement for SF does not at all mean
tension between arbitrary supernatural committing it to scientfic vulgarization
phenomena and the empirical norms they or even technological prognostication,
infiltrate.5 Gogol's Nose is so interesting
which it was engaged in at various times
(Verne, U.S. in the 1920's-1930's, U.S.
because it is walking down the Nevski
S.R. under Stalinism). The needful and
Prospect, with a certain rank in the civil
service, etc.; if the Nose were in a com-
meritorious task of popularization can be
a useful element of the SF works at a
pletely fantastic world-say H.P. Love-
craft's-it would be just another ghoulish
juvenile level. But even the roman scien-
thrill. When fantasy does not make for tifique such as Verne's From the Earth to
such a tension between its norms and the Moon-or the surface level of Wells'
the author's empirical environment, Invisible
its Man-though a legitimate SF
reduction of all possible horizons to is a lower stage in its development.
form,
It is
Death makes of it just a sub-literature ofvery popular with audiences just
mystification. Commercial lumpingapproaching
of it SF, such as the juvenile, be-
into the same category as SF is thus causeait introduces into the old empirical
grave disservice. context only one easily digestible new
The pastoral is essentially closer to
technological variable (Moon missile, or
SF. Its imaginary framework of a world
rays which lower the refractive index of
without money economy, state apparatus,
organic matter).6 The euphoria provoked
and depersonalizing urbanization allows it approach is real but limited, better
by this
suited to the short story and a new
to isolate, as in the laboratory, two human
motivations-erotics and power-hunger.audience. It evaporates much quicker as
This approach relates to SF as alchemy
the positivistic natural science loses pres-
does to chemistry and nuclear physics:
tige in the humanistic sphere after the
an early try in the right directionWorld
with Wars (cf. Nemo's as against the
U.S. Navy's atomic "Nautilus"), and
insufficient sophistication. SF has thus
surges back with prestigious peace-time
much to learn from the pastoral tradition,
primarily from its directly sensualapplications
rela- in new methodologies (astro-
tionships without class alientation. It has cybernetics). Even in Verne, the
nautics,
in fact often done so, whenever it structure
has of the "science novel" is that of
sounded the theme of the triumph of a pond
the after a stone has been thrown
humble (Restif, Morris, etc. up to Simak,
into it: there is a momentary commotion,
Christopher, Yefremov .. . ). Unfortu-
the waves go from impact point to peri-
nately, the baroque pastoral abandoned
phery and back, then the system settles
this theme and jelled into a sentimental
down as before. The only difference is
convention, discrediting the genre;that
butone positivistic fact-usually an item
of its
when the pastoral escapes preciosity, hardware-has been added, like the

5Since my first penning these lines, such a6Note the functional difference to the anti-
thesis has been ably developed in Tzvetan
gravity metal in Wells' First Man on the Moon
Todorov, Introduction a la littirature fantas- which is an introductory gadget and not the
tique, Paris 1970. be-all of a much richer novel.

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 On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre 377

