Description
Book SynopsisExamining the phenomenon of miniaturization in material culture, literature and theories of cognition, this study examines the appeal and function of the small in the period from 1660 to 1765. Examining two kinds of miniatures - real and imaginary - it provides a rethinking of major and minor writers.
Trade Review'… the book's analysis of small things within the broader contexts of the early eighteenth century is invaluable … the book reinforces that although the objects it discusses were physically small, they were rich with meaning, history, and interpretative potential. As such, Rabb's sophisticated interrogation of the relationship between small things and big ideas will be of great use to anyone doing work on objects (and their representations) which, due to aesthetic hierarchies and cultural regimes of value, have long been deemed not only small, but insignificant.' Freya Gowrley, The Review of English Studies
'This is a deft, incisive book that produces rich new interpretations of texts, and I recommend it …' Nicholas Seager, MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW
Table of Contents1. Introduction to an age of small-scale; 2. Swift and miniature: Cogito ergo Gulliver; 3. Lilliput recalibrated: Johnson and others; 4. Toying with thought: Pope, Gay, Dodsley; 5. War in miniature: models, maps, medals, and Sterne's Tristram Shandy; 6. Science and miniature: animal rationis capax and homo depictor; Coda: 'the last extreme of littleness': miniature and the postmodern imagination; Bibliography.
