Roman, Hanna (Author)
Drawing from literary studies, philosophy, and the history of science, in this interdisciplinary study Hanna Roman argues that the language of Buffon's Histoire naturelle (1749-1788) could not be separated from the science it conveyed; the language communicated nature's vital order, form and movement. In the Histoire naturelle, the ability of language to embody and communicate the living essence of nature grew increasingly poignant as Buffon established his hypothesis that the Earth, initially a molten ball of fire, was dying as it slowly became colder.The author highlights Buffon's epoques de la nature (1778) in which he implied that to save nature from cold death, people must learn to create actual heat according to the model provided by his lyrical, dynamic language, the energy of which would transform into re-warming a cooling globe. In this way, Roman argues that Buffon's literary simulacrum of nature taught his readers not only about the history of nature and its laws, but also how to interact with nature differently, transferring to them the skills necessary to modify the surrounding world in order to better fit the desiresand dreams of humanity. A new world could be more than imagined - it could be engineered through language.
...MoreReview Swann Paradis (2021) Review of "The Language of Nature in Buffon's 'Histoire Naturelle'". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 189-190).
Book
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de;
Sverker Sörlin;
Libby Robin;
Jacques Grinevald;
(2018)
The Epochs of Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB914504143/)
Book
Dugatkin, Lee Alan;
(2009)
Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America
(/isis/citation/CBB001020039/)
Book
Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon;
Stéphane Schmitt;
(2011)
Histoire naturelle générale et particulière avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, Tome VII, 1758
(/isis/citation/CBB516024958/)
Book
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de;
(2010)
Œuvres complètes V: Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi
(/isis/citation/CBB001023121/)
Thesis
Roman, Hanna;
(2013)
Narrating Nature's Story: The Rhetorical Strategies of Natural Knowledge in Buffon's “Histoire Naturelle”, 1749--1778
(/isis/citation/CBB001567440/)
Article
Guerrini, Anita;
(2012)
Perrault, Buffon and the Natural History of Animals
(/isis/citation/CBB001251459/)
Book
Stalnaker, Joanna;
(2010)
The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia
(/isis/citation/CBB001023297/)
Chapter
Loveland, Jeff;
(2003)
French Thought in William Smellie's Natural History: A Scottish Reception of Buffon and Condillac
(/isis/citation/CBB000410948/)
Book
Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon;
Stéphane Schmitt;
(2011)
Histoire naturelle générale et particulière avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, Tome VI, 1756
(/isis/citation/CBB868139204/)
Book
Cohen, Claudine;
(2011)
Science, libertinage et clandestinité à l'aube des Lumières. Le transformisme de Telliamed
(/isis/citation/CBB001231914/)
Book
Stefanie Stockhorst;
Jürgen Overhoff;
Penelope J. Corfield;
(2021)
Human-Animal Interactions in the Eighteenth Century: From Pests and Predators to Pets, Poems and Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB446524520/)
Article
Brenna, Brita;
(2012)
Natures, Contexts, and Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001250231/)
Thesis
Hartendorf-Wallach, Bregtje;
(2011)
“Le Spectacle de la Nature, or, Nature Display'd”: The Spectacularization of Nature in Eighteenth-Century France and England
(/isis/citation/CBB001567329/)
Article
Alsina Calvés, José;
(2009)
De la “Teoría de la Tierra” a las “Épocas de la naturaleza” de Buffon: análisis de una mutación conceptual
(/isis/citation/CBB000933120/)
Article
Bernardini, Giovanna;
(1985-86)
Buffon, la storia della natura e la storia degli uomini
(/isis/citation/CBB000062651/)
Article
Moser, Walter;
(1984)
Énergie et différence: Visions savantes de la fin du monde au XVIIIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000041706/)
Chapter
Duchesneau, François;
(1982)
The role of hypotheses in Descartes's and Buffon's theories of the earth
(/isis/citation/CBB000007316/)
Article
Bertucci, Paola;
(2013)
The In/visible Woman: Mariangela Ardinghelli and the Circulation of Knowledge between Paris and Naples in the Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001320190/)
Book
Douglas, Kirsty;
(2010)
Pictures of Time Beneath: Science, Heritage and the Uses of the Deep Past
(/isis/citation/CBB001033602/)
Article
Dena Goodman;
(2020)
What It Meant to Be Linnaean in Revolutionary France
(/isis/citation/CBB717509066/)
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