1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460295703321

Titolo

American literature and science / / Robert J. Scholnick, editor

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lexington, Kentucky : , : The University Press of Kentucky, , 2010

©1992

ISBN

0-8131-9341-9

0-8131-4943-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (296 p.)

Disciplina

810.9/356

Soggetti

American literature - History and criticism

Literature and science - United States

Science in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; 1 Permeable Boundaries: Literature and Science in America; 2 ""This Brazen Serpent Is a Doctors Shop"": Edward Taylor's Medical Vision; 3 Benjamin Franklin: The Fusion of Science and Letters; 4 Thomas Jefferson; 5 An Intrinsic Luminosity: Poe's Use of Platonic and Newtonian Optics; 6 Fields of Investigation: Emerson and Natural History; 7 Thoreau and Science; 8 (Pseudo-) Scientific Humor; 9 Traveling in Time with Mark Twain; 10 Hart Crane and John Dos Passos; 11 Fields of Spacetime and the ""I"" in Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems

12 ""Unfurrowing the Mind's Plowshare"": Fiction in a Cybernetic Age13 Turbulence in Literature and Science: Questions of Influence; Bibliography: American Literature and Science through 1989; Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y; Z

Sommario/riassunto

Literature and science are two disciplines are two disciplines often thought to be unrelated, if not actually antagonistic. But Robert J. Scholnick points out that these areas of learning, up through the beginning of the nineteenth century, ""were understood as parts of a unitary endeavor."" By mid-century they had diverged, but literature



and science have continued to interact, conflict, and illuminate each other. In this innovative work, twelve leaders in this emerging interdisciplinary field explore the long engagement of American writers with science and uncover science's conflicting meani