Discovering Discovery in Restoration London; Or, the Theatre Under the Microscope

Abstract

Abstract:Focusing on Robert Hooke's spectacular 1665 Micrographia and Thomas Shadwell's 1676 satire of Hooke and other members of the early Royal Society, The Virtuoso, this essay argues that the concept of discovery was central to managing the challenges of technologically assisted perception. In Hooke's accounts of how he discovered new objects in his microscope, Shadwell discovered a language for thinking through how characters could be known inside the new scenic stage of the Restoration theaters.