CONCLUSION
Texts arise from history, take a place in history and many can claim an impact on history. Fantasy and Science Fiction genre literature add an explicit fourth aspect with the creation of the internal, speculative history within the text. The history present within The Book of the New Sun is a history of the far future conveyed with elements of our own past so ancient they seem invented. Yet Gene Wolfe’s tetralogy earns its place in literature for reasons far beyond its literary accomplishments in re-imaging and extrapolating history. It is the intervention by the The Book of the New Sun in the contemporary history of the author and readers via the political philosophy within the text that ensures the text holds claim to an impact on history.
The Book of the New Sun actively intervenes in the history of its time through the political philosophy that informs Gene Wolfe’s creation of the political and historical forces in his text. Wolfe is an ultra-conservative Catholic with an ideological adherence to Thomism and his text displays subtly created and argued anti-liberalism. Wolfe composed the deeply anti-liberal The Book of the New Sun in a time that saw crisis for Catholic Conservatism. At the very time the Catholic Church, through the Second Vatican Council, finally integrated some liberal values into Church doctrine, liberalism appeared to be failing in America. The Book of the New Sun conveys a political ideology that arises out of a particular school of political thought in direct answer to the political history of the time.
In order to identify and explicate the threads of political thought in The Book of the New Sun, an exemplary text of the anti-liberal Catholic ultra-conservatism political ideology, the writings of Carl Schmitt, have been mobilised. Almost unknown in English-speaking political thought until the decade in which The Book of the New Sun was published, Carl Schmitt wrote his political treatises within traditions and times similar to those of Gene Wolfe. A prominent Catholic jurist of the Weimar Republic and, more notoriously, of the Third Reich, Schmitt is the greatest critic of liberal democracy of the twentieth century. The revival of Schmitt’s political theories in the English-speaking world has stressed his relevance to the political debates of our times.
Using Carl Schmitt’s political ideology to illuminate the characterisation of the political in The Book of the New Sun shows the text explicitly engaging with history both within the text and outside the text. Wolfe’s political ideology becomes the means by which he selects the historical elements of his text and imagines the future history of this world. In order to convey his political convictions, however, Wolfe also specifically characterises the political in the text, embodying his concept of sovereignty in the narrator, Severian.
The subtlety of the political in The Book of the New Sun lies in this use of Severian, and his narrative arc, to convey the beliefs of the author to the readers of the text. In the evocation of the Commonwealth and its Autarch, Wolfe extrapolates an ultra-conservative society of autonomous political bodies ruled in a permanent state of crisis by an absolute sovereign, mirroring the lines of argument within the work of Carl Schmitt. The state portrayed in The Book of the New Sun displays a deep connection with the political ideologies of Catholic ultra-Conservatism produced in times of liberal democratic crisis, utilising a historically significant political theory to communicate to the audience of a genre text the deeply held beliefs and preoccupations of the author.
Gene Wolfe holds political beliefs that challenge the political system of his time, and The Book of the New Sun is his epically composed explication of those beliefs to the reader, intervening directly in our history and politics.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE PROBLEM OF SOVEREIGNTY AS THE PROBLEM OF THE LEGAL FORM AND OF THE DECISION IN THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andre-Driussi, M., 'A Closer Look at the Brown Book: Gene Wolfe's Five-Faceted Myth', New York Review of Science Fiction, Vol 54, Feb 1993, pp. 14-19.
Andre-Driussi, M., ‘Posthistory 101’, Extrapolation, Vol 37, 1996, pp. 127-138.
Andre-Driussi, M., 'Gene Wolfe at the Lake of Birds', Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, Vol 66, Spring 1996, pp. 5-12.
Andre-Druissi, M., Lexicon Urthus: A Dictionary for the Urth Cycle, Albany, Sirius Fiction, 1994.
‘An Interview with Gene Wolfe’, Balticon Podcast, Episode 28, http://balticonpodcast.org/wordpress/?p=56, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Balakrishnan, G., The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt, London, Verso, 2000.
Bendersky, J. W., Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1983.
Borski, R., 'Masks of the Father: Paternity in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun', New York Review of Science Fiction, vol. 138, Feb 2000, pp. 1, 8-16
Borski, R., 'Catherine and Beyond: A Search for Maternal Roots in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun’, New York Review of Science Fiction, vol. 128, April 1999, pp. 6-7
Borski, R., ‘Swimming with Undines: Sex and Metomorphosis in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.’ The Internet Review of Science Fiction [online journal], vol. 1(1), January 2004.
Boyle, K., The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism: 1945-1968, New York, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Clareson, T., 'Science Fiction, Literary Tradition, and Intellectual History', in Williamson, J., (ed.), Teaching Science Fiction Education for Tomorrow, Philadelphia, Owlswick Press, 1980, pp. 44-51.
