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. |
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Page 34
... means to become a bird or a plant himself : Thus I , easie philosopher , Among the birds and trees confer : And little now to make me , wants Or of the fowles , or of the plants . Give me but wings as they , and I Straight floating on ...
... means to become a bird or a plant himself : Thus I , easie philosopher , Among the birds and trees confer : And little now to make me , wants Or of the fowles , or of the plants . Give me but wings as they , and I Straight floating on ...
Page 75
... mean astrological effects or chains of merely mechanical motions ; " wholly inanimate " means without soul , the mechanist view.72 But in Vaughan's reading , every created thing plants , animals , even stones , for " [ t ] he stones ...
... mean astrological effects or chains of merely mechanical motions ; " wholly inanimate " means without soul , the mechanist view.72 But in Vaughan's reading , every created thing plants , animals , even stones , for " [ t ] he stones ...
Page 110
... means material , " the stuff of which a thing is made " and " matter for a poem or treatise . " 3 The Latin materia , timber or building material , has a similar development . Hylozoism is a theological concept with a name rooted in ...
... means material , " the stuff of which a thing is made " and " matter for a poem or treatise . " 3 The Latin materia , timber or building material , has a similar development . Hylozoism is a theological concept with a name rooted in ...
Contents
Marvell and the Language | 13 |
Earth Mining Monotheism and Mountain Theology | 43 |
Air Water Woods | 79 |
Copyright | |
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Adam Adam and Eve animals Bacon beasts beauty become beginning birds body Book called Chapter common Complete concerned created creation creatures death describes divine dominion early earth ecological English Evelyn expressed Fall fish flowers forest fruit garden gives God's gold Grew ground grow hand hath heaven Henry House human hunting idea John kind land language leaves light lines living London Lord Marvell Marvell's matter means Milton mind mining moral mountains natural world nature Nehemiah Grew Oxford Paradise Lost perception Philosophical plants poem poetry poets points political Press provides reason represents responsibility river Royal says sense Society song soul speak species spirit suggests things Thomas thou thought trans trees turns University Vaughan whole wild woods writes