Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England

4.4/5 ( ratings)

The role of natural magic in the rise of seventeenth-century experimental science has been the subject of lively controversy for several decades. Now Penelope Gouk introduces a new element into the debate: how music mediated between these two domains. Arguing that changing musical practice in sixteenth-century Europe affected seventeenth-century English thought on science and magic, she maps the various relationships among these apparently separate disciplines.

Gouk explores these relationships in several ways. She adopts the methods of social geography to discuss the disciplinary, social, and intellectual overlapping of music, science, and natural magic. She gives a historical account of the emergence of acoustics in English science, the harmonically based physics of Robert Hooke, and the position of harmonics within Newton’s transformation of natural philosophy. And she provides a gallery of images in which contemporary representations of instruments, practices, and concepts demonstrate the way in which musical models informed and transformed those of natural philosophy. Gouk shows that as the “occult” features of music became subject to the new science of experimentation, and as their causes became evident, so natural magic was pushed outside the realms of scientific discourse.

Language: English

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: August 11, 1999

ISBN: 0300073836

ISBN 13: 9780300073836

Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England

4.4/5 ( ratings)

The role of natural magic in the rise of seventeenth-century experimental science has been the subject of lively controversy for several decades. Now Penelope Gouk introduces a new element into the debate: how music mediated between these two domains. Arguing that changing musical practice in sixteenth-century Europe affected seventeenth-century English thought on science and magic, she maps the various relationships among these apparently separate disciplines.

Gouk explores these relationships in several ways. She adopts the methods of social geography to discuss the disciplinary, social, and intellectual overlapping of music, science, and natural magic. She gives a historical account of the emergence of acoustics in English science, the harmonically based physics of Robert Hooke, and the position of harmonics within Newton’s transformation of natural philosophy. And she provides a gallery of images in which contemporary representations of instruments, practices, and concepts demonstrate the way in which musical models informed and transformed those of natural philosophy. Gouk shows that as the “occult” features of music became subject to the new science of experimentation, and as their causes became evident, so natural magic was pushed outside the realms of scientific discourse.

Language: English

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: August 11, 1999

ISBN: 0300073836

ISBN 13: 9780300073836

More books from Penelope Gouk

Musical Healing in Cultural Contexts

Towards Tonality: Aspects of Baroque Music Theory

The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind, and Well-being

Wellsprings of Achievement: Cultural and Economic Dynamics in Early Modern England and Japan

The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind, and Well-Being

Ivory Diptych Sundials, 1570-1750

Music, Nature and Divine Knowledge in England, 1650-1750: Between the Rational and the Mystical (Music in Society and Culture, 11)

Music, Nature and Divine Knowledge in England, 1650-1750: Between the Rational and the Mystical (Music in Society and Culture Book 11)

Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Music and Medicine

Rate this book!

Write a review?