Both scholars and enthusiasts have fiercely debated the historical timeline of science fiction as well as its definition: while some believe the genre to originate only in 1926 – with Hugo Gernsback’s first issue of Amazing Stories (Delany 26) – others point to 1818 – the year Mary Shelley published Frankenstein (Aldiss and Wingrove 18). Some scholars go back much further: Adam Roberts, for instance, drafts a chronology of key titles that, along with authors such as Plutarch and Lucian (346), includes several figures of the Italian literary tradition. According to Roberts, the interplanetary travels described in both Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia [The Divine Comedy] (c…
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Citation: Iozzia, Alberto. "Italian Science Fiction Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 November 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19590, accessed 26 April 2024.]
