Language of Nature in Buffon's Histoire naturelle

Häftad, Engelska, 2018

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Drawing from literary studies, philosophy, and the history of science, in this interdisciplinary study Hanna Roman argues that the language of Buffon’s Histoire naturelle (1749-1788) could not be separated from the science it conveyed; the language communicated nature’s vital order, form and movement. In the Histoire naturelle, the ability of language to embody and communicate the living essence of nature grew increasingly poignant as Buffon established his hypothesis that the Earth, initially a molten ball of fire, was dying as it slowly became colder.The author highlights Buffon’s Époques de la nature (1778) in which he implied that to save nature from cold death, people must learn to create actual heat according to the model provided by his lyrical, dynamic language, the energy of which would transform into re-warming a cooling globe.In this way, Roman argues that Buffon’s literary simulacrum of nature taught his readers not only about the history of nature and its laws, but also how to interact with nature differently, transferring to them the skills necessary to modify the surrounding world in order to better fit the desires and dreams of humanity. A new world could be more than imagined—it could be engineered through language.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2018-10-08
Mått156 x 234 x undefined mm
Vikt340 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieOxford University Studies in the Enlightenment
Antal sidor224
FörlagLiverpool University Press
ISBN9781786941398

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Hanna Roman is an Assistant Professor of French at Dickinson College. Her first book, The Language of Nature in Buffon’s Histoire naturelle (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment/LUP, October 2018) examined the relationship between language and the natural sciences during the French Enlightenment. Her current research focuses on the influences of religious and mythological discourses on the scientific disciplines of geology, geography, and natural history in the French Enlightenment, and she is working on a second book project on the history of the ocean in the eighteenth century.

PrefaceIntroduction: Enlightenment natural history and literary inventionStyle: combining rhetoric and knowledgeHarmonizing world and wordNatural history: between physics and historyThe literary practice of natural historySummary of chapters1. Inventing natural language: the harmonization of mindand worldMathematical rules and natural lawsBuffon and natural law: relativizing perceptionInventing and intervening: Montesquieu and the naturallaws of historyScaling the levels of perception: the evolving relationshipwith nature in the Histoire naturelle2. Generating heat: the energy of natural languageIntroducing heat: De l’art d’écrireHeat: the material interface with natureBetween body and mind: the spirit of languageThe energy of the natural historical text3. Writing nature: the foundations of natural historyThe ‘Discours sur le style’: translating the movementof natureThe mise-en-scène of style in the Histoire naturelle, 1749From style to history: reading temporality intonature’s story4. Hypothesis and the energy of inventionHypothesis and the invention of a verisimilar worldHypothesis and heat: inventing the hidden mechanismof natureMaking heat real: the hypothesis in the ‘Epoquesde la nature’5. Reinventing nature’s heatBuffon’s theorization of heatThe natural history of human beings: a story of inventingthe temperateWriting the future with heatConclusion: preserving the heat of the Histoire naturelleRethinking Buffon’s intellectual legacyCondorcet’s Eloge de M. de BuffonSaving style for posterityThe literary experimentBibliographyIndex

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