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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $105.00

Format:
Paperback
420 pp.
27 b/w halftones, 156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199541607

Publication date:
February 2009

Imprint: OUP UK


Vanities of the Eye

Vision in Early Modern European Culture

Stuart Clark

Vanities of the Eye investigates the cultural history of the senses in early modern Europe, a time in which the nature and reliability of human vision was the focus of much debate. In medicine, art theory, science, religion, and philosophy, sight came to be characterised as uncertain or paradoxical - mental images no longer resembled the external world. Was seeing really believing?

Stuart Clark explores the controversial debates of the time - from the fantasies and hallucinations of melancholia, to the illusions of magic, art, demonic deceptions, and witchcraft. The truth and function of religious images and the authenticity of miracles and visions were also questioned with new vigour, affecting such contemporary works as Macbeth - a play deeply concerned with the dangers of visual illusion. Clark also contends that there was a close connection between these debates and the ways in which philosophers such as Descartes and Hobbes developed new theories on the relationship between the real and virtual.

Original, highly accessible, and a major contribution to our understanding of European culture, Vanities of the Eye will be of great interest to a wide range of historians and anyone interested in the true nature of seeing.

Readership : Scholars and students of Cultural History; Early Modern European History; History of Art and Visual Culture.

Reviews

  • `Review from previous edition 'Wonderfully subtle exploration of how, from the 15th to the 17th centuries, people developed a complex understanding of the relationship between what was seen and what was known.'
    '
    PD Smith, The Guardian
  • `'Vanities of the Eye is dense with examples of the interpenetration of the weird, the wondrous and the mundane, drawn from a deep well of scholarship... A thoroughly satisfying read... 9 out of 10'
    '
    Fortean Times

Preface
1. Species: Vision and values
2. Fantasies: Seeing without what was within
3. Prestiges: Illusions in magic and art
4. Glamours: Demons and virtual worlds
5. Images: The reformation of the eyes
6. Apparitions: The discernment of spirits
7. Sights: King Saul and King Macbeth
8. Seemings: Philosophical scepticism
9. Dreams: The epistemology of sleep
10. Signs: Vision and the new philosophy
Bibliography

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Stuart Clark is a Professor of History at University of Wales Swansea.

There are no related titles available at this time.

Special Features

  • An original interpretation of theories of vision in early modern Europe
  • Reveals how contemporary works such as Macbeth were affected
  • A mix of diverse historical subjects from medicine & psychology, to demonology & witchcraft
  • Essential reading that will have ramifications in all areas of cultural history