Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature: The Art of Making Knowledge, 1580–1670Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature brings together key works in early modern science and imaginative literature (from the anatomy of William Harvey and the experimentalism of William Gilbert to the fictions of Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and Margaret Cavendish). The book documents how what have become our two cultures of belief define themselves through a shared aesthetics that understands knowledge as an act of making. Within this framework, literary texts gain substance and intelligibility by being considered as instances of early modern knowledge production. At the same time, early modern science maintains strong affiliations with poetry because it understands art as a basis for producing knowledge. In identifying these interconnections between literature and science, this book contributes to scholarship in literary history, history of reading and the book, science studies and the history of academic disciplines. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Philip Sidney William Gilbert and the experiment of worldmaking | 24 |
the birth of the writer in Edmund Spenser and William Harvey | 59 |
Johannes Keplers dream for reading knowledge | 101 |
Thomas Hobbes Robert Hooke and Margaret Cavendishs theory of reading | 137 |
Other editions - View all
Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature: The Art of Making Knowledge ... Elizabeth Spiller No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic analogy anatomical arguments Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle's asserting astronomy becomes biology Blazing World Britomart claims contemporary context create knowledge creation critical culture Defence of Poesy define demonstrates describes Discourse Disputations Dream early modern science earth emphasizes English experience experimental Faerie Queene female fiction figure Galenic Galileo Harvey's Hobbes Hobbes's Hooke Hooke's ideal ideas identifies images imaginative instance intellectual Johannes Kepler Kepler kind Laqueur Levanians Leviathan literary literature lodestone magnet male Margaret Cavendish material Micrographia microscope moon motion narrative natural philosophy observation one-sex model perception Philip Sidney Philosophical Letters physical poet poetic poetry preface produce knowledge provides readers reading recognized Renaissance reproduction responds rhetorical Robert Hooke Royal Society scientific practice sense Shapin Sidney and Gilbert Sidney's simply Sokal Sokal Hoax Starry Messenger stars suggests telescope terrellas textual theory Thomas Hobbes tion trans transform truth understanding University Press Uraniborg Utopia virtue Volva William Harvey worldmaking writing