Plato's Dream

Plato's Dream

Plato's Dream (1756) is a short story written in the 18th century by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. Along with Voltaire's 1752 short story Micromégas, Plato's Dream is considered by many to be one of the earliest works in the genre of science fiction.

Plato's Dream is a pointed philosophical criticism of religious doctrine, and though it is obscured by two layers of dramatic facade (a dream contained within the framework of a famous (and religiously-tolerated) personality of antiquity), Voltaire's intentions are quite clear. His story recounts a "little known" dream attributed to Plato, in which Demiurgos, a god-like entity referred to as the "eternal geometer", charges a number of "lesser superbeings" with the task of creating their own worlds. Demogorgon, the being which ultimately creates the planet we know as Earth, is at first quite pleased with his creation, only to find his eminently imperfect handiwork the subject of ridicule by the other beings. However, the last laugh is had at Demiurgos himself, who is humiliated after declaring himself the only being capable of creating perfection--as he was obviously the creator of the imperfect "lesser superbeings."

ee also

*"Gulliver's Travels"
*"Frankenstein"
*"The Last Man"
*"Utopia"

External links

* [http://wondersmith.com/scifi/plato.htm Online text of Plato's Dream]
*gutenberg|No=4649|name=Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Plato: metaphysics and epistemology — Robert Heinaman METAPHYSICS The Theory of Forms Generality is the problematic feature of the world that led to the development of Plato’s Theory of Forms and the epistemological views associated with it.1 This pervasive fact of generality appears …   History of philosophy

  • Dream argument — Part of a series on …   Wikipedia

  • Dream of Scipio — The Dream of Scipio (Latin, Somnium Scipionis ), written by Cicero, describes a fictional dream vision of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, set two years before he commanded at the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.Upon his arrival in Africa,… …   Wikipedia

  • Dana Plato — Plato in 1983 Born Dana Michelle Strain November 7, 1964(1964 11 07) Maywood, California, U.S. Died May 8, 1999( …   Wikipedia

  • Cheese dream — Una tosta de cheese dream. El cheese dream (en inglés significa: sueño de queso) se trata de una versión en formato de tosta de un sandwich de queso. Es un sándwich abierto que suele emplear queso cheddar como ingrediente. Contenido …   Wikipedia Español

  • Pesadilla en Elm Street 4: Dream Master — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda A nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master Título Pesadilla en Elm Street 4: Dream Master Ficha técnica Dirección Renny Harlin Datos y cifras …   Wikipedia Español

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child — Figura de Freddy Krueger en el Museo de Cera Veracruz Título Pesadilla en Elm Street 5(España) Pesadilla en la Calle del Infierno 5 (México) Pesadilla 5: El niño de los sueños (Argentin …   Wikipedia Español

  • The Dream of Scipio — is a novel by Iain Pears. It is set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western civilization the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the Black Death in the fourteenth, the Second World War in the twentieth through… …   Wikipedia

  • Micromégas — For the particle detector, see Micromegas detector. For the political magazine, see MicroMega. Micromégas (1752) is a short story by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. It is a significant development in the history of literature… …   Wikipedia

  • Demogorgon — This article is about the phantom demon Demogorgon. For other uses of this term, see Demogorgon (disambiguation). Demogorgon, although often ascribed to Greek mythology, is actually attributed to a fourth century scholar, imagined as the name of… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”