| Description |
1 online resource (ix, 261 pages) |
| Contents |
Part 1. Cosmic imagination. Kepler sets the Earth in motion ; Genealogy of the dream: from ludus philosophicus to the game of fiction ; The dynamics of the voyage: a thought-experiment ; Vision in the voyage ; The place of fiction ; Godwin, Wilkins, Cyrano: from the optical voyage to the mechanical voyage ; The Man in the Moone ; A World in the Moon ; From heavens to the sky: Cyrano's other world ; Conclusions: dreams and fictions -- part 2. Conjectural machines. Fontenelle: unveiling the spectacle of the world ; Machine and spectacle ; Order of the narrative, harmony of the world ; Fontenelle's visions ; Huygens: the theoretical voyage of The Cosmotheoros ; Hypotheses, conjectures, fictions ; Architectonics of the narrative ; Conclusions: hypotheses and narratives -- part 3. Observing monsters. Robert Hooke: "the armed eye" ; Micrographia ; From enargeia to evidence ; Hooke the astronomer ; Poetics of proof ; Instruments and images ; Margaret Cavendish: the battle of instruments ; "A high heel to a short leg" ; A teratology of knowledge ; The empire of fiction |
| Summary |
"In today's academe, the fields of science and literature are considered unconnected, one relying on raw data and fact, the other focusing on fiction. During the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, however, the two fields were not so distinct. Just as the natural philosophers of the era were discovering in and adopting from literature new strategies and techniques for their discourse, so too were poets and storytellers finding inspiration in natural philosophy, particularly in astronomy. A work that speaks to the history of science and literary studies, Fictions of the Cosmos explores the evolving relationship that ensued between fiction and astronomical authority. By examining writings of Kepler, Godwin, Hooke, Cyrano, Cavendish, Fontenelle, and others, Frédérique Aït-Touati shows that it was through the telling of stories--such as through accounts of celestial journeys--that the Copernican hypothesis, for example, found an ontological weight that its geometric models did not provide. Aït-Touati draws from both cosmological treatises and fictions of travel and knowledge, as well as personal correspondences, drawings, and instruments, to emphasize the multiple borrowings between scientific and literary discourses. This volume sheds new light on the practices of scientific invention, experimentation, and hypothesis formation by situating them according to their fictional or factual tendencies." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-258) and index |
| Notes |
Translated from the French |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Cosmology in literature.
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Literature and science.
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Cosmology -- History
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European literature -- 17th century -- History and criticism
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary.
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Cosmology
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European literature
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Cosmology in literature
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Literature and science
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Kosmologie
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Literatur
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Cosmologie -- Dans la littérature.
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Littérature et sciences -- 17e siècle.
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Théorie de la fiction.
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Kosmologi i litteraturen.
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Litteratur och vetenskap.
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Kosmologi -- historia.
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Europeisk litteratur -- historia -- 1600-talet.
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Emanuel, Susan, translator.
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| ISBN |
9780226011240 |
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0226011240 |
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1283281570 |
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9781283281577 |
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0226011224 |
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9780226011226 |
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