stone to the pond bottom. This structure it, and in the corresponding naturalistic
of transient estrangement is specific to or "realistic" literature, ethics are in no
murder mysteries, not to a mature SF. significant relation to physics. Modern
After such delimitations, it is perhaps mainstream literature is forbidden the
possible at least to indicate some differ- pathetic fallacy of earthquakes announc-
entiations within the concept of "cogni- ing the assassination of rulers or drizzles
tiveness" or "cognition". As used here, accompanying the sadness of the hero-
this term does not imply only a reflecting ine. It is the activity of the protagonists,
of but also on reality. It implies a creative interacting with other, physically equally
approach tending toward a dynamic unprivileged figures, that determines the
transformation rather than toward a static outcome. However superior technologi-
mirroring of the author's environment.cally or sociologically one side in the con-
Such typical methodology of SF-fromflict may be, any predetermination as to
Lucian, More, Rabelais, Cyrano, andits outcome is felt as an ideological impo-
Swift to Wells, London, Zamiatin, and sition and genological impurity: the basic
the last decades-is a critical one, often rule of naturalistic literature is that man's
satirical, combining a belief in the poten-destiny is man, i.e. other humans.' On the
tialities of reason with methodical doubt contrary, in non-naturalistic, metaphysi-
in the most significant cases. The kinship cal literary genres discussed above, cir-
of this cognitive critique with the philo- cumstances around the hero are neither
sophical basis of modern science is evi- passive nor neutral. The fairy-tale world
dent. is oriented positively toward its pro-
tagonist. A fairy-tale is defined by
the hero's triumph: magic weapons
Science Fiction as a Literary Genre
and helpers are, with necessary nar-
(Functions and Models)
rative retardations, at his beck and call.
As a full-fledged literary genre, SF has Inversely, the world of the tragic myth
its own repertory of functions, conven- is oriented negatively toward its protag-
tions and devices. Many of them are onist. Oedipus, Attis or Christ are pre-
highly interesting and significant for lit- destined to empirical failure by the
erary theory and history, but their range nature of their world-but the failure is
can scarcely be discussed in a brief ap- then ethically exalted and put to religious
proach as it is properly the subject for a use. The fantasy-a derivation of the
book-length work. However, it might be tragic myth just as the fairy-tale derives
possible to sketch some determining pa-
71n cases such as some novels of Hardy and
rameters of the genre plays by Ibsen, or some of the more doctrinaire
In a typology of literary genres for works of the historical school of Naturalism,
our cognitive age, one basic parameter where determinism strongly stresses circum-
stances at the expense of the main figures' ac-
would take into account the relationship tivity, we have underneath a surface appear-
of the world(s) each genre presents and ance of "realism" obviously to do with an
the "zero world" of empirically verifiable approach to tragic myth using a shamefaced
motivation in an unbelieving age. As contrary to
properties around the author (this being Shakespeare and the Romantics, in this case
"zero" in the sense of a central referenceethics follow physics in a supposedly causal
point in a coordinate system, or of the chain (most often through biology). An analo-
gous approach to fairy-tale is to be found in,
control group in an experiment). Let ussay, the mimicry of "realism" found in the
call this empirical world naturalistic. InHollywood happy-end movies.

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378 COLLEGE ENGLISH

from the victorious hero myth-is definedative potentialities of an approach not

limited by a consuming concern with
by the hero's horrible helplessness: it can
be thought of as tragic mythemes with- empirical surfaces and relationships.
out metaphysical compensations. Thus, As a matter of historical record, SF
in the fairy-tale and the fantasy ethics has started from a pre-scientific or proto-
coincide with (positive or negative) scientific approach of debunking satire
physics, in the tragic myth they compen-and naive social critique, and moved
sate the physics, in the "optimistic" mythcloser to the increasingly sophisticated
they supply the coincidence withnatural a and human sciences. The natural
systematic framework. sciences caught up and surpassed the liter-
The world of a work of SF is not a ary imagination in the 19th century, the
priori intentionally oriented towardsciences
its dealing with human relationships
protagonists, either positively or nega- might be argued to have caught up with
tively; the protagonists may succeed it or
in their highest theoretical achieve-
fail in their objectives, but nothing in ments
the but have certainly not done so in
basic contract with the reader, in the their alienated social practice. In the 20th
physical laws of their worlds, guar- century, SF has moved into the sphere
antees either. SF is thus (possibly with of anthropological and cosmological
the exception of some prefigurations in thought, becoming a diagnosis, a warn-
the pastoral) the only meta-empirical ing, a call to understanding and action,
genre which is not at the same time and-most important-a mapping of pos-
sible alternatives. This historical move-
metaphysical; it shares with the dominant
literature of our civilization a mature ment of SF can be envisaged as an en-
richment of and shift from a basic direct
approach analogous to that of modern
or extropolative
science and philosophy. Furthermore, it model to an indirect or
shares the omnitemporal horizons ofanalogic
such model.
The earlier dominant model of SF
an approach. The myth is located above
time, the fairy-tale in a conventional
from the 19th century on (though not
necessarily in preceding epochs) was one
grammatical past which is really outside
which
time, and the fantasy in the hero's ab- started from certain cognitive hy-
potheses and ideas incarnated in the fic-
normally disturbed present. The natural-
tional framework and nucleus of the
istic literary mainstream and SF can
fable. This extrapolative model-e.g., of
range through all times: empirical ones
in the first, non-empirical ones in London's
the Iron Heel, Wells' The Sleeper
latter case. The naturalistic mainstream Wakes and Men Like Gods, Zamiatin's
concentrates on the present, but it can
We, Stapledon's Last and First Men, Pohl
deal with the historical past, and even and Kornbluth's Space Merchants, or
to some degree with the future in the Yefremov's Andromeda-is based on
form of hopes, fears, premonitions, direct, temporal extrapolation and cen-
dreams, et sim. SF concentrates on pos- tered on sociological (i.e., utopian and
anti-utopian) modelling. This is where
sible futures and their spatial equivalents,
but it can deal with the present and the the great majority of the "new maps of
hell" belongs for which postwar SF is
past as special cases of a possible historical
sequence seen from an estranged point justly famous, in all its manifold com-
of view (by a figure from another time binations of socio-technological scientific
cognition and social oppression (global
and/or space). SF can thus use the cre-

