earth and sky

Lucan's Pharsalia and Manilius's Astronomica illustrates progressive thinking. Pharsalia sheds light onto an era which was born for blood. Grotesque accounts of violence, brutality, and chaos reflect a time of savagery while dipicting relevent themes which would illuminate a western way of thinking in time to come. Lucan's writing was a reflection of practical thinking in terms of the interaction of characters, the pursuit of power, and things relating to attainable value or worth, such as glory as a result of war and conflict. This writing is earth-centric. Lucan's writing is based on the life of the time, by which many fundamental issues are reflected within the literature. Pharsalia is a political poem which could be considered a very modernized aspect of poetry and perhaps ahead of its time. Aside from the dominant themes of war, deceit, passion, and revenge- all of which are very people or state oriented, the poetry focuses mainly on what could be considered Fact- attainable, physical, monetary things whereas literature such as Astronomica had quite the opposite agenda. This literature was born from theory. In the midevil period, poetry like Pharsalia made sense, however Manilius's focus was a dramatic step away from Fact, which would lead the modern audience into a comparision of Fact and Fiction. Manilius brought to light the idea of the universe with its mystique and phenomena, writing about star signs and horoscopes and detailing zodiacal geography. Astronomica is a poem which incorporates a scientific element, taking the audience on a path very different than the typical genre of the time. It is romantic within its science and, although elaborate and eccentric, it adds an element of humour to a time when humour was overshadowded by death and darkness. While Pharsalia illuminates characters in realistic roles, idealizing glory and heroism and articulating the circumstances of the time in terms of violence and war, Astronomica adds an element of the uknown. It is within this unknown which adds a sense of glory and intrigue into the uknown. It adds humour and lightness and takes its audience out of the real and into the surreal in order show that there is life beyond armour, beyond the cruelty, beyond the bloodshed. This literature engages us to use our minds in a creative light, away from the norm of sensible and typical...away from the 'what is, is what shall be' way of thinking.