Le enciclopedie nel Settecento Inglese: nascita e primi sviluppi di un genere testuale e di un modello interpretativo della realtà

The focus of the present work is to analyse the first English encyclopaedias/dictionaries of arts and sciences, issued in 18th-century Great Britain. They represent a new genre, aiming at systematizing knowledge and spreading the new scientific-technological discoveries. Language and the linguistic strategies adopted by the compilers are a fundamental starting point for the discussion. They are obviously related to a completly different epistemological thought, if compared to the previous centuries. The works of Locke and Newton are at the basis of this epistemological-linguistic transformation. The works analysed, in chronological order are: John Harris's Lexicon Technicum (1704), Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia (1728) and the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1768-71)