Science Fiction

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Origins

Science fiction is a narrative genre that emerged in response to the revolutions in science, technology, and industrial production that commenced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Science fiction is a narrative genre that emerged in response to the revolutions in science, technology, and industrial production that commenced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Human societies had always experienced periods of tumultuous change from such causes as war, famine, and plague. However, as Robert Scholes has argued, the idea of future societies with radically different social and economic organisation was probably unthinkable before the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while the transformation of societies by irreversible technological change became apparent

3694 words

Citation: Blackford, Russell Kenneth. "Science Fiction". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 November 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1226, accessed 12 December 2024.]

1226 Science Fiction 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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