<\/p>
Another interesting review in the TLS <\/i> , of Jessica Wolfe\u2019s Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissance Literature <\/i> (Cambridge), an exploration of the literary uses of machinery and machine imagery in Renaissance literature. According to Wolfe, Renaissance writers saw \u201cthe profound applicability of mechanical practices and principles to extra-scientific questions.\u201d In political theory, Simon Sturtevant compared servants to machines as \u201cthe living instruments upon whom rulers rely,\u201d and even the Machiavellian conception of virtu <\/i> refered not only to \u201chuman power or ingenuity\u201d but to \u201cthe motive power of a machine.\u201d Spenser\u2019s Talus, from book 5 of the Fairie Queene, is a mechanical man that \u201creveals how uneasy he is about the uses of mechanics to foster war,\u201d though the reviewer (Andrew Hadfield) adds, with a nod to Spenser\u2019s own involvement in government, that \u201cthere is a huge difference between an expression of uneasiness and a criticism of the enthusiastic rigour with which the regime implemented its understanding of justice.\u201d <\/p>\n
In part, Wolfe builds on the work of Norbert Elias: Elias \u201csaw the Renaissance as a period in which writers became increasingly concerned with the ways and means of self-regulation, the development of codes of practice that sought to internalize rules that would shape and control the individual. Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissance Literature <\/i> does much to develop and qualify Elias\u2019s insights, showing how machines simultaneously provided models of self-control, but also \u2018warn against the perils of too much self-control.\u2019 The principle of sprezzatura <\/i> , developed in the early sixteenth century by Urbino, was designed to allow courtiers to escape the rigours of an excessively mechanistic approach to their lives. Instead of being dutiful and dull, hidebound by the rules they were forced to obey, they had to appear spontaneous, witty and brilliant, qualities that were learned, not inherited. In transforming themselves into such apparently effortless creatures, they had to become machines that \u2018surpass nature.\u2019 A similar effort lies behind Stoic philosophy and the attempt to escape from the vicissitudes of the world.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another interesting review in the TLS , of Jessica Wolfe\u2019s Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge), an exploration of the literary uses of machinery and machine imagery in Renaissance literature. According to Wolfe, Renaissance writers saw \u201cthe profound applicability of mechanical practices and principles to extra-scientific questions.\u201d In political theory, Simon Sturtevant compared servants to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\n