Clute, J., ‘On the Cusp of Fear’, Broderick, D., (ed), Earth is but a star, Perth, UWA Press, 2001.
Clute, J., Strokes, Serconia Press, 1988.
Cooper, B., Kornberg, A., Mishler, W., The Resurgence of Conservatism in Anglo-American Democracies, Duke University Press, 1988.
Counihan, E., ‘A Picture of Gene Wolfe,’ Interzone, No. 119, May 1997, pp. 19-23.
Douglass, R. B., Hollenbach, D., Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Philosophy, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Dunn, C.W., Woodard, J., Conservative Tradition in America, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
Dyzenhaus, D., Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar, London, Oxford University Press, 1997.
Feeley, G., 'The Evidence of Things Not Shown: Family Romance in The Book of the New Sun', New York Review of Science Fiction, (part 1) Vol 31, Mar 1991, and (part 2) Vol 32, April 1991.
Forsyth, M., Keens-Soper, M., (eds) The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Gaiman, N., 'When Worlds Collide: an interview with Gene Wolfe', Borders, http://bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=gaimanwolfe, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gaiman, N., 'The Wolfe & Gaiman Show', Locus, Vol. 49 No. 3, September 2002.
Gevers, N., 'A Magus of many Suns: an interview with Gene Wolfe', The SF Site, January 2002, http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gevers, N., Andre-Driussi, M., Jordan, J., 'Some moments with the Magus: An interview with Gene Wolfe', Infinity Plus, http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgw.htm, 2003, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gordon, J., ‘The Book of the New Sun’ in Gene Wolfe, Washington, Starmont House Inc, 1986.
Gottfried, P., Thinkers of Our Time: Carl Schmitt, London, The Claridge Press, 1990.
Hamburger, P., Separation of Church and State, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2002.
Hoeveler Jnr, J. D., The Postmodernist Turn: American Thought and Culture in the 1970s, New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Jordan, J., 'Gene Wolfe Interview', http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html, 1992, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Kaiser, W., Wohnout, H., Political Catholicism in Europe: 1918-1945, New York, Routledge, 2004.
Kennedy, E., Constitutional Failure: Carl Schmitt in Weimer, London, Duke University Press, 2004.
McCormick, J. P., Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism: Against Politics as Technology, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Newman, J. H., Selected Writings to 1845, Radcliffe, A. E. (ed), New York, Routledge, 2002.
Novak, M., Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions: Freedom with Justice, 2nd edition, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Transaction Publishers, 2000.
Malekin, P., 'Remembering the Future: Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun’ in D. E. Morse (ed.), The Fantastic in World Literature and the Arts. London, Greenwood Press, 1987.
McLeod, K., 'History in SF: What (hasn't Yet) Happened in History', in Sandison, A. and Dingley, R., (eds.), Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction, New York, Palgrave, 2000, pp. 8-14.
Meier, H., Carl Schmitt & Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, J. H. Lomax (trans), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Miller, D., The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, London, Blackwell Publishing, 1987.
Moorcock, M., Wizardry and Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy, London, Gollancz, 1987.
Mouffe, C., The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, London, Verso, 1999.
Palumbo, D., ‘The Monomyth in Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun’, Extrapolation, Summer 2005, 46:2, Academic Research Library, pp. 189-234.
Rose, M.. Alien Encounters: Anatomy of Science Fiction, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981.
Rowland, T., Culture and the Thomist Tradition After Vatican II, London, Routledge, 2003
Schmitt, C., Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Schwab, G. (trans), Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1985.
Schmitt, C., The Concept of the Political, Schwab, G. (trans), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Smith, C., The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Stankiewicz, W. J., Aspects of Political Theory: Classical Concepts in an Age of Relativism, London, Collier Macmillan, Transaction Publishers, 1976.
Strickland, G., 'Author Profile: Gene Wolfe', The Templeton Gate, http://members.tripod.com/templetongate/genewolfe.htm, (accessed 25 June 2007).
Swanson, E., 'Gene Wolfe', Interzone, Number 17, 1986.
Weaver, M. J., Appleby, R. S., Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1995.
Wolfe, G., The Book of the New Sun: Shadow and Claw, London, Millenium, 2000.
Wolfe, G., The Book of the New Sun: Sword and Citadel, London, Millenium, 2000.
Wolfe, G., The Urth of the New Sun, New York, Tom Doherty Associates Inc, 1987.
Wolfe, G., The Castle of the Otter, Connecticut, Ziesing Brothers, 1982.
Wolfe, G., The Best Introduction to the Mountains, http://home.clara.net/andywrobertson/wolfemountains.html, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Wolin, R., Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001.
Wright, P., Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2003.
