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This introduction lays out the thesis of the book before defining the key terms "literature" and "natural theology" as they were understood in early modern England. It then briefly surveys the historiography of natural theology and relevant bodies of literary criticism and provides summaries of each chapter.
This chapter considers Herbert and Vaughan’s foundational views of science and nature, toward exploring their views of natural theology more specifically in Chapter 4. How does each poet conceive of the relationships between God, humans and nature, and does he see human inquiry into nature as leading to theological insight? Both Herbert and Vaughan engage these questions, though they differ starkly on the answers. Vaughan is less dismissive of human science than is Herbert, for instance. And although both poets share a conviction that the natural world is not as it should be, Herbert sees the world as destined for conflagration while Vaughan’s hope—repeated throughout Silex Scintillans—is instead for regeneration.
Guiding readers through the diverse forms of natural theology expressed in seventeenth-century English literature, Katherine Calloway reveals how, in ways that have not yet been fully recognized, authors such as Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Cavendish, Hutchinson, Milton, Marvell, and Bunyan describe, promote, challenge, and even practice natural theology in their poetic works. She simultaneously improves our understanding of an important and still-influential intellectual movement and deepens our appreciation of multiple major literary works. “Natural theology,” as it was popularly understood, changed dramatically in England over the seventeenth century, from the application of natural light to divine things to a newer, more brittle, understanding of the enterprise as the exclusive use of reason and observation to prove theological conclusions outside of any context of faith. These poets profoundly complicate the story, collectively demonstrating that some forms of natural theology lend themselves to poetry or imaginative literature rather than prose.
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