Denying the Two Cultures gap: music and science fiction

Abstract:
Darko Suvin stated in his essay, ‘On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre,’ that ‘Significant science fiction denies…the “two cultures gap” more effectively than any other genre I know of” [Suvin, Darko (1976) ‘On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre’ in Science Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall) p.71].

In this paper I have combined ideas like Suvin’s about science fiction, and some of my own research into electronic music as the gap between the two cultures, to explore the use of music in science fiction.

I use examples such as Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984 and Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, along with some other less well-known stories by Silverberg, Ballard, Bradbury, Biggles and Heinlein to look at some ways in which music plays a significant part in science fiction stories.

Some of the themes I touch upon include; folk music as a representation of revolution and hope, music as a mind-control device, parallels between the fictional music and what was actually happening at the time of writing, and music as a representation of the cosmos. I talk about these stories within the wider context of the closing of a gap between the arts and the sciences.