Science in Eighteenth-Century French Literary Fiction: A Step to Modern Science Fiction and a New Definition of the Human Being?

Abstract

In eighteenth-century France, scientific progress and its spreading met a growing interest among public, an enthusiasm that was to be reflected in literature. Fictional works including scientific knowledge in their narrative made their appearance, paving the ground for a genre promised to a growing success in the following centuries—science fiction. The article presents three eighteenth-century French literary works, each one centered on a different domain of science: Voltaire’s Micromégas (1752), Charles-François Tiphaigne’s Amilec, or the Seeds of Mankind (Amilec, ou la graine d’hommes, 1753) and François-Félix Nogaret’s The Mirror of Current Events, or Beauty to the Highest Bidder (Le miroir des événements actuels, ou la belle au plus offrant, 1790). The first one, an iconic Enlightenment work that promotes critical thinking, relies on discoveries made in astronomy and optics. Tiphaigne de la Roche is far from sharing the fame of Voltaire, but his odd Amilec is noteworthy as it is possibly the very first science-fiction work in which biology is central. Written in the unique atmosphere of the French revolution, Nogaret’s work The Mirror of Current Events depicts androids-like interacting with humans. Our purpose is to show that these works were a precursor (proto science fiction) of the science fiction genre in literature, to describe how and what science or technology was depicted in them, and how they influenced the view of Man (humans) in eighteenth-century France.