Poetics of Scientific Investigation in Seventeenth-Century England

This study examines the way that scientists in the 16th and 17th centuries, who had not studied 'science' formally, used the tools of their literary education to formulate ideas about science and, at the same time, how the remarkable seventeenth-century scientific developments inspired non-scientific writers to make new fictions of discovery.

List of contents

• Introduction 'A Distemper of Learning': The Languages of Science


• 1: Orlando Curioso: The Lapsarian Style of Thomas Browne


• 2: Equivocal Boyle and the Enamelled Telescope


• 3: 'A Blessing in the Wilderness': Fictions of Polity and the Place of Science


• 4: Dining Out in the Republic of Letters: The Rhetoric of Scientific Correspondence


• 5: The Counsel of Herbs: Scientific Georgic


• Bibliography


• Index

About the author

Claire Preston is Professor of Renaissance Literature at Queen Mary University of London. Her books include Thomas Browne and the Writing of Early-Modern Science (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Bee (Reaktion, 2006), and Edith Wharton's Social Register (Macmillan/St Martin's, 2000). She is the recipient of Guggenheim and British Academy research awards and of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize from the British Academy.

Summary

This study examines the way that scientists in the 16th and 17th centuries, who had not studied 'science' formally, used the tools of their literary education to formulate ideas about science and, at the same time, how the remarkable seventeenth-century scientific developments inspired non-scientific writers to make new fictions of discovery.

Additional text

Claire Preston's book is a stimulating and wide-ranging analysis of the nexus between science and literature in the age of the putative English scientific revolution.

Product details

• Authors: Claire Preston, Claire (Professor of Renaissance Literatu Preston, Claire (Professor of Renaissance Literature Preston, Preston Claire
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.07.2022
• EAN: 9780192867032
• ISBN: 978-0-19-286703-2
• No. of pages: 310
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology > General, dictionaries; History, HISTORY / General, SCIENCE / History, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, History of Science, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Literary studies: general, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599