ISSO Y2005 Annual Report | Contents

Science and Invention in Literature--Divergent Views of Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift • 83-87
Irving N. Rothman
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Abstract--The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw remarkable advances in science and technology in the Copernican Revolution. Roger Bacon and John Locke gave new meaning to individual investigation and objective analysis of objects of perception. Science fostered the development of the telescope to discover the truths of celestial bodies; the invention of the microscope enabled researchers to delve into the structure and composition of natural organisms. Daniel Defoe, world-renowned as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719), wrote A General History of Discoveries and Improvements in Useful Arts (Commerce, Navigation, and Plantation) (1727) where he supported progress and invention. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), did not understand theoretical science and attacked modern invention in his satire.