Poetry and HumanismThe strength of the seventeenth-century writers lies in their power to meet a challenge which later religious poets evaded. Donne and his followers are humanists, alive to all new discoveries about the physical world and the nature of man; but they are theocentric humanists, able to reconcile these discoveries with the central tenets of their faith as Christians. This book attempts to trace this reintegration in the work of the Metaphysical poets and of Milton, and suggests that in this reintegration lies the real affinity between seventeenth-century poetry and the Baroque mode in the visual arts. |
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Adam's angels artists Barabas Baroque Baroque art beauty body centre century Christ Christian Christina Rossetti Church conflict creation creatures death desire despair devotional Divine Donne's E. M. W. Tillyard earth echo Eighty Sermons Elizabethan emblem emblem books English epic eternity experience expression faith Fall fame Faustus Faustus's feeling fire glory God's hath heart Heaven heavenly Hell Henry Vaughan Herbert hero heroic human humanist Ibid idea Ignatius his Conclave imagery imagination intellectual Jesuit John Donne knowledge light Lord man's Mannerist Marlowe Marlowe's medieval metaphysical Milton mind nature Oxford Movement Paradise Lost Paradise Regain'd passage perfect philosophy physical play poem poetry pride prose reader reason reintegration religious poets Renaissance rest Satan sense seventeenth seventeenth-century Silex Scintillans Sonnet soul spirit stanza suggest Sunne symbol Tamburlaine thee theme theocentric things Thomas Vaughan thou thought tion Traherne true verse words writings