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
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... in scientific circles such as Samuel Hartlib's,8 but joined with exact observation of nature. With the help of a microscope, Sir Thomas Pope Blount could still say in 1693 that “every flower of the field, every fiber of.
... in scientific circles such as Samuel Hartlib's,8 but joined with exact observation of nature. With the help of a microscope, Sir Thomas Pope Blount could still say in 1693 that “every flower of the field, every fiber of.
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... says in Areopagitica, “Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.”14 Marvell's language is fluidly responsive to ...
... says in Areopagitica, “Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.”14 Marvell's language is fluidly responsive to ...
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... says hyperbolically, to cover the earth and unite the world by breadth as the builders of the Tower of Babel, the types of arrogance, attempted to do by height. But [man], superfluously spread, Demands more room alive than dead ...
... says hyperbolically, to cover the earth and unite the world by breadth as the builders of the Tower of Babel, the types of arrogance, attempted to do by height. But [man], superfluously spread, Demands more room alive than dead ...
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... says that both farmer and “clown” come to “salute” the Lord and Lady of Penshurst “though they have no suit,” or legal case, to bring; instead they bring gifts. Marvell's stately “poor,” a term absent from “To Penshurst,” raises ...
... says that both farmer and “clown” come to “salute” the Lord and Lady of Penshurst “though they have no suit,” or legal case, to bring; instead they bring gifts. Marvell's stately “poor,” a term absent from “To Penshurst,” raises ...
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... says to Socrates, “If the king dooth as you say: hee taketh as much heed to husbandry as he dooth to war” (a point applicable to Fairfax); garrisons exist to keep the peace for farmers, and the good farmer rides through the land and ...
... says to Socrates, “If the king dooth as you say: hee taketh as much heed to husbandry as he dooth to war” (a point applicable to Fairfax); garrisons exist to keep the peace for farmers, and the good farmer rides through the land and ...
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