Engines of the Imagination : Renaissance Culture and the Rise of the Machine

At what point did machines and technology begin to have an impact on the cultural consciousness and imagination of Europe? How was this reflected through the art and literature of the time? Was technology a sign of the fall of humanity from its original state of innocence or a sign of human progress and mastery over the natural world? In his characteristically lucid and captivating style, Jonathan Sawday investigates these questions and more by engaging with the poetry, philosophy, art, and engineering of the period to find the lost world of the machine in the pre-industrial culture of the European Renaissance. The aesthetic and intellectual dimension of these machines appealed to familiar figures such as Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, and Leonardo da Vinci as well as to a host of lesser known writers and artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This intellectual engagement with machines in the European Renaissance gave rise to new attitudes towards gender, work and labour, and even fostered the new sciences of artificial life and reason which would be pursued by figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz in the seventeenth century. Writers, philosophers and artists had mixed and often conflicting reactions to technology, reflecting a paradoxical attitude between modern progress and traditional values. Underpinning the enthusiastic creation of a machine-driven world, then, were stories of loss and catastrophe. These contradictory attitudes are part of the legacy of the European Renaissance, just as much as the plays of Shakespeare or the poetry of John Milton. And this historical legacy helps to explain many of our own attitudes towards the technology that surrounds us, sustains us, and sometimes perplexes us in the modern world. The Renaissance Machine And Its Discontents -- The World Of Techne -- A Word Run Upon Wheels: The Sound Of Renaissance -- Windmills And Watermills -- Shame -- Philosophy, Power, And Politics In Renaissance Technology -- The Vital Humour Of The Terrestrial Machine -- A Water-driven World -- Watching Machines With Montaigne -- Movement And The Philosophy Of Machines -- Machines And Social Power -- The Renaissance Megamachine: Rome 1585-6 -- The Turn Of The Screw: Machines, Books, And Bodies -- Of Alientation And Pins -- What Is't O'clock?: Clock Time And Social Status -- Print And Mechanical Culture -- The Birth Of The Renaissance Machine -- Gregorius Agricola And The Invention Of Mechanical Labour -- The Syntax Of The Machine -- The Mechanical World Of Agostino Ramelli -- The Body Of The Machine -- Texual Engines -- Perpetual Motions -- Women And Wheels: Gender And The Machine In The Renaissance -- Rosie The Riveter -- The Spinners -- Wheels -- Rotary Punishment -- The Wheel Of Fortune -- A Thing Made For Alexander -- Nature Wrought: Artifice, Illusion, And Magical Mechanics -- Metallic Fantasies -- Fabricating Nature -- Mechanical Illusions -- Bodies Without Souls -- Mechanical Women -- Reasoning Engines: The Instrumental Imagination In The Seventeenth Century -- Buying An Instrument -- Francis Bacon And The Reform Of Mechanism -- Seeing With Machines -- Robert Hooke's Artificial Bodies -- The Second Adam -- Clockwork Reason -- The Caclulating Machine -- Mechanical Theology -- Political Machines -- Sex Machines -- The Semi-omnipotent Engine -- The Idea Of The Engine -- Milton And Industry -- Milton And The Machine -- The Machine Stops -- The Interrupted Idyll Of Andrew Marvell -- The Happy Return -- Conclusion: The Machine Stops. Jonathan Sawday. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [319]-383) And Index. How did men and women in earlier ages respond to their technologies? In his characteristicall lucid and captivating style, Sawday explores poetry, philosophy, art, and engineering to reveal the lost world of the machine in the preindustrial culture of the European Renaissance. In the Renaissance, machines and mechanisms appealed to familiar figures such as Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, and Leondardo da Vinci, as well as to a host of lesser-known writer and artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This intellectual and aesthetic engagement with devices of all kinds would give rise to new attitudes towards gender as well as towards work and labour, and even fostered the beginning of the new sciences of artificial life and reason which would be pursued by Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz in the later seventeenth century. But writers, philosophers, and artists often had conflicting reaction to the technology that was beginning to surround them. For at the heart of the creation of a machine-driven world were stories of loss and catastrophe. Was technology a token of human progress or was it, rather, a sign of the fall of humanity from its original state of innocence? These contradictory attitudes are part of the legacy of the Europeans Renaissance, and this historical legacy helps to explain many of our own attitudes towards the technology that surrounds us, sustains us, and sometimes troubles us today BOOK COVER......Page 1 TITLE......Page 4 COPYRIGHT......Page 5 CONTENTS......Page 6 1 THE RENAISSANCE MACHINE AND ITS DISCONTENTS......Page 24 2 PHILOSOPHY, POWER, AND POLITICS IN RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGY......Page 54 3 THE TURN OF THE SCREW: Machines, books, and bodies......Page 93 4 WOMEN AND WHEELS: Gender and the machine in the Renaissance......Page 148 5 ‘NATURE WROUGHT’: Artifice, illusion, and magical mechanics......Page 189 6 REASONING ENGINES: The instrumental imagination in the seventeenth century......Page 230 7 MILTON AND THE ENGINE......Page 280 8 THE MACHINE STOPS......Page 317 NOTES......Page 342 INDEX......Page 408 Humanities BOOK COVER 1 TITLE 4 COPYRIGHT 5 CONTENTS 6 1 THE RENAISSANCE MACHINE AND ITS DISCONTENTS 24 2 PHILOSOPHY, POWER, AND POLITICS IN RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGY 54 3 THE TURN OF THE SCREW: Machines, books, and bodies 93 4 WOMEN AND WHEELS: Gender and the machine in the Renaissance 148 5 ‘NATURE WROUGHT’: Artifice, illusion, and magical mechanics 189 6 REASONING ENGINES: The instrumental imagination in the seventeenth century 230 7 MILTON AND THE ENGINE 280 8 THE MACHINE STOPS 317 NOTES 342 INDEX 408 Challenging the artificial divide between technological studies and cultural history, Engines of the Imagination traces the story of the imaginative encounter with machines and machinery in the European Renaissance