The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? In our everyday lives, we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically-mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, Rene Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, the volume explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but, rather, an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

About the Author
Erin Webster is an Assistant Professor of English at William & Mary, where she teaches courses in early modern literature, including Milton, and on the intersection of literature and scientific thought.

Reviews
To traverse from calculus to optics to poetry to imperialism to theology to baroque architecture to the moon: it is the rare mind that can stretch so far, and with such precision and care. * Wendy Beth Hyman, Restoration *
This study manages both crucial attention to detail and a carefully articulated historical arc, and Webster offers throughout generous and informative syntheses of others' critical arguments before going on to delineate her own and often more nuanced position. * Eileen Reeves, Princeton University., Seventeenth-Century News *
Anyone interested in early modern seeing can find delightful details in The Curious Eye. * Yijie Huang, Journal of British Studies *
The Curious Eye offers readers an expansive account of the relationship among early modern optical theory, philosophy, and literature; it will greatly interest anyone studying the history of science, technology, or literary analysis...this book remains a remarkable achievement in literary and historical analysis, and it is sure to benefit students and scholars alike. * J. Antonio Templanza, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Milton Quarterly *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198850199
Author Erin Webster
Format Hardback
Page Count 226
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 164mm * 22mm