SCIENCE AND FICTION IN MODERNIST LITERATURE
SCIENCE AND FICTION IN MODERNIST LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: The extraordinary development of science and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries led to a changed perspective of the position of man in the world and of the beliefs and values that had existed in the western world. A new type of society was emerging, but the direction was not clear at all. While religious faith was shaken for the second time after the Enlightenment by the development of scientific reason and rationality, some turned in adulation to science as to a new form of religion. Many scholars, scientists and educators were searching for equilibrium, for a balance between the two apparently irreconcilable enemies, as the only way to have a proper, guided development of scientific discoveries and technological advance checked by a continuous emphasis on the moral principles that should govern society first and foremost. That was the general atmosphere in which a series of prominent figures from the worlds of science and letters were formed and were encouraged to express their views on the future of mankind. One good example in this was is Aldous Huxley with his novel Brave New World.

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