Literature After Euclid

Literature After Euclid tells the story of the creative adaptation of geometry in Scotland during and after the long eighteenth century. Analyzing the work of Scottish literati, Matthew Wickman challenges how we perceive the Scottish Enlightenment and the modernist ethos that relegated "classical" Enlightenment to the dustbin of history.

Euclid was a mathematician from the Greek city of Alexandria who lived during the 4th and 3rd century B.C. and is often referred to as the "father of geometry." Within his foundational treatise "Elements," Euclid presents the results of earlier mathematicians and includes many of his own theories in a systematic, concise book that utilized a brief set of axioms and meticulous proofs to solidify his deductions. In addition to its easily referenced geometry, "Elements" also includes number theory and other mathematical considerations. For centuries, this work was a primary textbook of mathematics, containing the only framework for geometry known by mathematicians until the development of "non-Euclidian" geometry in the late 19th century. The extent to which Euclid's "Elements" is of his own original authorship or borrowed from previous scholars is unknown, however despite this fact it was his collation of these basic mathematical principles for which most of the world would come to the study of geometry. Today, Euclid's "Elements" is acknowledged as one of the most influential mathematical texts in history. This volume includes all thirteen books of Euclid's "Elements," is printed on premium acid-free paper, and follows the translation of Thomas Heath.

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Tracing the continuities and trends in the complex relationship between literature and science in the long nineteenth century, this companion provides scholars with a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date foundation for research in this field. In intellectual, material and social terms, the transformation undergone by Western culture over the period was unprecedented. Many of these changes were grounded in the growth of science. Yet science was not a cultural monolith then any more than it is now, and its development was shaped by competing world views. To cover the full range of literary engagements with science in the nineteenth century, this companion consists of twenty-seven chapters by experts in the field, which explore crucial social and intellectual contexts for the interactions between literature and science, how science affected different genres of writing, and the importance of individual scientific disciplines and concepts within literary culture. Each chapter has its own extensive bibliography. The volume as a whole is rounded out with a synoptic introduction by the editors and an afterword by the eminent historian of nineteenth-century science Bernard Lightman.

First published in 1934, this book covers a broad array of ancient Greek literature, taking into account the most acknowledged of the Greek authors as well as those less well known. H. J. Rose presents the latest findings of the time in terms of research into Greek literature and covers subjects from Homer, Comedy and Poetry, to Philosophy, Science, and the Empire.