This book examines the rhetorical dimension of eighteenth-century natural history. It focuses on the French naturalist and literary stylist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, author of the bestselling multi-volume Histoire naturelle (1749-1789). Natural history as Buffon and his contemporaries knew it remains a fascinating object of study for its breadth, its cultural openness, and its disorderly energy. Rhetoric here is understood as a set of techniques for attracting and persuading an audience. As a contribution both to literary studies and to the history of science, Rhetoric and natural history adds to our understanding of the intellectual culture of the French Enlightenment.
ISBN: | 9780729407472 |
Publication date: | 1st March 2001 |
Author: | Jeff Loveland |
Publisher: | Voltaire Foundation an imprint of Liverpool University Press |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 225 pages |
Series: | Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment |
Genres: |
Philosophy Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Western philosophy: Enlightenment |