An edition of Natural History in Early Modern France (2018)
Natural History in Early Modern France
The Poetics of an Epistemic Genre
By Raphaële Garrod,Smith, Paul J.
Publish Date
2018
Publisher
BRILL,Brill
Language
eng
Pages
310
Description:
Natural History in Early Modern France offers a longue durée account of recurring poetic structures of the genre through case studies spanning from the Renaissance to the eve of the nineteenth century. These case studies reveal the lasting epistemic importance of bookish knowledge and commonplacing in the natural-historical description from Belon to Buffon, They also highlight the French reception of Baconianism. Natural History in Early Modern France makes a case for the literary status of the genre by attending to the permanence of its 'Plinian' features, such as wonders. Natural history was not only concerned with increasingly rational modes of ordering natural particulars: this book reveals its enduring social, affective, spiritual, and aesthetic underpinnings.