Sawday - Engines of the Imagination.pdf - History and archaeology(5) - michalszasz121

ENGINES OF THE

IMAGINATION

How did men and women in earlier ages respond to their technologies? In

his characteristically lucid and captivating style, Jonathan Sawday explores

poetry, philosophy, art, and engineering to reveal the lost world of the

machine in the pre-industrial culture of the European Renaissance.

In the Renaissance, machines and mechanisms appealed to familiar ﬁ g-

ures such as Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, and Leonardo da Vinci,

as well as to a host of lesser-known writers and artists in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. This intellectual and aesthetic engagement with

devices of all kinds would give rise to new attitudes towards gender as well

as towards work and labour, and even fostered the beginnings of the new

sciences of artiﬁ cial life and reason which would be pursued by Descartes,

Hobbes, and Leibniz in the later seventeenth century.

But writers, philosophers, and artists often had conﬂ icting reactions to

the technology that was beginning to surround them. For at the heart of the

creation of a machine-driven world were stories of loss and catastrophe. Was

technology a token of human progress or was it, rather, a sign of the fall of

humanity from its original state of innocence? These contradictory attitudes

are part of the legacy of the European Renaissance, and this historical legacy

helps to explain many of our own attitudes towards the technology that sur-

rounds us, sustains us, and sometimes troubles us today.

Jonathan Sawday is Professor of English Studies at the University of Strath-

clyde, Glasgow. He has taught at universities in Britain, Ireland, and the

United States. As well as writing many articles and essays on Renaissance lit-

erature and culture, he is the author of The Body Emblazoned (Routledge, 1995)

and co-editor (with Tom Healy) of Literature and the English Civil War (1990) and

(with Neil Rhodes) The Renaissance Computer (Routledge, 2000).

Praise for Engines of the Imagination :

‘This is a magisterial work of myth-busting, and a marvellous demonstration

of how art and literature may be used to reanimate the material imagination

of an historical period. The old idea of the Renaissance as a pre-technological

pause, or paradise, is gone for good.’

Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

‘Jonathan Sawday has written another big, beautiful, brilliant book that will

change the way we all see (and hear) the Renaissance.’

Gary Taylor, Florida State University, USA

‘This is a brilliant achievement . . . It has huge intellectual and imaginative

range and is written with great vitality . . . This could be the book of the

decade in Renaissance Studies.’

Neil Rhodes, University of St Andrews, UK

‘Jonathan Sawday’s pioneering and thoughtful work can change the course

of the study of the Early Modern period . . . This illuminating book enlarges

our sense of the Renaissance, redirects our focus, and shows us a world else-

where we have not seen before.’

Arthur Kinney, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

‘ Engines of the Imagination offers a fascinating picture of Renaissance encounters

with technology. Engaging and entertaining, Sawday’s book will become

required reading for all students of the period.’

Mary Poovey, NewYork University, USA

ENGINES OF THE

IMAGINATION

Renaissance culture

and the rise of the machine

Jonathan Sawday

First published 2007

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Typeset in Joanna and Scala Sans by

The Running Head Limited, Cambridge

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Sawday, Jonathan.

Engines of the imagination: Renaissance culture and the rise of the machine / Jonathan Sawday.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Machinery — History. I. Title.

TJ17.S392007

621.8094'0903—dc22

2007028583

ISBN 0-203-69615-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–35061–1 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–415–35062–x (pbk)

ISBN10: 0–203–69615–8 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978–0–415–35061–7 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978–0–415–35062–4 (pbk)

ISBN13: 978–0–203–69615–6 (ebk)

Sawday - Engines of the Imagination.pdf

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