Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-235) and index.
Contents:
The enfolded sublime of incarnate immortality / W. Gardner Campbell -- Milton's Lycidas or Edward King's two bodies / James Nohrnberg -- Narcissus in the boudoir: Aretino's Petrarchan postures / Gordon Braden -- Carnality into creativity: sublimation in John Bunyan's Apology to The pilgrim's progress / Vera J. Camden -- Milton's beautiful body / Gregory Chaplin -- The fortunate, unfortunate fall and two varieties of immortality in Paradise Lost / Stephen M. Fallon -- The miracle in Francis Bacon's natural philosophy / Gregory Foran -- Flesh made word: pneumatoloty and Miltonic textuality / John Rumrich -- Milton beyond iconoclasm / David A. Harper -- Hester Pulter's brave new worlds / Louisa Hall -- Death-weddings or living books: Cavendish rewriting Donne / Dustin D. Stewart -- Paradise lost and the creation of Mormon theology / John Rogers.
Summary:
Seventeenth-century England teemed with speculation on body and its relation to soul. Descartes's dualist certainty was countered by materialisms, whether mechanist or vitalist. The most important and distinctive literary reflection of this ferment is John Milton's vitalist or animist materialism, which underwrites the cosmic worlds of Paradise Lost. In time of philosophical upheaval and innovation, Milton and an unusual collection of fascinating and diverse contemporary writer, including John Donne, Margaret Cavendish, John Bunyan, and Hester Pulter, addressed the potency of the body, now viewed not as a drag on the immaterial soul or a site of embarrassment but as an occasion for heroic striving and a vehicle of transcendence. This collection addresses embodiment in relation to the immortal longings of early modern writers, variously abetted by the new science, print culture, and the Copernican upheaval of the heavens.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.