The Arts of 17th-century Science: Representations of the Natural World in European and North American CultureClaire Jowitt, Diane Watt Ashgate, 2002 - 270 pages Contemporary ideals of science representing disinterested and objective fields of investigation have their origins in the seventeenth century. However, 'new science' did not simply or uniformly replace earlier beliefs about the workings of the natural world, but entered into competition with them. It is this complex process of competition and negotiation concerning ways of seeing the natural world that is charted by the essays in this book. The collection traces the many overlaps between 'literary' and 'scientific' discourses as writers in this period attempted both to understand imaginatively and empirically the workings of the natural world, and shows that a discrete separation between such discourses and spheres is untenable. The collection is designed around four main themes-'Philosophy, Thought and Natural Knowledge', 'Religion, Politics and the Natural World', 'Gender, Sexuality and Scientific Thought' and 'New Worlds and New Philosophies.' Within these themes, the contributors focus on the contests between different ways of seeing and understanding the natural world in a wide range of writings from the period: in poetry and art, in political texts, in descriptions of real and imagined colonial landscapes, as well as in more obviously 'scientific' documents. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Transparent Man and the Kings Heart | 12 |
Poetic and Scientific Attitudes to | 25 |
Copyright | |
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The Arts of 17th-Century Science: Representations of the Natural World in ... Claire Jowitt,Diane Watt No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
America anatomical appears argues authority Bacon become belief birth Blazing body Cambridge Cavendish Christ Christian colonial concept concerning creation culture described desire discourse divine Donne early early-modern earth Edinburgh empirical Empress England English eschatology essay established example existence experience fact female fiction figure gender Harvey History human Ibid ideas images imagination intellectual interest Italy John Kepler's King knowledge land language later less literature London male masculine mathematical means metaphor mind moon narrative natural notes nymphs object Observations original Oxford painting period philosophy Pitcairne political possible practical present produced provides published question reference Reformation relation religion religious Renaissance representation represented Royal scientific Sebastian seems sense seventeenth century sexuality social Society spirit suggests theory things thinking Thomas thought trans understanding University Press Virginia Winstanley women writing York
References to this book
Science, Literature and Rhetoric in Early Modern England Juliet Cummins,David Burchell Limited preview - 2007 |