Research Catalog
The curious eye : optics and imaginative literature in seventeenth-century England
- Title
- The curious eye : optics and imaginative literature in seventeenth-century England / Erin Webster.
- Author
- Webster, Erin
- Publication
- Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2020.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 21-1955 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 212 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? In our everyday lives, we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. 0The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically-mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, Rene Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, the volume explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but, rather, an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.
- Subject
- Optical instruments in literature
- Genre/Form
- Literary criticism.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Call Number
- JFE 21-1955
- ISBN
- 9780198850199
- 0198850190
- 9780192590572 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2019945691
- OCLC
- 1113414429
- Author
- Webster, Erin, author.
- Title
- The curious eye : optics and imaginative literature in seventeenth-century England / Erin Webster.
- Publisher
- Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2020.
- Edition
- First edition.
- Type of Content
- textstill image
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 21-1955