The "Scientific Revolution" was a cumulative process that decisively transformed modes of thinking about and seeing nature, man, and God in the early modern period. In 1500, literate Europeans lived in a bounded, heliocentric universe explained by Aristotelian physics and logic. It was a world of qualities and characteristics and few internal boundaries. The inhabited earth was centered on Jerusalem and ended at the Pillars of Hercules (the Straights of Cadiz). By 1800, the sun had replaced the earth at the center of a limited "universe" situated in infinite space. The natural world functioned according to natural laws, often derived mathematically, and it was likened more to a machine than to something organic. The earthly world was largely known and mapped. The natural philosophy of 1500 had become the science of 1800, with its several disciplines, departments, and divisions.

This course will look at some of the ways in which this momentous shift was reflected and refracted in the literature of the time, and, at the same time, it will consider some of the ways in which literary and rhetorical practices shaped the presentation of science. While the course does not presuppose a detailed knowledge of the Scientific Revolution, it does assume at least a familiarity with the general issues of the period. If you need a brief trot through these issues, please pick up a copy of Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; paperback) at the Penn Book Center. Additional suggestions for further reading will be found below.

Students are expected to attend all classes and to contribute to the discussion of issues raised in the readings. In addition, the course requires two papers, 5-7 pages each, on topics to be provided by the instructors.

• Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis (Crofts/Harlan Davidson)
• Tommaso Campanella, City of the Sun (California)
• René Descartes, Discourse on Method (Penguin)
• Galileo Galilei, Starry Messenger (Chicago)
• Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Signet)
• William Shakespeare, The Tempest (World's Classics)
• Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (Sherwood)
• Bernard de Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (California)
• Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (World's Classics)
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (World's Classics)
• Denis Diderot, Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (Clinamen)
  Recommended:

• Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (Chicago)^*
• John Donne, Complete English Poems (Penguin)^*

^* NB: These texts are not required. Copies are available, however, for anyone who (a) wants additional background (including excellent bibliographical guidance) in brief format about the scientific revolution or (b) really wants to encompass Donne. Shapin is on reserve (in Rosengarten). Readings from Donne (see the schedule of readings below) will be available for downloading from the on-line course reserve.

Some readings will be available only through the on-line course reserve that the Library offers. They are indicated by an asterisk (^*) in the schedule of readings below.

For those students with larger appetites for the scientific contexts of the course, the following menu offers a decent array of choices:

• E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1927) [an old chestnut that continues to be useful]
• P. Curry, Astrology, Science, and Society (1987)
• Allen Debus, The Chemical Philosophy (1977) [the basic work on Paracelsian medicine]
• Stevin J. Dick, The Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate . . . (1982)
• Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Margaret Jacob, Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism (1995)
• William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature (1994) [about books of recipes and secrets and their fates]
• John Henry, The Scientific Revolution and Modern Science (1997)
• James R. Jacob, The Scientific Revolution: Aspirations and Achievements 1500-1700 (1998)
• Lisa Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution (1999) [good on instruments and technologies]
• Robert Kargon, Atomism in England (1966)
• Thomas da Costa Kaufmann, The Mastery of Nature: Aspects of Art, Science, and Humanism in the Renaissance (1993)
• Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution (1957) [this book preceded Kuhn's vastly influential Structure of Scientific Revolution]
• David Lindeman and Robert Westman, eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990)
• Margaret Osler, ed., Rethinking the Scientific Revolution (2000)
• Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts (1970) [another chestnut that still tastes just fine]
• Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (1989)
• Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996) [note that this book contains an exceptionally useful bibliography of further readings in the history of science that extends and expands upon the readings listed here]
• Steven Shapin, The Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England (1994) [a book important both for its methodology and its findings]
• Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Renaissance Medicine (1992) [a solid introduction to the subject]
• Pamela Smith, The Business of Alchemy (1994) [alchemy for fun and profit in Central Europe]
• Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800 (1991) [a fundamental text for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the early modern period]
• Charles Webster, From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science (1982)
• Charles Webster, The Great Instauration (1975) [one of MTR's favorites, about Bacon's project and its cultural and political fortunes in the 17th century]
• . . . and so forth. There are, in addition to the general works above, a plethora of interesting and more specialized studies, many of which have appeared in the last decade or so.

