Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 2001 - History - 321 pages
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.
 

Contents

INSPECTING AND SPECTATING MONSTERS RARITIESm AND INVESTIGATORS
1
REGULATING CURIOSITY
25
The Discipline of Fraud
28
Curiosity as Second Sight
52
CONSUMING CURIOSITY
71
Monstrous Modernity and Curious Art
74
The Curious Eye
92
FROM THE CURIOUS TO THE CURIO
118
CONNOISSEURSHIP IN THE MENTAL CABINET
158
Curiosities of Artful Nature
164
Collecting Culture in the Printed Museum
180
PERFORMING CURIOSITY
202
The Curious Control of Nature
206
Curiosity as Social Reform
228
TRANSGRESSION AND AMBITION
245
NOTES
255

The Inquiry of Eye
121
Women as Closetted Curiosities
134
INDEX
313
Copyright

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Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry
Barbara M. Benedict
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Common terms and phrases

advertisements amatory fiction ambiguity ambition Aphra Behn appetite audience balloon Bartholomew Fair Behn body British Library cabinet Cabinet of Curiosities Caleb century Cock Lane Ghost collection collector Connoisseur contemporary credulity cultural curi curiosity cabinet Daniel Defoe defines Defoe depicts desire discovery Dunton early modern eighteenth Eighteenth-Century elite Eliza Haywood embodies empirical empiricism England English exhibitions experience exploit exploration eyes female curiosity fiction Frankenstein gender genre Ghost gossip Gothic Gothic fictions Gulliver's Gulliver's Travels Haywood History human identity indictment inquiry John knowledge literary literature London Mary Toft monster monstrosity moral Museum narrative nature novels novelty objects occult Oxford parodies peeping Philosophical physical poem political Pope popular portrays rarity readers represented Royal Society Samuel Johnson satire scientific scientists Scriblerians secret sexual social spectators story Swift symbolic tale texts tion traditional transgression University Press virtuosi witches women wonder writers York

References to this book

About the author (2001)

Barbara M. Benedict is the Charles A. Dana Professor of English, and chair of the Department of English, at Trinity College, Connecticut. She is the author of Making the Modern Reader: Cultural Mediation in Early Modern Literary Anthologies and Framing Feeling: Sentiment and Style in English Prose Fiction, 1745-1800.

Bibliographic information

TitleCuriosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry
AuthorBarbara M. Benedict
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press, 2001
ISBN0226042642, 9780226042640
Length321 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Social History
Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
Literary Criticism / General
Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / General
  
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