The Nose of Death considers the common matrix of the English scientific revolution and the modern English novel through the indicator of laughter. Whereas death is the paradigmatic object of laughter in the premodern period, animate or thinking matter is the prevailing object of laughter in modernity. The change is located in texts of the English baroque period from 1607 to 1767. Baroque discourse is defined by the language developed by writers loyal to both the Christian and the Copernican world views. Contradictory allegiances required them to institute a narratorial position based on simultaneous attachment to and detachment from a single point of view. This position is the defining feature of baroque discourse, the basis of both the perspective of modem science and the animation of multiple viewpoints in the modern novel. / The Nose of Death develops Walter Benjamin's reading of baroque "muting" and "fragmentation," processes that free matter, language, and time for alternative composition. The dissertation likewise adapts M. M. Bakhtin's account of the "grotesque method," considered as the approach to language and the human body that the modern "scientific method" posits itself against. This study treats baroque novelistic discourse in forgotten texts drawn from McGill's Redpath Tracts by Thomas Tomkis, Thomas D'Urfey, Tobias Swinden, and a selection of anonymously authored pamphlets. It considers, as well, two early medical works by Robert Boyle and Walter Charleton. Analogous fragments are similarly analyzed from three canonical works: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady (1747--48), and Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759--67).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.35019 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Morgan, Dawn. |
| Contributors | Hensley, David C. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001615507, proquestno: NQ44522, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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