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.

So, What is Steampunk? Cont'd

To finish up on settings- I don't know if this will help further in describing the difference between steampunk, clockpunk, and cyberpunk, but here it goes: My quick and dirty guide to distinctions in setting:
If a fantastic garden of singing plants appeared in your backyard, and it was caused by Victorian fairies only visible using special crystal lenses and you devised cases of leather, brass and the crystal to catch them= steampunk.
If the fairies in question are gnomes using wound-up (but still magical) devices to power their garden, which is part of a giant and wholly automated astrogation device that uses nothing more advanced than a simple toothed escapement, and you catch them in a spring trap= clockpunk.
If the fairies are, in fact, an alien species and the garden is one of their artifacts, and you catch them with a vacuum cleaner and wear black goggles to see the radioactive exudia of their skin because they look normal= cyberpunk, especially if you get onto their ship and off of 21st century Earth.

Far more important than the stylistic elements (which sometimes have more bearing on illustrations than on the plot itself) are the themes of the same period that steampunk purports to take place in- that is, Regency-Victorian themes. These themes are the quintessence of steampunk, especially since the literature is an often-idealized version the Victorian era.

Gothic horror stories and the English Decadence of Wilde are particularly evocative of the genre, as are more "brainy" works such as Conan Doyle. Of course, Edgar Allen Poe was also influenced by Gothic-Romantic themes. In fact, his short story The Man That Was Used Up is recommended to people who want to write an effective steampunk suspense story with the majority of the “steam” well-hidden until the end. Be warned: you might have a hard time sleeping afterwards. Of course, part of the reason this story is recommended is because it implicitly deals with a common theme that should be treated in some manner: scientific and moral law called into question. Is it right to keep a man alive beyond the use of any of his natural organs and limbs, as in the case of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith?
This is one of the problematic questions; other similar ones are raised or grappled with in towering classics like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. For another example of Gothic horror sans science fiction, try George Eliot's The Lifted Veil, which also deals with forbidden knowledge and moral dilemma.

Without generalizing too much (and I have generalized a lot, especially in my first post) we can say that an earnest question to ask in dramatic steampunk is this: Is it right to defy natural law, and under what conditions will a man of sufficient genius attempt to usurp nature and Providence? For the idea of a natural order and Providence needs to be omnipresent in the story- there is the center of conflict. There must be rules before there can be any rule-defying.

So, What Is Steampunk?

Whenever I mention my writing projects, inevitably someone either says "Oh, like The Difference Engine" or "You mean like Hellboy 2?", or (but not so often) "Like that Treasure Planet". And although there is a lot of similarities, to be honest I've never read The Difference Engine.
But what constitutes steampunk? More specificially, what do I mean when I say I'm writing a steampunk romance? Of course, I mean romance in the literary sense of "containing extraordinary characters and an overarching theme", although these ladies can provide fine examples of your modern romance.
But back to steampunk. It is often confused with cyberpunk, and between the confusion of the two and the fact that they mainly developed on the Internet makes research tricky. From the two genres comes clockpunk, pirate-punk, and no doubt other types of "punk" will be discovered. The Foglios also have made the distinction of gaslamp fantasy for more widesweeping changes in both scientific achievement in both physics and biology.
Origins- Early examples of what would eventually be termed cyberpunk and steampunk come from the 1930s and 1940s, with Fritz Lang's Metropolis being one of the prominent examples of cyberpunk. As such, it portrayed a harsh, brilliant world of science both originating from and struggling against human emotion and desires. The world of the future is rooted organically in its architects- both villains and heroes. Such is cyberpunk, which commonly can be detected by the anachronistic presence of outdated and obsolete-looking equipment alongside incredibly advanced technology. Think of the real world Neo wakes up in at the middle of The Matrix. Or most of futuristic anime. If you see goggles or a victrola in a space setting, it's cyberpunk.
Steampunk is the reverse, featuring advanced scientific achievement and gadgets in a Victorian/Regency setting. Victorian era = steam engines, hence Steampunk. Clockpunk is very closely related, but I think of it as more stylistic since the big thing seems to be gears, escapements, and automata made from such, and there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in ethos. Steampunk and clockpunk describe the same world: Victorian clothes, awesome gadgets, and amazing gallantry. That is my version of steampunk, and what I will review and post on. For Science!