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The Aesthetics of Discovery: Text, Image, and the Performance of Knowledge in the Early-Modern Book The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Korta, Jeremie Charles. 2015. The Aesthetics of Discovery: Text, Image, and the Performance of Knowledge in the Early-Modern Book. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467521 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Aesthetics of Discovery: Text, Image, and the Performance of Knowledge in the Early-Modern Book A dissertation presented by Jeremie Charles Korta to The Romance Languages and Literatures Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Romance Languages and Literatures Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 – Jeremie Charles Korta All rights reserved. Dissertation adviser: Professor Tom Conley Jeremie Charles Korta The Aesthetics of Discovery: Text, Image and the Performance of Knowledge in the Early-Modern Book Abstract How does the book-object in early modernity participate in the representation of scientific knowledge? How was the reader meant to approach the book and to comprehend its contents? This project starts from the contention that scientific knowledge is not a product simply to be deposited into unmarked containers and transmitted unproblematically. On the contrary, the book, whether literary or scientific, actively shapes and invents objects of scientific knowledge. Sensory, affective and cognitive ways in which the reader is expected to approach the book and its contents are implicit in its formatting of text and image, not to mention margins, presentational material and indices. This project draws from literary and natural scientific traditions of the French and Italian Renaissance in order to study how the early-modern book forms and performs scientific knowledge in various ways. Compelling the reader to interrupt his or her reading and to explore the book’s text and images as if they were objects in their own right, the book-object strives to imitate the experience and method of scientific discovery for the early-modern reader. To this end, touch, appetition, and bodily awareness become as important as sight and critical reasoning in a procedural approach and apprehension of knowledge in and of the book- object. An “aesthetics of discovery”, formed by the book and performed by the reader, is implicit in the book’s careful articulations of text and image. iii Table of Contents Introduction “Towards an Early-Modern Aesthetics of Discovery” pp. 1-20 Chapter 1 “Chaos to Creation: Sensing and making sense of the pp. 21-76 world” Chapter 2 “(Ab)using the Book: Work and Play on the pp. 77-105 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) and the Songe de Poliphile (1546)” Chapter 3 “‘The Workshop of my Imagination’: Mise-en-Page and the pp. 106-156 Embodiment of Discovery in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Songe de Poliphile.” Chapter 4 “Aesthetics of Discovery: Pierre Belon's Histoire Naturelle pp. 157-213 des Estranges Poissons Marins (1551)” Chapter 5 “Observing the Objects of Nature in Belon’s Histoire pp. 214-269 naturelle and Observations de plusieurs singularitez (1553)” Conclusion pp. 270-285 Bibliography pp. 286-311 iv Acknowledgements Having come to French literature from the sciences, I thought I would find my niche as a modernist until my thesis director, Tom Conley, introduced me to the rich and rewarding field of Renaissance studies. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Tom, who brought the world of the Renaissance text to life for me, and encouraged me to find my own voice in the wonderful field of Renaissance studies. I would also like to thank Sylvaine Guyot and Henri Zerner, who generously agreed to read and comment on my doctoral work. Far from being mere “readers” however, both Sylvaine and Henri have been formative in my intellectual and personal approach to Early-Modern studies. I would also like to express my thanks to my mother, Fabienne, who bravely read through my thesis (multiple times!) as it was developing, and to my father who provided encouragement and support whenever I needed it. And last, but certainly not least, Jill, thank you for your presence, your patience, your ear and your heart through the many ups and downs of thesis writing. v To my parents whose unflagging support made everything possible. vi Introduction: Towards an Early-Modern Aesthetics of Discovery Prelude Every time I make my way – bleary-eyed after a long trans-Atlantic flight – back down into Paris from the aéroport Charles de Gaulle along the RER B, I am charmed and reanimated by the feminine voice which, as always, faithfully announces every stop. The dots along the blue line are long familiar to me and I can picture what they would look like seated at a train window – Le Parc des Expositions, Drancy, La Stade de France – after which a tunnel dives under the périphérique into the historical heart of Paris; unless, perhaps, I’m lucky enough to catch the direct train which skips the Région parisienne’s vast banlieues, and coasts non-stop from Charles de Gaulle to La Gare du Nord. Whatever the trip, the same maternal voice accompanies my journey. With a graceful inflection, she asks each time we roll into the station – “Sevran-Beaudottes?” – inviting me to consider descending upon the next “pretty dot”, just this once. Or she’ll inquire with the same 1 coy play of fascination – “La Gare du Nord?” – bringing into view a wide ramification of destinations (and the Thalys publicité: “retrouvez votre âme d’explorateur grâce à Thalys!”). When we approach Notre Dame her voice sounds almost provocative – “Saint Michel – Notre Dame?” – and I am made to wonder: “Who is Saint Michel? What is Notre Dame?” Nevertheless, each of her questions – mysterious, inviting or provocative – are always answered, and the suspense never lasts too long. When we pull into Sevran-Beaudottes I stay seated, suitcase between my knees, and explore with a perusing eye through the large, dirty train window, while the same voice assures, following her suspenseful question: “Sevran- Beaudottes.” At the Gare du Nord the many trips which had opened up with her question collapse into one when she affirms, pulling into the station: “Gare du Nord.” And when she inquires after the very possibility of someone called “Saint Michel” and something called “Notre Dame”, I am assured that whatever they are, they’re still up there on the surface, when at last she answers her own question: “Saint Michel - Notre Dame.” My own trip ends with a final tease before the doors open at my destination: “Luxembourg? … Luxembourg.” Not long ago, blissfully absorbed in an early edition of Belon, or, perhaps, turning the textured pages of a Songe de Poliphile during one of my countless happy visits to the Houghton library, I was reminded of these trips to and from Paris on the RER, and of that peculiar voice with its curious lilt. True, as I paged those (by then) familiar books, I am pretty sure the reading room was not gliding along any tracks. When, after I’d shut my books and returned them to the librarian, and had opened the library doors to step into the falling dusk, I never hoped to stop into Poliphile’s Gardens of Eleuthyrilda, nor did I ever encounter Belon’s hippopotamus in the grand menagerie of the Grand Sultan of Constantinople. And though Belon, in his Observations, 2 took me many times from Crete to Lemnos and on to Constantinople and Alexandria, there was no physical way I could step off his itinerary to range a little wider from his singular trail, as François Maspéro blazed his own path parallel and orthogonal to the RER B line for Les Passagers du Roissy-Express. Yet the illustrated books I have explored for this study do their best to simulate the possibility of alternate paths, of personal readings, of leisurely views. As absorbing on page one, as on page one hundred, they invite the reader of any time to hop in and out, to dwell on a detail, take in a folio-sized illustration, or link obliquely this text with that image. Like the cradle of a car, the book bears our imaginary travels which we weave from its text and images. And like a train-car, the illustrated book not only offers its sights through the frame of the page, it also comes with its own stops and starts, jolts and swerves, bringing us back to our body. For, the books I have studied most carefully don’t only offer the possibility, lying stationary at a given page, of diverse creative tangents; every page turn, too, is a new transition, a potential surprise, every discontinuity from text to image – and back again – an event. In such a way, they construct their own space of travel, though there are no doors to step in or out, off or on. Belon appears to be tracing a path, yet his books are designed to plot objects like places, destinations, departure points. “Constantinople?” the book asks, “a dragon?”. And while we wonder, turning the page, an image, a diagram, a tactically placed bit of text answers the question: “Constantinople.” (Here is a map…); “A dragon.” (Beware...) “Luxembourg?” “Luxembourg.” We’re here. Now it’s time to explore.