Toy Medium: Materialism and Modern Lyric.

Berkeley, CA University of California Press, 2000. Paperback First Edition Thus (2000), First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence. First Edition Thus (2000), First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence. Very Good+ in Wraps: shows indications of careful use: considerable rubbing to the front panel; much less to the rear; mild wear along the outside edge of the front panel; else flawless; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of any creases to the panels. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of any creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, or labels. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing mild wear. Bright and clean. Not perfect, but not far from 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (9 x 6.15 x 0.95 inches). x, 351 pages. . Language: English. Weight: 20.5 ounces. University Press Paperback. What begins with an unlikely collection of unrelated phenomena--mechanical dolls, weather, atoms, lyric poetry--blossoms in the course of Toy Medium into a subtle and persuasive meditation on one of Western philosophy's biggest puzzles: the relation of mind and matter. What is the role of the imagination in defining material substance? In a dazzling study of the poetics of materialist philosophy and of the materialism of lyric poetry, Daniel Tiffany traces the historical conjunction of matter and metaphor through a remarkable range of topics: automata in classical antiquity and the eighteenth century; Kepler's treatise on snowflakes; animal magnetism; fireworks and cloud-chamber photographs; the origins of the microscope as a philosophical toy and its bearing on the figure of the virtuoso. At critical junctures in modern Western culture, Tiffany finds uncanny parallels between the metaphorics of science and visions of material substance rooted in popular culture and lyric poetry.