ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of travel narrative in Kepler's Astronomia nova and Galileos Sidereus nuncius. It argues that the trope offers not only an organizational frame for historical accounts of exploration, but also an hermeneutics of discovery. At issue here is Keplers problem of how to organize the discussion of his astronomical discoveries, given the new methodological approach of his work. In Kepler's work both the results of this practice of poetic gathering, and the use of poetic allusion to draw attention to cruxes. Kepler pursues the metaphor in the same section of the Astronomia nova, in response to objections concerning the immensity of the heavens: Here, an apparent difficulty, once resolved, itself offers a solution to other problems. Such arguments, however, place an emphasis on the ability to identify seas, coastlines, or other geographical features, rather than on the organizational form and emphasis on accidental discovery that Kepler and Galileo associate with travel narratives in their work.
