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Since time immemorial humankind has looked to the skies for clues as to our origins, our destiny, and the nature of existence itself. In some ways, one of the hallmarks of western science has been a story of viewing the cosmos in ever-greater clarity and detail. Yet the very nature of the universe—its massive size, the distance and obscurity of its farthest reaches—requires the active intervention of our imaginations to picture it, no matter how powerful the technologies we use. In this course we will look at how western cultures from the middle ages to the present have deployed the literary and philosophical imagination to try to grasp the ungraspable, and how those attempts in some cases helped prepare intellectuals and scientists to make very real advances in understanding the universe.