{"product_id":"curiosities-and-texts-marjorie-swann-9780812236101","title":"Curiosities and Texts: The Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England","description":"\u003cp\u003eA craze for collecting swept England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Aristocrats and middling-sort men alike crammed their homes full of a bewildering variety of physical objects: antique coins, scientific instruments, minerals, mummified corpses, zoological specimens, plants, ethnographic objects from Asia and the Americas, statues, portraits. Why were these bizarre jumbles of artifacts so popular? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eCuriosities and Texts\u003c\/i\u003e, Marjorie Swann demonstrates that collections of physical objects were central to early modern English literature and culture. Swann examines the famous collection of rarities assembled by the Tradescant family; the development of English natural history; narrative catalogs of English landscape features that began to appear in the Tudor and Stuart periods; the writings of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick; and the foundation of the British Museum. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough this wide-ranging series of case studies, Swann addresses two important questions: How was the collection, which was understood as a form of cultural capital, appropriated in early modern England to construct new social selves and modes of subjectivity? And how did literary texts--both as material objects and as vehicles of representation--participate in the process of negotiating the cultural significance of collectors and collecting? Crafting her unique argument with a balance of detail and insight, Swann sheds new light on material culture's relationship to literature, social authority, and personal identity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Marjorie Swann\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0812236106\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812236101\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/17\/2001\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.70h x 5.80w x 0.30d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/2001 pg. 751","brand":"Marjorie Swann","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43926358458623,"sku":"9780812236101","price":69.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_e6f1e9bd-ceaf-4f42-a1fa-18793ac46693.jpg?v=1681082632","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/curiosities-and-texts-marjorie-swann-9780812236101","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}