1. WEEK 1
   September 6 -- Introductory
   
   1. Donne, "A Valediction: forbidding mourning"
   2. Eileen Reeves, "John Donne and the Oblique Course," Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 7:2 (June 1993), 168-183 [not available online]

      RECOMMENDED:

   3. Margaret J. Osler, "Revolution or Resurrection," Configurations, 7:1 (Winter 1999), 91-100

2. WEEK 2
   September 13
   
   1. Bacon, New Atlantis
   2. Campanella, City of the Sun

      RECOMMENDED:

   3. J. Weinberger, "Science and Rule in Bacon's Utopia: An Introduction to the Reading of the New Atlantis," American Political Science Review, 70:3 (September 1976), 865-885
   4. A. C. Howell, "Res et Verba: Words and Things," ELH, 13:2 (June 1946), 131-142

3. WEEK 3
   September 20
   
   1. Descartes, Discourse on Method

      RECOMMENDED:

   2. John D. Lyons, "Descartes and Modern Imagination," Philosophy and Literature, 23:2 (October 1999) 302-312
   3. Sylvie Romanowski, "Descartes: From Science to Discourse," Yale French Studies, no. 49 (1973), pp. 96-109
   /

4. WEEK 4
   September 27
   
   1. Galileo, Starry Messenger

      RECOMMENDED:

   2. for an image of the title-page of the first edition, click here
   3. for a portrait of Galileo by Justus Sustermans, court painter to the Medici (1597-1681), click here -- and, for a variety of related links, click here
   4. Eileen Reeves, "Augustine and Galileo on Reading the Heavens," Journal of the History of Ideas, 52:4 (October-December 1991), 563-579
   5. Eileen Reeves, "Old Wives' Tales and the New World System: Gilbert, Galileo, and Kepler," Configurations, 7:3 (Fall 1999), 301-35

5. WEEK 5
   October 4
   
   1. Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
   2. Shakespeare, The Tempest

      RECOMMENDED:

   3. Francis R. Johnson, "Marlowe's Astronomy and Renaissance Skepticism," ELH, 13:4 (December 1946), 241-254
   4. William M. Hamlin, "Casting Doubt in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," SEL, 41:2 (Spring 2001), 257-275

   Paper 1 is due in class tonight.Paper Topics

   Write a 5-7 page (double-spaced, paginated, and titled) paper on any one of the following topics:

   1. Courses on philosophy and intellectual history routinely contrast the approaches of Descartes and Bacon to knowing nature and in charting an agenda for "science." Despite that approach, is it possible to discern some common ground, shared vision, and/or common methodologies in their works? [Notate bene: whatever your position, how does it affect your understanding of Bacon's and Descartes' approaches to science?]

   2. If, as literary criticism tells us, every text has an implied reader or an implicit audience, describe the implied readers for any two of the texts considered thus far in the course and discuss the ways in which the texts work for these readers.

   3. "Marlowe and Shakespeare create two of the most powerful visions of the man who seeks knowledge to be found in English, the doomed magician Dr. Faustus and the triumphant magician Prospero. Keenly aware of the dark and self-destructive side of the quest for knowledge, Marlowe embodies his vision in the failed figure of Faustus. By contrast, Shakespeare sees the quest for knowledge as productive of control of nature, reconciliation among people, and the knower's own growth in self-knowledge, all values firmly represented by the successful magician, Prospero."

      Do you agree or disagree with this critical position?

   4. Analyze and compare the relationship between form/genre and the content of any two texts considered thus far in the course. How do these forms or genres relate to whatever it is the author is trying to communicate? Why? [Notate bene: his question requires you first to define the forms or genres you are discussing!]

   5. Most of the works we have read thus far use either dialogic or dramatic means to further their authors' visions. Why?

   6. A common theme among many of the writers we have so far considered in the course is skepticism. However, what does skepticism mean to them and why do they seem to think it is a good thing? In other words, how can skepticism about knowledge yield a good means to "increasing" knowledge?

