The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and the Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific RevolutionThe Monster in the Machine tracks the ways in which human beings were defined in contrast to supernatural and demonic creatures during the time of the Scientific Revolution. Zakiya Hanafi recreates scenes of Italian life and culture from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries to show how monsters were conceptualized at this particular locale and historical juncture—a period when the sacred was being supplanted by a secular, decidedly nonmagical way of looking at the world. Noting that the word “monster” is derived from the Latin for “omen” or “warning,” Hanafi explores the monster’s early identity as a portent or messenger from God. Although monsters have always been considered “whatever we are not,” they gradually were tranformed into mechanical devices when new discoveries in science and medicine revealed the mechanical nature of the human body. In analyzing the historical literature of monstrosity, magic, and museum collections, Hanafi uses contemporary theory and the philosophy of technology to illuminate the timeless significance of the monster theme. She elaborates the association between women and the monstrous in medical literature and sheds new light on the work of Vico—particularly his notion of the conatus—by relating it to Vico’s own health. By explicating obscure and fascinating texts from such disciplines as medicine and poetics, she invites the reader to the piazzas and pulpits of seventeenth-century Naples, where poets, courtiers, and Jesuit preachers used grotesque figures of speech to captivate audiences with their monstrous wit. Drawing from a variety of texts from medicine, moral philosophy, and poetics, Hanafi’s guided tour through this baroque museum of ideas will interest readers in comparative literature, Italian literature, history of ideas, history of science, art history, poetics, women’s studies, and philosophy. |
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Page 3
... causes or by ritual sacri- fice — but for what it foretold . A sign of coming calamity , the monster first and primarily was a messenger from the other world . So if the barbarian was distinguished by making no sense , or nonsense , the ...
... causes or by ritual sacri- fice — but for what it foretold . A sign of coming calamity , the monster first and primarily was a messenger from the other world . So if the barbarian was distinguished by making no sense , or nonsense , the ...
Page 5
... cause for wonder and ciation . Monsters were seen to bespeak the endless fecundity and creativ- ity of God's handiwork . Their ancient associations with divination , trans- gression , pollution , breakdown in social hierarchy , terror ...
... cause for wonder and ciation . Monsters were seen to bespeak the endless fecundity and creativ- ity of God's handiwork . Their ancient associations with divination , trans- gression , pollution , breakdown in social hierarchy , terror ...
Page 6
... causes of the generation of monsters or their symbolic meaning . More recent writings on monstros- ity adopt a thematic organizing principle , such as " the monster in West- ern art . " The historians of histories of monsters generally ...
... causes of the generation of monsters or their symbolic meaning . More recent writings on monstros- ity adopt a thematic organizing principle , such as " the monster in West- ern art . " The historians of histories of monsters generally ...
Page 8
... causes of monsters , the etiology is to be found in the struggle between the formal agent — male seed — to dominate the fe- male matter . If the movement of the seed prevails over the generative secretion of the female ( the menses ) ...
... causes of monsters , the etiology is to be found in the struggle between the formal agent — male seed — to dominate the fe- male matter . If the movement of the seed prevails over the generative secretion of the female ( the menses ) ...
Page 27
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Contents
1 | |
16 | |
Monstrous Machines | 53 |
Medicine and the Mechanized Body | 97 |
Vicos Monstrous Body | 135 |
Monstrous Metaphor | 187 |
Afterword | 218 |
Notes | 219 |
Bibliography | 253 |
Index | 267 |
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according admiration ancient Angiola animal spirits appear Aristotelian Aristotle artificial Athanasius Kircher automatons Baroque beasts beautiful become Benedetto Varchi bestial birth blood Borelli Campanella Capoa catoptric cause choleric conatus conceit Cornelio corpo created creatures defective deformed delight demons Descartes described Discourse on Method divine early modern eyes fact figure Fisch Fisonomia garden Giambattista Vico Giovanni Borelli heart human body humors Hypochondria Ibid imagination kind Kircher Liceti machine marvelous material matter Max Fisch mechanical medicine metaphor metaphysical mind mirror monsters monstrous races moral motion move movement museum Naples natural magic Nemean lion nerves Nicolini object organs passions Peregrini philosophical physical physician physiognomy physiology pleasure poesie varie Porta principle procuri produce provides reason rhetorical sacred scientific seicento semen sense seventeenth century sirens soul statues technological teratology Tesauro things tion transformed treatise Varchi Vico Vico's virtue witticisms women wonder