Across Europe, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed great developments in both literature and science. In the nature and function of light as both a physical phenomenon and as a metaphor, we can find the interplay between literature’s movement from Enlightenment rationalism to Romantic ambiguity and the scientific push to explore physics beyond classical mechanics, into wave theory. With both scientific experimentation and imaginative literature being forces that shape, and are shaped by, societal developments, this project explores how their ideas overlap and, in turn, affect each other. This talk examines the scientific history behind the development of classical mechanics and experimentation that resulted in theories of waves and electromagnetism. An emphasis will be given to Sir Isaac Newton’s work on classical mechanics and the double-slit experiment’s impact on theories about light as a wave, a particle, or both. An assortment of fictional works by European authors from the Enlightenment and Romantic periods, including translated excerpts from the Encyclopedie, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein will be investigated with a focus on themes of rationality and ambiguity. This discussion culminates in a comparison of science and literature of the time, exploring the intersections between the two.