SHARE

Perception and analogy

Poetry, science, and religion in the eighteenth century

By Rosalind Powell

Perception and analogy
Hardcover -
  • Price: £85.00
  • ISBN: 9781526157041
  • Publish Date: Oct 2021
  • Publisher: Manchester University Press
  • Buy Now £85.00

    Delivery Exc. North and South America

    Buy

    Delivery to North and South America

    Click Here to Buy from Your Preferred Bookseller
    eBook +
  • Price: £85.00
  • ISBN: 9781526157034
  • Publish Date: Oct 2021
  • Publisher: Manchester University Press
  • Buy Now £85.00

    Delivery Exc. North and South America

    Buy

    Delivery to North and South America

    Click Here to Buy from Your Preferred Bookseller

    Book Information

    • Format: Hardcover
    • Pages: 296
    • Price: £85.00
    • Published Date: October 2021

    Description

    Perception and analogy explores ways of seeing scientifically in the eighteenth century. The book examines how sensory experience is conceptualised during the period, drawing novel connections between treatments of perception as an embodied phenomenon and the creative methods employed by natural philosophers. Covering a wealth of literary, theological, and pedagogical texts that engage with astronomy, optics, ophthalmology, and the body, it argues for the significance of analogies for conceptualising and explaining new scientific ideas. As well as identifying their use in religious and topographical poetry, the book addresses how analogies are visible in material culture through objects such as orreries, camera obscuras, and aeolian harps. It makes the vital claim that scientific concepts become intertwined with Christian discourse through reinterpretations of origins and signs, the scope of the created universe, and the limits of embodied knowledge.

    Reviews

    '...the book is a strong example of how science studies can advance literary studies and why literature
    scholars do well to understand the influence of science.'
    SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

    'The strength of Perception and Analogy comes in its detailed catalogue of how analogies are used to affirm religious beliefs during this period. Scholars working in disability studies will find the chapters on human limitation particularly useful, as Powell's close readings affirm the centrality of disabled bodies for linking medical and religious discourses during the eighteenth century.'
    Eighteenth-Century Fiction

    'Rosalind Powell's Perception and Analogy stands as a valuable contribution to eighteenth-century scholarship, shedding new light on the intellectual interplay between poetry, science, and religion during the Age of Enlightenment. Powell's study reaffirms the pivotal role of analogy in integrating diverse discourses, enriching our comprehension of eighteenth-century intellectual life.'
    The British Society for Literature and Science

    Contents

    Introduction
    1. Celestial speculations
    2. Light, perception and revelation
    3. Seeing in colour
    4. Understanding the eye
    5. Perception and the body
    Bibliography
    Notes
    Index

    Author

    Rosalind Powell is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol

    Perception and analogy

    By Rosalind Powell

    Hardcover £85.00 / $120.00

    Or buy from your preferred bookseller:

    Amazon Waterstones Blackwells Bookshop

    Newsletter Sign Up

    Manchester University Press
    Close

    Your cart is empty.

    Total
    Select your shipping destination to estimate postage costs

    (Based on standard shipping costs)

    Final cost calculated on checkout
    Checkout
    Promotional codes can be added on Checkout