1300 187 187
It is often thought that Jonathan Swift was vehemently opposed to the new science that heralded the beginning of the modern age, but this book interrogates that assumption, bringing new perspectives to his most famous works, and making a case for the intellectual importance of some of his more neglected poems and prose satires. Lynall's study traces the theological, political, and socio-cultural resonances of scientific knowledge in the early eighteenth century, and considers what they can reveal about the growth of Swift's imagination. Taking us to a universe made from clothes, to a place where flowers can talk and men are only trees turned upside down, to an island that hovers high in the clouds, and to a library where a spider predicts how the world will end, the book shows how satire can be an active and unique participant in cultural debates about the methods and purposes of scientific enquiry.
| List of Illustrations | p. vii |
| Acknowledgements | p. viii |
| List of Abbreviations | p. x |
| Introduction: Altitudes of Authority | p. 1 |
| Meditations and Mechanisms: Swift and Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects | p. 17 |
| Talking Flowers | p. 18 |
| Topsy-turvy Trees | p. 23 |
| Tritical Texts and Contemptible Insects | p. 32 |
| Corpuscular Clothes | p. 35 |
| Curious Engines | p. 39 |
| Sinking the 'Spider's Cittadel': The Battel of the Books and Thomas Burnet's 'Philosophical Romance' of the Earth | p. 50 |
| Spinning Sacred Theories | p. 52 |
| The 'Wandring Bee' Alights | p. 57 |
| Weaving Webs of Allegory | p. 64 |
| Newtonian Battels with Rising Stars and Wheeling Moons | p. 69 |
| Bentley 'the New and Rising-Staf | p. 70 |
| Centers, Tombs and Moons | p. 73 |
| The Politics and Theology of 'Dilating on Matter and Motion' | p. 79 |
| 'Bantring1 with 'Newton's Mathematicks' | p. 86 |
| Laputian Newtons: Science, the Wood's Halfpence Affair and Gulliver's Travels | p. 89 |
| Kings of Inattention | p. 90 |
| Newton, Wood and the Drapier | p. 94 |
| 'Taylor', Astrologer and 'Workman in the Mint' | p. 100 |
| The Occasion of Lindalino | p. 109 |
| Socinians and Queens: Samuel Clarke and 'Directions for a Birthday Song' | p. 120 |
| Socinians and Queens | p. 122 |
| Beams and Blows | p. 130 |
| Hell and Hanover | p. 136 |
| Afterword | p. 143 |
| Notes | p. 148 |
| Bibliography | p. 181 |
| Index | p. 203 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780230343641
ISBN-10: 0230343643
Audience:
Professional
Format:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 224
Published: 19th June 2012
Dimensions (cm): 22.3 x 14.2
x 1.8
Weight (kg): 0.384
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