Poetry and humanism
Publisher: Cape
Published: 1950
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 335
Subjects: English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism; Religious poetry, English -- History and criticism; Religion in literature
Description: The 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.
Notes: "Notes and references": p. 307-328