Curiosity - A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry
Published on 1. August 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
296 pages
978-0-226-04264-0 (ISBN)
Description
"Pithy and wide-ranging. . . . This study provides a fresh new lens through which to reinvestigate the whole of early modern English literature."-Library Journal
In this striking social history, Barbara M. Benedict draws on the texts of the early modern period to discover the era's attitudes toward curiosity, a trait we learn was often depicted as an unsavory form of transgression or cultural ambition.
In this striking social history, Barbara M. Benedict draws on the texts of the early modern period to discover the era's attitudes toward curiosity, a trait we learn was often depicted as an unsavory form of transgression or cultural ambition.
Reviews / Votes
"Robinson Crusoe told us that his head was always filled 'with rembling Thoughts.' That is how he got into such trouble, but it is also the way he survived. Rambling thoughts, as Benedict shows in this exuberant study, were at the center of English literary and cultural experience from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Transgressive, uncontrollable, hopelessly vulgar and at the same time exalted and ennobling, the passion of curiosity was the key that unlocked the sensibility of modernity in its great formative age." - Stephen Greenblatt, author of Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World "Benedict assembles her own gorgeous literary curiosity cabinet crammed with excerpts from novels, poems, journalism, travel narratives, trial transcripts and pornography.... The book is teeming with big questions and fine distinctions." - Ian Sansom, The Guardian "Pithy and wide-ranging.... This study provides a fresh new lens through which to reinvestigate the whole of early modern English literature." - Library JournalMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
502 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-04264-0 (9780226042640)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Barbara M. Benedict is professor in and chair of the English department at Trinity College, Connecticut. She is the author of Making the Modern Reader and Framing Feeling.