Sunday, September 26, 2010

Steampunk, Augustan Style?

'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense." -Alexander Pope
I do think that steampunk should not be overly-associated with the Victorian era. The elements are there, yes- the Industrial Revolution and the advancement of sciences and exploration, makes it a facile conclusion to attribute the popularity of the Grand Aesthetic of Steam and Brass to its relevance to our own time. What now, if we went further back... to the more mechanical (clockpunk, if you will) Augustan age?
Augustan Age- that period sparked in 1688, the "Glorious Revolution" when England submitted to the reign of William and Mary, followed shortly thereafter by Queen Anne and after her, the Hanoverian Kings. Directly after the Glorious Revolution, the two main political factions were the Whigs and the Tories, each having espoused the betterment of the nation, liberty, and trade as their cause, and vociferously denying the opposing party's ability to accomplish the same. And like our modern polemics, there was a new stage on which to carry their arguments and promote their views- the pamphlet, as opposed to the editorial, and the periodical essay, in place of the political blog.
For these reasons, why not see more speculative science fiction set in this era? One might see alchemy re-imaged as having more of natural philosophy to it, and some more differences ascribed to the parties- for instance, if the Tories were opposed to advancement in alchemical enterprises as Meddling in God's Business, and the Whigs on the other hand denouncing clockwork and mechanical engineering curiousities as "unprofitable debasement of materials and men".
Although I have been told that Neal Stephenson (of Snow Crash fame) has done some similar work in The Baroque Cycle, haven't had the chance to read it (I'm lucky to get to work on my thesis, never mind recreational reading). Regardless, I hope to see more people exploring this period of history for thematic elements (and the Neoclassical ideas associated with it) as the steampunk phenomenon develops.