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 On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre 379

catastrophes, cybernetics, dictatorships). treated as a prophet: neither enthroned

Yet already in Wells' Time Machine and when apparently successful, nor be-
in Stapledon, this extrapolation tran- headed when apparently unsuccessful.
scended the sociological spectrum (from As Plato found out in the court of Di-
everyday practice through economics to onysus and Hythloday at cardinal Mor-
erotics) and spilled into biology and cos- ton's, SF figures better devote them-
mology. Nonetheless, whatever its osten- selves to their own literary republics,
sible location (future, "fourth dimension", which, to be sure, lead back-but in their
other planets, alternate universes), "ex- own way--to the Republic of Man. SF
trapolative modelling" is oriented futur- is finally concerned with the tensions be-
ologically. Its values and standards are tween Civitas Dei and Civitas Terrena,
to be found in the cognitive import of the and it cannot be uncritically committed
fable's premises and the consistency with to any mundane City.
which such premises (usually one or very The analogic model in SF is based on
few in number) are narratively developed analogy rather than extrapolation. Its
to its logical end, to a cognitively signifi- figures may but do not have to be anthro-
cant conclusion. pomorphic or its localities geomorphic.
SF can thus be used as a hand-maiden The objects, figures, and up to a point the
relationships from which this indirectly
of futurological foresight in technology,
ecology, sociology, etc. Whereas this modelled world starts can be quite fantas-
may be a legitimate secondary function tic (in the sense of empirically unverifi-
able) as long as they are logically, philo-
the genre can be made to bear, any obliv-
ion of its strict secondariness may leadsophically and mutually consistent. Again,
to confusion and indeed danger. Onto- as in all distinctions of this essay, one
should think of a continuum at whose
logically, art is not pragmatic truth nor
fiction fact. To expect from SF more extremes there is pure extrapolation and
than a stimulus for independent thinking,analogy, and of two fields grouped
more than a system of stylized narrative around the poles and shading into each
other on a wide front in the middle.
devices understandable only in their mu-
tual relationships within a fictional wholeThe lowest form of analogic modelling
and not as isolated realities, leads insen-
goes back to a region where distinction
sibly to critical demand for and of scien-between a crude analogy and an extrapo-
tific accuracy in the extrapolated realia.lation backwards are not yet distinguish-
Editors and publishers of such "hard" per-able: it is the analogy to Earth past, from
suasion have, from the U.S. pulp maga- geological through biological to ethno-
zines to the Soviet agitprop, been in- logical and historical. The worlds more
clined to turn the handmaiden of SF into or less openly modelled on the Carbonif-
the slavey of the reigning theology of erous Age, on tribal prehistory, on bar-
the day (technocratic, psionic, utopian, baric and feudal empires-in fact modelled
catastrophic, or whatever). Yet this fun- on handbooks of geology and anthropol-
damentally subversive genre languishes in ogy, on Spengler and The Three Muske-
strait-jackets more quickly than most teers-are unfortunately abundant in the
other ones, responding with atrophy, es-foothills of SF. Some of them may be use-
capism, or both. Laying no claim toful adolescent leisure reading, which one
should not begrudge; however, their un-
prophecies except for its statistically to
be expected share, SF should not be easy coexistence with a superscience in

