Thesis ID: CBB001560880

Writing Creation in England, 1580--1680 (2005)

unapi

Dye, Amy (Author)


University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Barbour, Reid


Publication Date: 2005
Edition Details: Advisor: Barbour, Reid
Physical Details: 258 pp.
Language: English

Early modern writers are obsessed with creation. In the fields of poetics and natural philosophy, creation is identified enigmatically with the most primary and vital forces at work in the mind of the artist and the mind of God, as revealed in nature. Four writers who approach the issue of creation---Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Fludd, William Harvey, and John Milton---confront this impenetrability by allowing the contradictions to hang side by side, leaving what is mysterious intact even as they attempt to reconcile the parallels and paradoxes that define creative production in terms of poetic invention and natural generation. Their resignation to this incoherence and their awareness that certain aspects of creation are simply unknowable foster a certain amount of anxiety in the writers' attitudes toward their own work, each to different degrees. In one sense creation can be attributed to the action of the divine spirit or the Muse, the envoy of divine grace, which quickens, uplifts, and inspires. On the other hand, creation is due to human agency: the choices, decisions, and effort that man puts in to making something happen, his faculties of reason and imagination, his abilities and skills, and his fitness for the task of production. Creation as a concept, for literary criticism and for natural philosophy alike, takes shape in the dynamic interaction of alternately conflicting and cooperative forces, the results of which are equally likely to be transcendence or failure.

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Description Explores the literary and scientific interest in the notion of creation, both divine as well as human. Focuses on four individuals: Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Fludd, William Harvey, and John Milton. Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 67/01 (2006): 193. UMI pub. no. 3200760.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001560880/

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Authors & Contributors
Trubowitz, Rachel
Robinson, Benedict
Lee, Daniel D.
Lipking, Lawrence
Silverman, William John, Jr.
Liou, Jennifer Hwa Yu
Concepts
Science and literature
Poetry and poetics
Natural philosophy
Medicine
Science and religion
Science and culture
Time Periods
17th century
16th century
Renaissance
15th century
Early modern
Enlightenment
Places
England
France
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