Swinburne na statku kosmicznym : science fiction wobec nowoczesności

Abstract

Identification of the quatation from A.C. Swinburne's poem "Garden of Proserpine" allows us to put forward a thesis that the main issue in Brian W. Aldiss's SF novel "Non stop" (1958) is a critique of modernity. This critique concerns both technocratic and aesthetic aspects of modernity because they both create one narrative vision of "infinite epic" (such term was used by Stanislaw Brzozowski with reference to the Early Modern English poetry). Contrary to what Fredric Jameson once wrote, Aldiss's critique does not have the form of conservative negation of the idea of progress. The author's approach deems to be closer to the Socialist demand for a just participation in the costs and profits brought by modernity; since society vegetating on the ship bears all the costs of modernity: it is deprived of both of the past and future horizons; perfectly alienated. Its rebellion ends successfully, but such a narrative ending was possible only thanks to the "fairy-tale" turn of action.