Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena XIV

Elenco dei contributi

38. Baroque Skies, Postmodern Narratives: Astronomy and Storytelling in Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before

Giangiacomo Gandolfi (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF))

Umberto Eco’s third novel, The Island of the Day Before (1994), is both a feast of postmodernism and a playful reworking of seventeenth-century literary culture, offering an insightful account of the rapid rise of Baconian science. The adventures of the young nobleman Roberto della Griva, stranded on a nearly deserted ship in the southern hemisphere, become both a physical and an intellectual...