Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-290) and index.
Contents:
Introduction. Atmospheres of understanding : scientific emotion and literary criticism -- "Nonchalance" and the making of knowledge : Francis Bacon after Michel de Montaigne -- The angle of thought : Robert Boyle, Izaak Walton, and the scientific imagination -- The microscope made easy : Andrew Marvell with Henry Power -- The paradise without : John Milton in the garden -- Postscript.
Summary:
"Argues for the importance of states of careless inattention and easygoing dispassion to literary and scientific works inspired by Francis Bacon's philosophy of nature, retrieving a counternarrative to the rise of scientific method and its attendant ethos of rigor in the intellectual culture of seventeenth-century England"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.