Stanisław Lem's Summa Technologiae: Mirror Text to The Cyberiad.
Stanisław Lem's Summa Technologiae (1964), published for the first time in English nearly fifty years after its first publication in Polish, is of interest today primarily for the ideas Lem formulated that have not yet been taken up in a serious way, and for the light it sheds on his fiction, especi...
| Publicado en: | Science Fiction Studies Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 417 - 428 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
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University of California Press
Nov2013
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=91655618&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 91655618 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00917729 SFS jtl: Science Fiction Studies issn: 00917729 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2013 vid: 40 iid: 3 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 91655618 10.5621/sciefictstud.40.3.0417 ppf: 417 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 201KB tig: atl: Stanisław Lem's Summa Technologiae: Mirror Text to The Cyberiad. aug: au: Hayles, N. Katherine su: Lunar excursion module Summa Technologiae (Book) Lem, Stanislaw, 1921-2006 Fiction Prose literature Satire sug: subj: Lunar excursion module Summa Technologiae (Book) Lem, Stanislaw, 1921-2006 Fiction Prose literature Satire ab: Stanisław Lem's Summa Technologiae (1964), published for the first time in English nearly fifty years after its first publication in Polish, is of interest today primarily for the ideas Lem formulated that have not yet been taken up in a serious way, and for the light it sheds on his fiction, especially The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age, published a year after Summa. Whereas the prose of Summa is serious to the point of being stilted and awkward (according to Summa's translator), the language of The Cyberiad is pyrotechnic, with allusions, puns, neologisms, metaphors, and alliterations abounding. It is as if the strain of writing a text that Lem hoped would establish his credibility as a serious thinker in the international scientific community registered stylistically as ponderous prose, creating a kind of inverted mirror text to the linguistic creativity and freedom on display in The Cyberiad. The same kind of mirror relationship is apparent in the conceptual structures of the two texts. Ideas mentioned but scorned in Summa as being too much like ungrounded sf speculation form the bases for several of The Cyberiad's stories, appearing there as witty satires that explore the ethical, cultural, and linguistic significance of scientific and pseudoscientific ideas mentioned in Summa. The English translation of Summa thus invites new and rich interpretations of The Cyberiad, perhaps Lem's most well-known work in the Anglophone world. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Science Fiction Studies is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Science Fiction Studies holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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