Extraterrestrial Life In Popular Culture

Information about Extraterrestrial Life In Popular Culture

For the scientific concept, see .

A scene from the motion picture, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

In popular cultures, life forms--especially intelligent life forms, that are of extraterrestrial origin, i.e. not coming from the Earth--are referred to collectively as aliens, or sometimes visitors.

This usage is clearly anthropocentric: when humans in fictional accounts accomplish interstellar travel and land on a planet elsewhere in the universe, the local inhabitants of these other planets are usually still referred to as "alien," even though they are the native life form and the humans are the intruders. In general they are seen as unfriendly life forms. This may be seen as a reversion to the classic meaning of "alien" (see foreigner) as referring to "other," in contrast to "us" in the context of the writer's frame of reference.

Aliens in poetry

There is a long history of writing about imagined meetings between aliens and humans, and poetry is no exception. Many serious poets, including former poets laureate Stanley Kunitz and Robert Hayden, have written celebrated poems on the topic of life beyond our world. The best of these poems complicate the expectations of the reader, such as Kunitz's poem "The Abduction" which subverts the popular notion of alien abduction by describing the event surreally and without the typical cast of characters. Other poems take on the topic as a way to offer an alternate view of humanity, or even a cultural critique. In Robert Hayden's poem "American Journal," an extraterrestrial describes American behavior to his superiors, and similarly, "The White Fires of Venus" by Denis Johnson, relates the observations of the inhabitants of Venus about humanity.

Historical ideas

The fictionalization of extraterrestrial life occurred before the 20th century. The didactic poet Henry More took up the classical theme of Cosmic pluralism of the Greek Democritus in "Democritus Platonissans, or an Essay Upon the Infinity of Worlds" (1647).^[1] With the new relative viewpoint that understood "our world's sunne / Becomes a starre elsewhere", More made the speculative leap to extrasolar planets,

the frigid spheres that 'bout them fare;

Which of themselves quite dead and barren are,

But by the wakening warmth of kindly dayes,

And the sweet dewie nights, in due course raise

Long hidden shapes and life, to their great Maker's praise.

The possibility of extraterrestrial life was a commonplace of educated discourse in the 17th century, though in Paradise Lost (1667)^[2] Milton cautiously employed the conditional when the angel suggests to Adam the possibility of life on the Moon:

Her spots thou seest

As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce

Fruits in her softened soil, for some to eat

Allotted there; and other Suns, perhaps,

With their attendant Moons, thou wilt descry,

Communicating male and female light,

Which two great sexes animate the World,

Stored in each Orb perhaps with some that live

Ancient stories and texts about demons, as in the Bible, may also have some connection to modern stories about alien abductions, mind control, and so on.

Fontanelle's "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds" with its similar excursions on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, expanding rather than denying the creative sphere of a Maker, was translated into English in 1686.^[3] In "The Excursion" (1728) David Mallet exclaimed, "Ten thousand worlds blaze forth; each with his train/Of peopled worlds."^[4]

References

1. ^ Democritus (1647). Democritus Platonissans, or an Essay Upon the Infinity of Worlds.
2. ^ Milton, John (1667). Paradise Lost.
3. ^ Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de (1686). Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds.
4. ^ Mallet, David (1728). The Excursion.

External links

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List of named species:
Works of fiction featuring unnamed alien races
See also
References

List of named species

A

Aaamazzarite (Star Trek)

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Popular culture (or pop culture) is the widespread cultural elements in any given society that are perpetuated through that society's vernacular language or lingua franca.
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Plantae

Chromalveolata

Heterokontophyta

Haptophyta

Cryptophyta

Alveolata

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Extraterrestrial life is life originating outside of the Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology, and its existence remains theoretical. There is no evidence of extraterrestrial life that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
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EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001. Their greatest hit, their debut single "time after time", peaked at #13 in the Oricon singles chart.
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Visitor, in United Kingdom law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution (i.e., a charitable institution set up for the perpetual distribution of the founder's alms and bounty), who can intervene in the internal affairs of that
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Anthropocentrism (Greek άνθρωπος, anthropos, human being, κέντρον, kentron, "center") is the idea that, for humans, humans must be the central concern, and that humanity must judge all
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Fiction is the telling of stories which are not entirely based upon facts. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes.
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This article or section uses citations that are either broken or outdated. This article or section uses citations that link to broken or outdated sources, and are deemed unreliable. Please [improve the article] or discuss this issue on the talk page.
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planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of
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The Universe is defined as the summation of all particles and energy that exist and the space-time in which all events occur. Based on observations of the portion of the Universe that is observable, physicists attempt to describe the whole of space-time, including all matter and
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Native may refer to:

Native (comics), a character in the X-Men comics universe
Native (band), a contemporary French R&B band
In computing, native software is software that is written for a specific processor (see on Wiktionary)

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For the animal behavior, see Territory (animal). For other uses, see Intruder (disambiguation).

An intruder is a person that enters territory that does not belong to that person.
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Foreigner may refer to:

Alien (law), a person who is not a native or naturalized citizen of the land where they are found
Foreigner (band), a popular rock band in the 70's and 80's<includeonly></includeonly>
Foreigner

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A frame of reference is a particular perspective from which the universe is observed. Specifically, in physics, it refers to a provided set of axes from which an observer can measure the position and motion of all points in a system, as well as the orientation of objects in it.
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Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible
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For the US Poet Laureate, see .

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. The plural form is poets laureate.
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Stanley Jasspon Kunitz /'kju:nɪts/ (July 29, 1905 – May 14, 2006) was a noted American poet who served two years (1974–1976) as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (a precursor to the modern Poet Laureate program), and served another year as United
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Robert Hayden (August 4 1913 - February 25 1980) was an American poet, essayist, and educator.

Life

Born as Asa Bundy Sheffey, Robert Hayden grew up in Detroit, Michigan.
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Denis Johnson
Born: 1949
Munich, Germanyof American parents
Occupation: Novellist
Nationality: ]American] period = 1983 to present genre = Fiction subject = movement = debut_works = influences = Leonard Gardner influenced = signature = website = footnotes =
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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Henry More (October 12 1614 – September 1, 1687) was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.

Biography

Henry was born at Grantham and was schooled at The King's School, Grantham.
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Cosmic pluralism, the plurality of worlds, or simply pluralism, describes the belief in numerous other worlds beyond the Earth which harbour extraterrestrial life.
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Democritus (Greek: Δημόκριτος) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace ca. 460 BC - died ca 370 BC).
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Paradise Lost

Title page of the first edition (1667)
Author John Milton
Country England
Language English
Genre(s) Epic poem
Publisher Samuel Simmons (original)
Publication date 1667
Media type Print
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John Milton

Born: November 9 1608
Bread Street, Cheapside, London, England
Died: November 8 1674 (aged 67)
Bunhill, London, England
Occupation: Poet, Prose Polemicist, Civil Servant
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demon (or daemon, dæmon, daimon from Greek: δαίμων [ğaïmon]) is a supernatural being that has generally been described as a malevolent spirit, and in Christian terms it is generally understood as a Fallen angel, formerly of
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The Bible is

Part of

(see The Hebrew Bible below)

Part of a series on Christianity

(see The New Testament below)

Bible
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Extraterrestrial Life In Popular Culture

Information about Extraterrestrial Life In Popular Culture

Aliens in poetry

Historical ideas

See also

Types of alien

UFOs

Other alien phenomena

Alien studies

Aliens in fiction

References

Further reading

External links

List of named species

A

Life

Biography