Through the Daemon's Gate: Kepler's Somnium, Medieval Dream Narratives, and the Polysemy of Allegorical Motifs

This book tells the story of Johannes Kepler's Somnium , a narrative referred to as the first science-fiction story. The Somnium fuses supernatural and scientific models of the cosmos, presenting a defense of Copernicanism within a proto-science fiction story featuring witches, lunar inhabitants, and a daemon particularly well-versed in Neoplatonist and Copernican cosmological theories. While Kepler's debt to Neoplatonism is well documented, this is the first survey to examine one aspect of this influence, Kepler's use of the cosmic dream, in detail. This study explores the generic qualities of the fabulous narrative as well as the dream categories formulated by Macrobius and Artemidorus. This allows for a greater understanding not only of the Somnium , but of the philosophical transition from medieval to early modern in European culture.