Curious Eye - Optics and Imaginative Literature in Seventeenth-Century England

The Curious Eye is a book about the impact of optical technologies, including the microscope, the telescope, and the camera obscura, on seventeenth century English thought.

List of contents

• Introduction


• 1: Poetry as Optical Technology


• 2: Language Reform and the Lens of Simile in Experimentalist Texts


• 3: Envisioning Empire in Bacon, Hooke, and Cavendish


• 4: The Physics of Vision in Kepler, Descartes, and Milton


• 5: Perspective as a Conceptual Tool in Milton and Newton


• 6: The Optics of Virtue in Boyle, Cowley, and Behn


• Postscript: Prosthetic and Embodied Vision

About the author

Erin Webster is an Assistant Professor of English at William & Mary, where she teaches courses in early modern literature, including Milton, and on the intersection of literature and scientific thought.

Summary

The Curious Eye is a book about the impact of optical technologies, including the microscope, the telescope, and the camera obscura, on seventeenth century English thought.

Additional text

The Curious Eye offers readers an expansive account of the relationship among early modern optical theory, philosophy, and literature; it will greatly interest anyone studying the history of science, technology, or literary analysis...this book remains a remarkable achievement in literary and historical analysis, and it is sure to benefit students and scholars alike.

Product details

• Authors: Erin Webster, Erin (Assistant Professor of English Webster
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.02.2020
• EAN: 9780198850199
• ISBN: 978-0-19-885019-9
• No. of pages: 224
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; English, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 17th Century, History of Science, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800