Toy Medium Materialism And Modern Lyric - Daniel Tiffany

What Begins With An Unlikely Collection Of Unrelated Phenomena--mechanical Dolls, Weather, Atoms, Lyric Poetry--blossoms In The Course Of Toy Medium Into A Subtle And Persuasive Meditation On One Of Western Philosophy's Biggest Puzzles: The Relation Of Mind And Matter. What Is The Role Of The Imagination In Defining Material Substance? In A Dazzling Study Of The Poetics Of Materialist Philosophy And Of The Materialism Of Lyric Poetry, Daniel Tiffany Traces The Historical Conjunction Of Matter And Metaphor Through A Remarkable Range Of Topics: Automata In Classical Antiquity And The Eighteenth Century; Kepler's Treatise On Snowflakes; Animal Magnetism; Fireworks And Cloud-chamber Photographs; The Origins Of The Microscope As A Philosophical Toy And Its Bearing On The Figure Of The Virtuoso.