6. WEEK 6
   October 11
   
   1. Montaigne, Selected essays
   2. Donne, First and Second Anniversaries

   NB: Both texts are available through on-line course reserve.

7. WEEK 7
   October 18
   
   1. Cyrano, Voyage to the Moon

   NB: This text is available through on-line course reserve.

8. WEEK 8
   October 25
   
   1. Browne, Religio Medici
   2. Boyle, Christian Virtuoso (selections)

   NB: Boyle is available through on-line course reserve.

9. WEEK 9
   November 1
   
   1. Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

      RECOMMENDED:

   2. Liz Else, "Mary, Mary quite contrary" ("Mary Midgley . . . , Britain's most visible moral philosopher[, on] scientists who have tried to turn science into a religion[, seducing] people into believing in certainties and taking imperfect scientific metaphors as literal, revealed truth")
   3. Dena Goodman, "Enlightenment Salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions"

10. WEEK 10
    November 8
    
    1. Pope, Essay on Man
    2. Voltaire, Micromegas

    NB: Both texts are available through on-line course reserve.

11. WEEK 11
    November 15
    
    1. Swift, Gulliver's Travels

12. WEEK 12
    November 22
    
    Thanksgiving -- no class

13. WEEK 13
    November 29
    
    1. Diderot, D'Alembert's Dream and Letter on the Blind (both texts are found in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature)

14. WEEK 14
    December 6
    
    1. Shelley, Frankenstein

       RECOMMENDED:

    2. an experimental, unpublished, but exemplary hypertext edition
    
    
    Final paper due: December 10

    Topics

    For this assignment, choose two or three texts (NO MORE) from the second half of the course (week 7 and on). Write 5-7 pages, double-spaced (1250-1750 words) on one of the topics below. Please try to remain within these limits. Quantity of words bears an inverse relationship to the quality of a text.

    If you want to substitute of topic of your own making, simply clear it first with one of the instructors.

    1. Many of the texts we considered this term problematize the observer. In so doing, they throw into high relief issues of perspective and point of view. Analyze the uses and consequences of the problems this observer poses the reader. Why might it have been a popular strategy for authors we have read to have foregrounded confusing perspectives?

    2. Donne's "First Anniversarie" makes a classic statement about the impact of the "new science" on accepted philosophy and cosmology in the early 17th century. How do you think Donne's poem might have been read by one or two 18th-century authors?

    3. From Bacon on, we have often encountered the metaphor of the voyage and its association with the adventure of discovery. How does the voyage metaphor function in other writers with agendas other than Bacon's?

    4. Agree or disagree with the following assertion: "The new science argued for the existence of a secular, disenchanted world that could be rationally studied independent of all other cultural, moral, and theological constraints."

    5. The problem of knowledge -- how do we know what we know -- is also a problem of feeling. Sometimes this is literal, as in the case of Micromegas's polysensory endowment; and sometimes it is figurative, in the sense that emotion and affect are often suppressed, making the reader's response to them "cold" and "intellectually appreciative" rather than "warm." Analyze the relationship between knowledge and feeling in two or three works from the syllabus.

    6. In the character of Frankenstein's monster, Mary Shelley created an anomalous nightmare: a figure much more frightening in prospect than the poor fellow actually is in her story. For purposes of this paper, YOU are the monster. Write a critique of Pope's Essay on Man from his point of view. Then adopt the point of view of a Houyhnhynm and write about the same poem. Conclude with a comparison between the ways in which the monster and the horse respond to Pope's poem and an explanation that accounts for differences and similarities.

    7. It often seems as if all roads in the history of literary thought about science lead to Frankenstein's monster. Sometimes it is literally "the monster," and sometimes (in contemporary fantasies) it is "the bomb" or "germ warfare." But at the end of the tunnel there is no light, only gloom and darkness. Consider two or three works from the syllabus that seem to agree and/or disagree with such a view of science.

    8. Propagandists for the new science often represented its achievements by way of comparison with the achievements of ancient and medieval science and thus constructed a rudimentary narrative of "progress." Moderns were not only better than ancients, but they also built on the accomplishments of the ancients. To what extent have you encountered -- or not -- this attitude in texts considered this term?