Texts arise from history, take a place in history and many can claim an impact on history. Fantasy and Science Fiction genre literature add an explicit fourth aspect with the creation of the internal, speculative history within the text. The history present within The Book of the New Sun is a history of the far future conveyed with elements of our own past so ancient they seem invented. Yet Gene Wolfe’s tetralogy earns its place in literature for reasons far beyond its literary accomplishments in re-imaging and extrapolating history. It is the intervention by the The Book of the New Sun in the contemporary history of the author and readers via the political philosophy within the text that ensures the text holds claim to an impact on history.
The Book of the New Sun actively intervenes in the history of its time through the political philosophy that informs Gene Wolfe’s creation of the political and historical forces in his text. Wolfe is an ultra-conservative Catholic with an ideological adherence to Thomism and his text displays subtly created and argued anti-liberalism. Wolfe composed the deeply anti-liberal The Book of the New Sun in a time that saw crisis for Catholic Conservatism. At the very time the Catholic Church, through the Second Vatican Council, finally integrated some liberal values into Church doctrine, liberalism appeared to be failing in America. The Book of the New Sun conveys a political ideology that arises out of a particular school of political thought in direct answer to the political history of the time.
In order to identify and explicate the threads of political thought in The Book of the New Sun, an exemplary text of the anti-liberal Catholic ultra-conservatism political ideology, the writings of Carl Schmitt, have been mobilised. Almost unknown in English-speaking political thought until the decade in which The Book of the New Sun was published, Carl Schmitt wrote his political treatises within traditions and times similar to those of Gene Wolfe. A prominent Catholic jurist of the Weimar Republic and, more notoriously, of the Third Reich, Schmitt is the greatest critic of liberal democracy of the twentieth century. The revival of Schmitt’s political theories in the English-speaking world has stressed his relevance to the political debates of our times.
Using Carl Schmitt’s political ideology to illuminate the characterisation of the political in The Book of the New Sun shows the text explicitly engaging with history both within the text and outside the text. Wolfe’s political ideology becomes the means by which he selects the historical elements of his text and imagines the future history of this world. In order to convey his political convictions, however, Wolfe also specifically characterises the political in the text, embodying his concept of sovereignty in the narrator, Severian.
The subtlety of the political in The Book of the New Sun lies in this use of Severian, and his narrative arc, to convey the beliefs of the author to the readers of the text. In the evocation of the Commonwealth and its Autarch, Wolfe extrapolates an ultra-conservative society of autonomous political bodies ruled in a permanent state of crisis by an absolute sovereign, mirroring the lines of argument within the work of Carl Schmitt. The state portrayed in The Book of the New Sun displays a deep connection with the political ideologies of Catholic ultra-Conservatism produced in times of liberal democratic crisis, utilising a historically significant political theory to communicate to the audience of a genre text the deeply held beliefs and preoccupations of the author.
Gene Wolfe holds political beliefs that challenge the political system of his time, and The Book of the New Sun is his epically composed explication of those beliefs to the reader, intervening directly in our history and politics.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE PROBLEM OF SOVEREIGNTY AS THE PROBLEM OF THE LEGAL FORM AND OF THE DECISION IN THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andre-Driussi, M., 'A Closer Look at the Brown Book: Gene Wolfe's Five-Faceted Myth', New York Review of Science Fiction, Vol 54, Feb 1993, pp. 14-19.
Andre-Driussi, M., ‘Posthistory 101’, Extrapolation, Vol 37, 1996, pp. 127-138.
Andre-Driussi, M., 'Gene Wolfe at the Lake of Birds', Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, Vol 66, Spring 1996, pp. 5-12.
Andre-Druissi, M., Lexicon Urthus: A Dictionary for the Urth Cycle, Albany, Sirius Fiction, 1994.
‘An Interview with Gene Wolfe’, Balticon Podcast, Episode 28, http://balticonpodcast.org/wordpress/?p=56, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Balakrishnan, G., The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt, London, Verso, 2000.
Bendersky, J. W., Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1983.
Borski, R., 'Masks of the Father: Paternity in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun', New York Review of Science Fiction, vol. 138, Feb 2000, pp. 1, 8-16
Borski, R., 'Catherine and Beyond: A Search for Maternal Roots in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun’, New York Review of Science Fiction, vol. 128, April 1999, pp. 6-7
Borski, R., ‘Swimming with Undines: Sex and Metomorphosis in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.’ The Internet Review of Science Fiction [online journal], vol. 1(1), January 2004.
Boyle, K., The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism: 1945-1968, New York, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Clareson, T., 'Science Fiction, Literary Tradition, and Intellectual History', in Williamson, J., (ed.), Teaching Science Fiction Education for Tomorrow, Philadelphia, Owlswick Press, 1980, pp. 44-51.
