Fictions of the cosmos
Subtitle: science and literature in the seventeenth century
By: Frédérique Aït-Touati ; translated by Susan Emanuel
Contributors: Emanuel, Susan, translator
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 261
ISBN-13: 9780226011226
Copyright date: 2011
Subjects: History; Cosmology in literature; Literature and science; History and criticism; Cosmology; European literature
Work titles: Poétiques du discours cosmologique au XVIIe siècle
Description: During the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment the boundary between science and literature was not as clear as it is today. 'Fictions of the Cosmos' explores the evolving relationship that ensued between fiction and astronomical authority during this period.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 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; title: 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; title: 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.