Literary and Experimentalist Applications Of

“Things Invisible to Mortal Sight”: Literary and Experimentalist Applications of Perspective in Seventeenth-Century England by Erin Melissa Mary Webster A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Erin Webster (2014) “‘Things Invisible to Mortal Sight’: Literary and Experimentalist Applications of Perspective in Seventeenth-Century England” Erin Melissa Mary Webster Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This thesis investigates the dialogue between imaginative literature and experimentalist philosophy in Restoration England with a focus on the topics of vision and perspective. I examine Margaret Cavendish’s and John Milton’s contributions to this dialogue by reading Cavendish’s Blazing World and Milton’s Paradise Lost alongside optical writings by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. Where current assessments of the relationship between early modern science and literature have tended to make content-based comparisons, my approach charts new territory by examining the structural, rhetorical, and stylistic components that shape and inform the content of these works. To lay a foundation for this analysis, I first demonstrate that, contrary to the prevalent view of experimentalist writers as anti-figuration, these writers relied on the rhetorical tropes of analogy and simile as a literary means of making invisible things visible to the reader’s imagination. I argue that in experimentalist literature, “similitudes” are conceived as literary analogues to the mechanical technology of the lens. Like lenses, they can serve both to clarify and distort the objects they describe. Thus experimentalist ii anxiety over the use of figuration is connected to the broader debate occurring in seventeenth-century England about the epistemological status of perspectival technologies and indeed of vision itself. Having laid this groundwork, I then explore what the textual “lenses” of similitude reveal in the works included in this study. I show that in addition to a mutual interest in the ways in which figuration can serve to manipulate perspective, these texts are part of a larger discussion about the epistemological, theological, and political implications of the new information made available through the application of perspectival technologies such as telescopes and microscopes to the natural world. It is my position that these concerns are expressed not only through content, but also through form. By analyzing linguistic technologies as an aspect of the response to the optical science of the period, I aim to provide a more complete picture of the relationship between imaginative literature and experimentalism than that which currently exists. iii Acknowledgements Financial support for this project was provided by a SSHRC doctoral research grant and by funding from the University of Toronto, for which I am very grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful resources available to me though the University of Toronto libraries, as well as the Thomas Fisher Rare Book library, where I was able to consult a number of early editions of the works included in this study. Many people contributed to the development of this project from its beginning years ago in a wonderful graduate seminar on Milton’s Paradise Lost. I would first like to express my deepest gratitude to Mary Nyquist for her continual inspiration and guidance as a teacher, a supervisor, a mentor, and a friend. Mary’s own excitement and passion for scholarship encouraged me to take intellectual risks, while her invaluable insights helped me to see my own work in new and fruitful ways. Without her support this project would not have been possible. With it, it was enjoyable. I would also like to thank my committee members, Paul Stevens and Lynne Magnusson, for their direction throughout the development of my research. Paul’s comments were instrumental in helping me to locate my arguments within a broader critical dialogue, while Lynne’s perceptive questions helped to bring focus to my thought. Thanks must also go to Chandler Davis, who kindly offered his time and expertise as I attempted to navigate the world of seventeenth-century mathematics. Elizabeth Harvey and Heather Murray provided me with thoughtful questions during my oral defence. Special thanks must be given to Elizabeth Spiller, whose thorough and intellectually generous external report has renewed my excitement in this project and given me much to think about. iv I must also extend a sincere thank you to my colleagues in the Department of English, especially Mingjun Li, who read earlier drafts of my Milton chapters with great care and whose own background in early modern science made her comments particularly helpful. I have greatly enjoyed the company and the conversation of Jude Welburn, Gretchen Hitt, Joel Rodgers, Alexandra Nica and Noelle Gadon. Their humour and friendship have made my time at the University of Toronto truly enjoyable. Lastly, I am deeply grateful to my family for their love and support. To Connie and Blaine, who have always taken an interest in my studies, and who selflessly gave their time and energy to ensure that I had the quiet time I needed to complete my work. To Myka, who introduced me to books and to the art of close-reading. To my mother Mary, from whom I inherited my intellectual curiosity, and to my father Ken, whose quiet and unwavering support made all things seem possible. To Rafe, who has been a most welcome distraction. Most warmly, to Robin, for embracing even my most esoteric interests and for encouraging me every step of the way. v Table of Contents Introduction i) The paradox of enhanced vision...........................................................................1 ii) Selection criteria: Interdisciplinary conversations............................................10 ii) Text as lens in seventeenth-century England....................................................17 iv) Poetry and science: a note on the legacy of disciplinary division....................25 v) A note on terminology.......................................................................................35 Chapter One: Language Reform and the Lens of Simile i) Francis Bacon, the “plain style,” and experimentalist distrust of similitude......37 ii) Species, Similitūdō and the question of mediated vision...................................49 iii) Adamic sight, universal language, and experimentalist attempts to regain Eden.......................................................................................................................55 Chapter Two: Perspective in Hooke’s Micrographia and Cavendish’s Blazing World i) Language as lens in Hooke’s Micrographia.......................................................65 ii) Hooke’s Micrographia and Imaginative Literature..........................................71 iii) The Microscopic backdrop to Cavendish’s Blazing World..............................85 Chapter Three: Empires of the Mind in Blazing World and Micrographia i) New worlds, imperialist desires, and Hooke’s experimentalist empire...........104 ii) Micrographia’s generic affiliations with utopian fiction and “new world” narratives..............................................................................................................109 ii) Micrographia, Blazing World and the “invisible empire” of the mind...........117 iv) Optics and Empire in Bacon, Cavendish and Hooke......................................143 v) Cavendish’s Nature and the art of avoiding discovery....................................155 vi Chapter Four: The Eye as a Camera Obscura in Milton, Descartes, and Newton i) The camera obscura as a theological, epistemological, and optical metaphor..............................................................................................................164 ii) Descartes’ Optics and the philosophy of doubt...............................................181 iii) Inside the camera-as-eye in Newton’s Opticks..............................................194 iv) Milton’s “Universal blanc” and the model of the eye as a camera obscura...206 Chapter Five: Milton’s Epic Similes and the Mathematics of the Infinite(simal) i) Milton, Newton, and the paradise of the infinite..............................................226 ii) Baroque architecture, infinitesimal calculus, and the “allegory of temporality”.........................................................................................................238 iii) Milton’s Pandaemonium and the mathematics an infinite universe...............259 iv) “Divine Similitude” and the mediating function of perspective.....................269 Conclusion i) Kepler’s Somnium and the “Principle of Perspective”.....................................277 Works Cited and Consulted.............................................................................................290 vii List of Figures 1. “Of the Head of a Fly” from Micrographia...................................................................76 2. “Of A Louse” from Micrographia.................................................................................79 3. “Of a Book Worm” from Micrographia........................................................................93 4. “Of a Hunting Spider,” from Micrographia..................................................................94 5. Schematic of the eye....................................................................................................174

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