Description
Book SynopsisNatural History in Early Modern France offers a longue durée account of recurring poetic structures of the genre through case studies spanning from the Renaissance to the eve of the nineteenth century. These case studies reveal the lasting epistemic importance of bookish knowledge and commonplacing in the natural-historical description from Belon to Buffon. They also highlight the French reception of Baconianism. Natural History in Early Modern France makes a case for the literary status of the genre by attending to the permanence of its 'Plinian' features, such as wonders. Natural history was not only concerned with increasingly rational modes of ordering natural particulars: this book reveals its enduring social, affective, spiritual, and aesthetic underpinnings. Contributors are: Peter Anstey, Susan Broomhall, Isabelle Charmantier, Arlette Fruet, Raphaële Garrod, Paul Gibbard, Dana Jalobeanu, Myriam Marrache-Gouraud, Stéphane Schmitt, Paul J. Smith, and Stéphane Van Damme.
Trade Review"This volume [...] beautifully illustrates literary approaches to the early modern French histoire naturelle." Dorit Brixius, German Historical Institute in Paris, in ISIS 111.2 “A timely collection on the intersection of literature and natural history, especially concerning plants and birds.” Dorothea Heitsch, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Spring 2020), pp. 360–361.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Figures and Tables Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors 1 Introduction. Knowledge and Literature: The Natural-Historical Description as Epistemic Genre? Raphaële Garrod 2 Deux recueils d’illustrations ornithologiques : les Icones avium (1555 et 1560) de Conrad Gessner et les Portraits d’oyseaux (1557) de Pierre Belon Paul J. Smith 3 Feeling Divine Nature: Natural History, Emotions and Bernard Palissy’s Knowledge Practice Susan Broomhall 4 L’idée d’un oiseau : l’oiseau de paradis ou la fabrication d’une merveille (XVIe et XVIIe siècles) Arlette Fruet 5 Du nouveau sur la licorne : le rôle des cabinets de curiosités dans l’avancée des savoirs Myriam Marrache-Gouraud 6 The Natural-Historical Rejuvenation of Emblematics: The Moral Pedagogy of Nicolas Caussin’s Polyhistor Symbolicus Raphaële Garrod 7 Natural History and Divertissement: J.B. Faultrier’s Traitté general des oyseaux (1660) Isabelle Charmantier 8 At the Borders of the Metropolis: Writing the Natural History of Paris in the Eighteenth Century Stéphane Van Damme 9 Rewriting Bacon’s Natural History: Pierre Amboise’s Translation of Sylva Sylvarum Dana Jalobeanu 10 Bacon, Experimental Philosophy and French Enlightenment Natural History Peter R. Anstey 11 La permanence des savoirs antiques dans l’histoire naturelle du second XVIIIe siècle Stéphane Schmitt 12 Empiricism and Sensibility in the Australian Journal of Théodore Leschenault de La Tour (1800-1803) Paul Gibbard Index Nominum
