Those of you who don’t know, there is a difference between the word Cosmology and Cosmogony. Often times we attribute the creation of our universe (and other, fictional universes) underneath the blanket term of Cosmology, and while it is true, Cosmology is far too wide a term to cover simply that. The definition of Cosmology, from webster, is a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe, which does not simply refer to the creation and origin of our universe, but covers whatever spiritual pantheons and material creations may have arisen out of that. But when we talk about the origin of a universe, the word Cosmogony is the specific word for that. (From webster, it is defined as a theory of the origin of the universe. Note that this is not limited to religious speculation; the Big Bang is a cosmogony by this definition as well.)
Now that we have covered that, what use is a Cosmology/Cosmogony in fiction? Let’s look at this in terms of earthly fiction and fantasy/science fiction.
In starting with earthly fiction, that is, fiction that takes place in our world, with our vanilla, plain jane history, one tends to assume that he/she/it has a good grasp of the various cosmologies of our world, both scientific and religious in nature. (There are many; drag yourself through a world religions class sometime.) One also tends to assume that readers have a good grasp of our world’s cosmologies. In most cases, one would be right. You could write a novel like Julie and Julia (not exactly fiction, I know) or Fight Club without really needing to delve into assumptions about the order and creation of our universe. But with those books you also have assumptions about culture, language and human behavior. In Fight Club we have the assumption (and often times I find it to be a true one) that humans, particularly American ones, deal with consumerism and complacency underneath a media that advertises entertainment and a celebrity culture to oppress them. Ok, this isn’t a far leap for us, especially in first world countries. We understand this, we live in it.
But where does cosmology come into this? Why does that help in understanding culture and writing about it? Well, our cosmology informs our religion/science (or vice versa), which often informs our way of life, which in turn informs our culture, which in turn adds to the global mosaic of all cultures of our world. So, when you write about our culture, you are writing about a consumerist culture that has had a history of individualistic and capitalistic philosophical thought; you are writing, essentially, about a group of people, a society, with a rich cosmology (primarily based off of the Judeo-Christian one, but our nation has left room for other ones to flourish here).
Now, I know this is only one line of history to our world culture, and that there are many cosmologies in our world, and that the Christian cosmology is not the only influencing cosmology in the global economy of religion, or even the only historical factor that led about to our consumerist society that is written about in Fight Club, but it does help to have one or more pillars of understanding of cosmology for writing earthly fiction, especially since our world is such an amalgamation of ideas and thought, it would be a shame to write something that is supposed to take place in our world but feel like it had no place here, as if it took place in the back corner of a yuppie’s mind. Everyone subscribes to a cosmology, atheistic or religious. Characters in stories do to and it helps to have an idea of these cosmologies to help establish what your characters believe, which in turn informs their thoughts, their words, and their actions.
But I’ve written a lot now, and most of it is wild speculation in something I have not majored in in college. I’ll save Fantastic Fiction (fantasy and science fiction stories, set in entirely other worlds or even entirely other universes) for next time. For now, auf Weidersehen!
pentagic 