Forms of Time, Newton to Austen

Between 1700 and 1800, the English-speaking world came to terms with one of modernity's most fundamental ideas: the separation of time from its measure, or what Newton described as the distinction between "absolute" and "relative" time. Jesse Molesworth argues that most experienced this encounter not firsthand, through direct exposure to Newton's writings, but secondhand, through a variety of smaller encounters in art, science, culture, and literature.

Enriching our understanding of the co...