The Poesy of Scientia in Early Modern England

Abstract

This book explores interconnections between the modes of knowing that we now associate with the rubrics ‘literature’ and ‘science’ at a formative point in their early development. Rather than simply tracing lines of influence, it focuses on how both literary texts and natural philosophy engage with materiality, language, affect, and form. Some essays are invested in how early modern science adopts and actively experiments with rhetorical and poetic modes and expression, while others emphasize a shared investment in natural philosophical topics—alchemy, chance, or astrology for example—that move among the period’s observational texts and its literature, highlighting the participation of literary texts in the production of experimental knowledge. Organised around the broad themes of creation and transformation, mediation and communication, and interpretation and imaginative speculation, the essays collectively probe the presumed dichotomy between science’s schematizing and taxonomic ambitions, and the fertile and volatile creative energies of literary texts.

Citation

Mukherji, S., & Swann, E. L. (Eds.). (2024). The Poesy of Scientia in Early Modern England. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51800-3

• Book Type: Edited Book
• Online Publication Date: Jul 12, 2024
• Publication Date: Jul 13, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2024
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Series Title: Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern Literature
• Series ISSN: 2946-4455
• Edition: 1st ed.
• ISBN: 9783031517990
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51800-3
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2864958