Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2013
Abstract
This article discusses how Verne mythologizes and poeticizes his fictional machines. More than just a means for solving problems and/or for providing access to exotic geographical locales, Verne’s technology is portrayed as being intrinsically poetic. Bridging the worlds of the industrial and the artistic, Verne’s machines constitute a new kind of objet d’art. Anthropomorphized to make them seem less coldly mechanical, these devices take on a life of their own and exist in a richly symbiotic relationship with their creators. Such machines transport the readers of Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires beyond the mimetic, serving both as a means to build verisimilitude and as a stepping-stone to transcend the real.
Recommended Citation
Post-print of: Evans, Arthur B. “Jules Verne’s Dream Machines: Technology and Transcendence,” Extrapolation, Vol. 54.2 (2013): 129-146. Copyright Liverpool University Press. The original article may be obtained here: http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/extr.2013.8
