Aesthetic science and the encyclopedic novels of Joyce, Pynchon, DeLillo, and Powers

This study examines the relationship of science and aesthetics in the fiction of four major novelists using a new analytic category: aesthetic science. An introductory chapter defines this term, situating it against traditional aesthetics and the encyclopedic novel. Aesthetic science argues that scientific matter can be adapted for new tropes and ideas of formal beauty. This study also speculates on the tastes of 'common readers' who have gradually accepted scientific ideas in fiction.; Chapter Two begins with the serialization of Ulysses in The Little Review, including letters from ordinary readers. The "Ithaca" episode uses an exaggerated notion of classical science which obscures readerly understanding and menaces the characters of Bloom and Stephen. This chapter engenders a sense of beauty and an updated Kantian Sublime through scientific allusion.; Chapter Three turns to Pynchon's story, "Entropy" and an essay by C. P. Snow in The Kenyon Review to show how science was once opposed to literary production. This chapter examines how Gravity's Rainbow appropriates different kinds of science and how its confusing later chapters can be read using recent physics, the postmodern Sublime, and Jameson's cognitive mapping.; In Chapter Four, DeLillo's stories set in the Bronx are read as examples of his early work. Essays in Epoch magazine show how DeLillo moved from local settings to postmodern concerns, leading eventually to Ratner's Star. In this encyclopedic text, which appropriates mathematics and science, DeLillo articulates a fear of bodies contrasted against a pristine beauty of the main character's mathematical thinking. Finally, DeLillo's Underworld is read as a 'failed encyclopedia,' one that echoes Joyce in its later Bronx sections.; Chapter Five looks at Powers' magnum opus, The Gold Bug Variations , and his other novels to demonstrate how biology, chaos theory, and other science appear in his fiction. The role of the amateur scientist is important for understanding this encyclopedic text. This chapter also examines how bodies are often depicted as limited and damaged within Powers' novels. The responses of readers from online reviews suggest that science has become acceptable for literature. A conclusion speculates on how aesthetic science might apply to other recent writers.