Poetry and Ecology in the Age of Milton and MarvellThe focus of this study is the perception of nature in the language of poetry and the languages of natural philosophy, technology, theology, and global exploration, primarily in seventeenth-century England. Its premise is that language and the perception of nature vitally affect each other and that seventeenth-century poets, primarily John Milton, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan, but also Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Traherne, Anne Finch, and others, responded to experimental proto-science and new technology in ways that we now call 'ecological' - concerned with watersheds and habitats and the lives of all creatures. It provides close readings of works by these poets in the contexts of natural history, philosophy, and theology as well as technology and land use, showing how they responded to what are currently considered ecological issues: deforestation, mining, air pollution, drainage of wetlands, destruction of habitats, the sentience and intelligence of animals, overbuilding, global commerce, the politics of land use, and relations between social justice and justice towards the other-than-human world. In this important book, Diane McColley demonstrates the language of poetry, the language of responsible science, and the language of moral and political philosophy all to be necessary parts of public discourse. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 38
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... divine bequest, and let power be given it; the exercise thereof will be governed by sound reason and true religion.”7 Bacon's acknowledgment of the need to obey nature somewhat mitigates his imperial language, but the “empire of man ...
... divine bequest, and let power be given it; the exercise thereof will be governed by sound reason and true religion.”7 Bacon's acknowledgment of the need to obey nature somewhat mitigates his imperial language, but the “empire of man ...
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... divine revelation; instead, these common oppositions monistically coalesce.13 These coalescences and enteringsin, I would add, apply to vitalist poets' representations of nature; allegorical associations are subordinated to mimesis ...
... divine revelation; instead, these common oppositions monistically coalesce.13 These coalescences and enteringsin, I would add, apply to vitalist poets' representations of nature; allegorical associations are subordinated to mimesis ...
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... divine and moral states of man, but he does not retain the convention that relates dominion over the creatures to dominion over the beasts within us. He keeps a temperate version of the georgic view of nature as useful to human ...
... divine and moral states of man, but he does not retain the convention that relates dominion over the creatures to dominion over the beasts within us. He keeps a temperate version of the georgic view of nature as useful to human ...
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... divine, The dewy Morning's gentle Wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant Cup does fill; 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's selfe's thy Ganymede. Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing; Happier than the happiest ...
... divine, The dewy Morning's gentle Wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant Cup does fill; 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's selfe's thy Ganymede. Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing; Happier than the happiest ...
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... divine benevolence into question), either the world would clip them or we would be extinct by now, “nothing upon that Supposition being safe from Murder and Rapine.” As to the senses, if the eye were so acute as to rival the finest ...
... divine benevolence into question), either the world would clip them or we would be extinct by now, “nothing upon that Supposition being safe from Murder and Rapine.” As to the senses, if the eye were so acute as to rival the finest ...
Contents
Earth Mining Monotheism and Mountain Theology | |
Air Water Woods | |
The Lives of Plants | |
Animals Ornithology and the Ethics of Empathy | |
Animal Ethics and Radical Justice | |
Miltons Prophetic Epics | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve Adam’s allegorical Andrew Marvell animals Appleton House Bacon beasts beauty Bentley biblical birds body Book called common country house poems Cowley creation creatures divine dominion doth draining Dryden early modern earth ecological English ethical Fairfax fish flesh flow’rs flowers forest fowl fruit Fumifugium garden Genesis Georgics God’s gold Grew habitats Hartlib hath Heav’n heaven Henry Vaughan human hunting hylozoism John Evelyn John Milton kind land language living London Lord man’s Margaret Cavendish Marvell Marvell’s matter metaphor Milton monistic moral mountains natural history natural world nature’s Nehemiah Grew nightingale Nunappleton Ornithology Paradise Lost perception philosophers plants poetry poets political praise Raphael Ray’s reason responsibility river Royal Society Rudrum Samuel Hartlib Satan says sense serpent seventeenthcentury song soul species spirit stanza Sylva thee theology things Thomas thou Topsell tortoise trees Vergil vitalist wild Wilkins womb woods words writes