Front cover image for Vanities of the eye : vision in early modern European culture

Vanities of the eye : vision in early modern European culture

Stuart Clarke examines the history of the senses in early modern Europe, a time when the nature and reliability of human vision was much debated. Was seeing really believing? Illustrating how this was woven into contemporary works such as Macbeth, Clarke exposes contemporary ideas on the relationship between the real and the virtual.
Print Book, English, 2007
Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.], 2007
XI, 415 p. ill. 24 cm
9780199541607, 0199541604
1014877517
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