17th Century Literature: October 26
Anthropological trajectory of The Man on the Moone
discovery of beings on moon followed quickly by return to Earth
Gonsales winds up in China, so he encounters another people shortly after meeting the people on the moon
Gonsales seems to want to leave everywhere that he winds up in so he can get back to his family
his narrative of his travels make it back to Europe before he does
he appears to be stuck in China for a while
irony that he spends the whole text talking about how he wants to get back to his family and yet his tale makes it back before he does
What Gonsales finds on the moon
importance of Gonsales being a dwarf is highlighted when he realizes that the moon is populated by a race of giants
giants’ height is proportionate to the amount of time that they live
morphology is an important marker of social hierarchy in the Lunar’s society
if you weren’t sufficiently tall, you would be exiled from their society
this social organization on the moon puts Gonsales at a significant disadvantage
The New Atlantis, The Man on the Moone and Utopia
societies in The New Atlantis and The Man on the Moone both seem utopian at first and then reveal sinister underbellies
mood of story moves from the utopia appearing to be an idyllic place to live to realizing that sketchy things are happening beneath the surface/seeming more ambiguous
people of ‘wicked disposition’ (usually marked by not being sufficiently tall) cast away
creates disturbing sense of ethnic cleansing/desire for genetic ‘purity’
idea people ought to be useful
both are portrayed as Christian utopias
p.112: society of Lunars is said to be modelled explicitly on Utopian ideal
in 1000 years we have had no war mongers, food grows without labour, man is provided with everything he needs and wants (including women), all women are beautiful and once a man has known (known=sexual knowledge) a woman, he has no desire to have any other ones
people are said to have no desire to murder and there are no wounds that cannot be cured
genre of Utopian writing seems anthropological in a way similar to Bacon; we have genre by which we encounter a new people and this is the set-up for our description of Utopia
Both Bacon’s people and Godwin’s people demonstrate an articulation of a potential problem that could cause social unrest, but the problem is always shut down effectively before it can have its negative impact
social non-cohesion is always ruled out
Both utopian societies are preoccupied with the prolonging of life
Lunar society seems to be interested in the same sorts of sciences that are listed at the end of The New Atlantis as the kinds of sciences that would be desirable for people to know
these similarities suggest this text engages with New Atlantis’s version of utopia
Strangeness of these utopian societies as Christian ideals
both Bacon and Godwin’s societies are preoccupied with trying to cheat death; but within Christianity, death is what brings you back to God’s kingdom
the human body is supposed to return to the ground
Christianity therefore seems superficial in these texts, especially because the types of knowledge that these characters seem to be concerned with are often occultist in nature
many passages do not fit into the dogma of then-present mainstream Christianity
both take place within “Another Paradise,” because they cannot return to the “Original Paradise (Garden of Eden)
trying to build a new one because they know the old one is no longer accessible to humanity
idea of alternate worlds implicit in this text
do alternate worlds exist?
how many alternate worlds are there?
how can we find out how many alternate worlds there are?
how many dimensions are there?
The Lunars’ associations with proto-eugenics and ethnic cleansing towards racial purity
height is determining factor of value to society/goodness
if you are not tall enough this is a common suggestion of an ‘imperfect disposition’
they don’t try to make them taller, they send them to Earth (their society does not use capital punishment)
Gonsales learns that he has likely already encountered other Lunars on earth before
the thing that has been discovered has been reversed (has already discovered them but just didn’t know it) and so the anthropological context changes as well
What are the lunars doing on Earth?
113: ordinary event for lunars to send their ‘wicked’ to North America
signifies there is a whole people that is descended exclusively from the Lunars—> implication that this is the Native American people
so, in Godwin’s account, Native Americans are the rejected Lunar people, which implies in turn that Native Americans are space aliens
second note on 113: continued use of tobacco, which is associated with English settlements in the Virginias
Thomas Harriot’s writings on Virginia
in tying to suggest that Native Americans are space aliens, Godwin is relying on Thomas Harriot’s 1588 publication that tries to depict the Native Americans of Virginia to European audiences in an anthropological manner
“late Elizabethan scientific weirdo”
interested in matters concerning telescopes, other magnifying lenses
1586/7, went on voyage with English people looking to survey lands in Virginia
Harriot discusses customs of the local people, with illustrations
early anthropological work
book depicts child raising
mothers carrying children on backs like backpacks is framed as unusual because it is not something that European mothers did
if you viewed the images from some angles, they would look chimerical
anthropological in nature because the images of the people are shown from both the frontal and dorsal view, as was typically done in anthropological works
what looks monstrous/chimerical from front (mother would look like she had extra arms and legs) looks loving and maternal from the back
also features anthropological images of warriors, religious figures
how the people cook and eat
what high feasts looked like
traditional Indigenous dance
Godwin’s descriptions of the Lunars seem to be based on the illustrations provided by Harriot’s book
elongated, unnatural body
for Godwin, long legs define morphology of lunar people
long legs inspire Godwin’s sense of the lunar people—image like this feeds into the idea that Native Americans are morphologically distinct from European people
in a weird way, lunar voyage is framed by/actually about the new world, and ideas about what Indigenous people were like that were created by works such as Harriot’s
Gonsales’s return to Earth
uses magic stones to get off the moon; weird business about gravity
will need this magic stone to be able to land properly
lands in China, not Seville
in part, this could be because the earth rotated and so he landed somewhere unexpected
becomes Marco Polo-like narrative
Godwin’s text takes huge leap forward to utopian vision for mankind then oddly reverts back to older, medieval formula for engagement with Eastern parts of the globe
in The New Atlantis, the sailors have their attention on China and Japan as well
fantasy of Christianizing new parts of the world
religious orders/missionaries
perhaps a reason why Gonsales would be made Catholic is reference to Jesuit missionary work
Jesuits considered themselves to be most educated of Catholics
Gonsales’s interactions with people of China
anthropological element of his interest in learning languages
learns “the tunes/uncouth sounds of the Lunars,” this seems to help him learn to understand Mandarin as well