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380 COLLEGE ENGLISH

the story framework or around the pro- The indirect models of SF fall, how-
tagonist, which is supposed to provideever,
an still clearly within its cognitive
SF alibi, brings them close to or over horizons
the insofar as their conclusions or
import
brink of minimum cognitive standards re- is concerned. The cognition
quired. The Burroughs-to-Asimov space-gained may not be immediately applica-
opera, cropping up in almost all U.S. ble, it may be simply the enabling of the
writers right down to Samuel Delany mind
be- to receive new wavelengths, but it
longs here, i.e., into the uneasy border-
eventually contributes to the understand-
line between inferior SF and non-SF ing of the most mundane matters. This is
(forms mimicking SF scenery but model-testified by the works of Kafka and Lem,
led on the structures of the Western and of Karel Capek and Anatole France, as
well as of the best of Wells and the "SF
other avatars of fairy-tale and fantasy).
reservation"
The highest form of analogic modelling writers.
would be the analogy to a mathematical
model, such as the fairly primary one ex- For a Poetics of Science Fiction
plicated in Abbott's Flatland, as well as
(Summation and Anticipation)
the ontological analogies found in a com-
pressed overview form in some stories byThe above sketch should, no doubt, be
Borges and the Polish writer Lem, and supplemented
in by a sociological analysis of
a somewhat more humane narration with the "inner environment" of SF, exiled
a suffering protagonist in some stories by since the beginning of 20th century into
Kafka (The Metamorphosis or In the a reservation or ghetto which was pro-
Penal Colony) and novels by Lem tective and is now constrictive, cutting
(Solaris). Such highly sophisticated philo-off new developments from healthy com-
sophico-anthropological analogies are petition and the highest critical standards.
today perhaps the most significant regionSuch a sociological discussion would en-
of SF, indistinguishable in quality fromable us to point out the important differ-
best mainstream writing. Situated be-ences between the highest reaches of the
tween Borges and the upper reaches into genre, glanced at in this essay in order to
which shade the best utopias, anti-satiresdefine functions and standards of SF, and
and satires, this semantic field is a modern the 80% or more of debilitating confec-
variant of the conte philosophique of thetionery. Yet it should be stressed that, as
18th century. Similar to Swift, Voltaire,different from many other para-literary
or Diderot, these modern parables fuse genres, the criteria for the insufficiency
new visions of the world with an appli- of most SF is to be found in the genre
cability-usually satirical and grotesqueitself. This makes SF in principle, if not
-to the shortcomings of our workadayyet in practice, equivalent to any other
world. As different from the older "major" literary genre.
Rationalism, a modern parable must be If the whole above argumentation is
open-ended by analogy to modern cos- acceptable, it will be possible to sup-
found
mology, epistemology, and philosophy plement
of it also by a survey of forms and
science.8 sub-genres. Beside some which recur in
an updated form-such as the utopia and
fabulous
8I have tried to analyze one such representa- voyage-the anticipation, the
tive work in my afterword to Lem's Solaris,
New York 1970, entitled "The Open-Ended superman story, the artificial intelligence
Parables of Stanislaw Lem and Solaris". story (robots, androids, etc.), time-travel,

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 On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre 381