Clute, J., ‘On the Cusp of Fear’, Broderick, D., (ed), Earth is but a star, Perth, UWA Press, 2001.
Clute, J., Strokes, Serconia Press, 1988.
Cooper, B., Kornberg, A., Mishler, W., The Resurgence of Conservatism in Anglo-American Democracies, Duke University Press, 1988.
Counihan, E., ‘A Picture of Gene Wolfe,’ Interzone, No. 119, May 1997, pp. 19-23.
Douglass, R. B., Hollenbach, D., Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Philosophy, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Dunn, C.W., Woodard, J., Conservative Tradition in America, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
Dyzenhaus, D., Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar, London, Oxford University Press, 1997.
Feeley, G., 'The Evidence of Things Not Shown: Family Romance in The Book of the New Sun', New York Review of Science Fiction, (part 1) Vol 31, Mar 1991, and (part 2) Vol 32, April 1991.
Forsyth, M., Keens-Soper, M., (eds) The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Gaiman, N., 'When Worlds Collide: an interview with Gene Wolfe', Borders, http://bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=gaimanwolfe, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gaiman, N., 'The Wolfe & Gaiman Show', Locus, Vol. 49 No. 3, September 2002.
Gevers, N., 'A Magus of many Suns: an interview with Gene Wolfe', The SF Site, January 2002, http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gevers, N., Andre-Driussi, M., Jordan, J., 'Some moments with the Magus: An interview with Gene Wolfe', Infinity Plus, http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgw.htm, 2003, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Gordon, J., ‘The Book of the New Sun’ in Gene Wolfe, Washington, Starmont House Inc, 1986.
Gottfried, P., Thinkers of Our Time: Carl Schmitt, London, The Claridge Press, 1990.
Hamburger, P., Separation of Church and State, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2002.
Hoeveler Jnr, J. D., The Postmodernist Turn: American Thought and Culture in the 1970s, New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Jordan, J., 'Gene Wolfe Interview', http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html, 1992, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Kaiser, W., Wohnout, H., Political Catholicism in Europe: 1918-1945, New York, Routledge, 2004.
Kennedy, E., Constitutional Failure: Carl Schmitt in Weimer, London, Duke University Press, 2004.
McCormick, J. P., Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism: Against Politics as Technology, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Newman, J. H., Selected Writings to 1845, Radcliffe, A. E. (ed), New York, Routledge, 2002.
Novak, M., Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions: Freedom with Justice, 2nd edition, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Transaction Publishers, 2000.
Malekin, P., 'Remembering the Future: Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun’ in D. E. Morse (ed.), The Fantastic in World Literature and the Arts. London, Greenwood Press, 1987.
McLeod, K., 'History in SF: What (hasn't Yet) Happened in History', in Sandison, A. and Dingley, R., (eds.), Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction, New York, Palgrave, 2000, pp. 8-14.
Meier, H., Carl Schmitt & Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, J. H. Lomax (trans), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Miller, D., The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, London, Blackwell Publishing, 1987.
Moorcock, M., Wizardry and Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy, London, Gollancz, 1987.
Mouffe, C., The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, London, Verso, 1999.
Palumbo, D., ‘The Monomyth in Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun’, Extrapolation, Summer 2005, 46:2, Academic Research Library, pp. 189-234.
Rose, M.. Alien Encounters: Anatomy of Science Fiction, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981.
Rowland, T., Culture and the Thomist Tradition After Vatican II, London, Routledge, 2003
Schmitt, C., Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Schwab, G. (trans), Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1985.
Schmitt, C., The Concept of the Political, Schwab, G. (trans), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Smith, C., The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Stankiewicz, W. J., Aspects of Political Theory: Classical Concepts in an Age of Relativism, London, Collier Macmillan, Transaction Publishers, 1976.
Strickland, G., 'Author Profile: Gene Wolfe', The Templeton Gate, http://members.tripod.com/templetongate/genewolfe.htm, (accessed 25 June 2007).
Swanson, E., 'Gene Wolfe', Interzone, Number 17, 1986.
Weaver, M. J., Appleby, R. S., Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1995.
Wolfe, G., The Book of the New Sun: Shadow and Claw, London, Millenium, 2000.
Wolfe, G., The Book of the New Sun: Sword and Citadel, London, Millenium, 2000.
Wolfe, G., The Urth of the New Sun, New York, Tom Doherty Associates Inc, 1987.
Wolfe, G., The Castle of the Otter, Connecticut, Ziesing Brothers, 1982.
Wolfe, G., The Best Introduction to the Mountains, http://home.clara.net/andywrobertson/wolfemountains.html, (accessed 14 February 2007).
Wolin, R., Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001.
Wright, P., Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2003.
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