ABSTRACT

This chapter extends the analysis begun in Chapter 1 by exploring literary responses to pendulum-driven clockwork, especially in treatises about prosody. Metaphors and analogies associated with clockwork devices were used to critique the perceived constraints of Augustan prosody from the 1740s onwards, yet a subsequent generation of theorists deployed references to pendulums positively when emphasising the advantages of greater prosodic flexibility. Consequently, the image of a swinging bob became a deeply conflicted one that could denote oppressive constraint as well as liberating variety – and this in turn sheds light on how changing perceptions of mechanism and organicism influenced theories of prosody during this period.