Wonder & Science

During the early modern period, western Europe was transformed by the proliferation of new worlds -- geographic worlds found in the voyages of discovery and conceptual and celestial worlds opened by natural philosophy, or science. The response to incredible overseas encounters and to the profound technological, religious, economic, and intellectual changes occurring in Europe was one of nearly overwhelming wonder, expressed in a rich variety of texts. In the need to manage this wonder, to harness this imaginative overabundance, Mary Baine Campbell finds both the sensational beauty of early scientific works and the beginnings of the divergence of the sciences -- particularly geography, astronomy, and anthropology -- from the writing of fiction.

Mary Baine Campbell is Associate Professor of English at Brandeis University.