Description
Guiding readers through the diverse forms of natural theology expressed in seventeenth-century English literature, Katherine Calloway reveals how, in ways that have not yet been fully recognized, authors such as Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Cavendish, Hutchinson, Milton, Marvell, and Bunyan describe, promote, challenge, and even practice natural theology in their poetic works. She simultaneously improves our understanding of an important and still-influential intellectual movement and deepens our appreciation of multiple major literary works. “Natural theology,” as it was popularly understood, changed dramatically in England over the seventeenth century, from the application of natural light to divine things to a newer, more brittle, understanding of the enterprise as the exclusive use of reason and observation to prove theological conclusions outside of any context of faith. These poets profoundly complicate the story, collectively demonstrating that some forms of natural theology lend themselves to poetry or imaginative literature rather than prose.
Table of Contents
Introduction; Part I. Metaphysical Poets: 1. A 'Metaphorical God' and the Book of Nature: John Donne on Natural theology; 2. 'I Summon'd Nature': George Herbert and Henry Vaughan on science and nature; 3. 'Mutters of Assent' or 'Lectures for the Eye': Natural theology in the devotional lyrics of Herbert and Vaughan; Part II. Imagined Worlds: 4. 'Architect of Wonders': Creation in Cavendish, Sylvester, Hutchinson, Denham and Marvell; 5. 'His Footstep Trace': the natural theology of Paradise Lost; 6. The misunderstood spider: John Bunyan reads the Book of Nature; Epilogue: Literature and natural theology at the dawn of the Boyle Lectures.