catastrophe, the meeting with aliens, etc., Wells, and some general approaches to
would have to be analyzed. The various literature by people awake to method-
forms and sub-genres of SF could then ological interest, much spadework has
be checked for their relationships to been done.9 In the work of Lem (see note
other literary genres, to each other, and 1) we may even possess some corner-
to various sciences. For example, the stones for a needed critical home. If one
utopias are-whatever else they may be- may speculate on some fundamental fea-
clearly sociological fictions or social- tures or indeed axioms of such criticism,
science-fiction, whereas modern SF is the first might be the already mentioned
analogous to modern polycentric cosmol- one that the genre has to be evaluated
ogy, uniting time and space in Einsteinian proceeding from its heights down, apply-
worlds with different but co-variant di- ing the standards gained by the analysis
of its masterpieces. The second axiom
mensions and time scales. Significant mod-
ern SF, with deeper and more lasting
might be to demand of SF a level of
sources of enjoyment, also presupposescognition higher than that of its average
more complex and wider cognitions: reader:
it the strange novelty is its raison
d'etre. As a minimum, we must demand
discusses primarily the political, psycho-
from SF that it be wiser from the world
logical, anthropological use and effect of
sciences, and philosophy of science, andit speaks to.
the becoming or failure of new realitiesIn other words, this is an educational
as a result of it. The consistency of ex-
literature, hopefully less deadening than
trapolation, precision of analogy and most compulsory education in our split
width of reference in such a cognitive national and class societies, but irrever-
discussion turn into aesthetic factors. sibly shaped by the pathos of preaching
(That is why the "scientific novel" the dis-good word of human curiosity, fear,
cussed above is not felt as completely and hope. Significant SF (to which, as in
satisfactory-it is aesthetically poorall be-genres-but somewhat disappointingly
cause it is scientifically meager.) so-atOnceleast 95 % of printed matter claim-
the elastic criteria of literary structuring
ing the name does not belong) denies thus
have been met, a cognitive-in mostthe cases
"two-cultures gap" more efficiently
strictly scientific-element becomes a
than any other literary genre I know of.
measure of aesthetic quality, of theEven spe-more importantly, it demands from
cific pleasure to be sought in SF. In theotherauthor and reader, teacher and critic,
words, the cognitive nucleus of thenot plot
merely specialized, quantified posi-
co-determines the fictional estrangement tivistic knowledge (scientia) but a social
in SF. This works on all literary levels:imagination whose quality, whose wis-
dom (sapientia), testifies to the maturity
e.g., purely aesthetic, story-telling reasons
led modern SF to the cognitive assump- of his critical and creative thought.
tion of a hyperspace where flight speed
Selected Bibliography: Theory and
is not limited by the speed of light.
General Surveys of SF After Wells
Finally, it might be possible to sketch
the basic premises of a significant criti- Kingsley Amis, New Maps of Hell, New
York 1960.
cism, history and theory of this literary
genre. From Edgar Allan Poe to Damon 90n this continent, one ought to mention in
the first place Northrop Frye's Anatomy of
Knight, including some notable work on
Criticism, New York 1966, and Angus Fletcher's
the older sub-genres from the utopia to
Allegory, Ithaca, 1964.

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382 COLLEGE ENGLISH

"William Atheling Jr." (James Blish), The

Mark R. Hillegas, The Future as Nightmare,
Issues at Hand, Chicago 1970. New York 1967.
, More Issues at Hand, Chi- Damon Knight, In Search of Wonder, Chi-
cago 1970. cago 1967.
James O. Bailey, Pilgrims Through Space and Hans-Jiirgen Krysmansky, Die utopische
Time, New York 1947. Methode, Kiln 1967.
Henri Baudin, La Science-fiction, Paris-Mon- Stanislaw Lem, Fantastyka i futurologia 1-11,
treal 1971. Cracow 1970.
Reginald Bretnor ed., Modern Science Fiction, Sam Moskowitz, Explorers of the Infinite,
New York 1953. Cleveland 1963.

Jean-Jacques Bridenne, La littdrature francaise , Seekers of Tomorrow, New

d'imagination scientifique, Paris 1950. York 1967.
Anatolii Britikov, Russkii sovetskii nauchno-Alexei Panshin, Heinlein in Dimension, Chi-
fantasticheskii roman, Leningrad 1970. cago 1968.
Michael Pehlke and Norbert Lingfeld,
Roger Caillois, Images, images ..., Paris 1966.
Thomas Clareson ed., The Other Side of Real-Roboter und Gartenlaube, Munich 1970.
ism, Bowling Green, Ohio 1971. Martin Schwonke, Vom Staatsroman zur Sci-
I. F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War 1763-
ence Fiction, Stuttgart 1957.
1984, London-New York-Toronto 1966. Darko Suvin ed., Other Worlds, Other Seas,
New
Basil Davenport ed., The Science Fiction York 1970.
Novel, Chicago 1964. Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution,
Richard Gerber, Utopian Fantasy, LondonAnn Arbor 1960 (ch. 6).
1955. Donald A. Wollheim, The Universe Makers,
New York 1971.
Georgii Gurevich, Karta Strany Fantaziy,
Moscow 1967. The best available anthology is Robert Silver-
berg ed., The Mirror of Infinity, San Francisco
Ryszard Handke, Polska proza fantastyczno-
naukowa, Wroclaw 1969. 1970, with critical introductions by various
hands to each story.

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