Title: Poetry and humanism
First published: 1950
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.
Subjects: English Religious poetry, English poetry, History and criticism, Humanism, Humanism in literature, Religion and literature, Religion in literature, Religious poetry, English, Early modern, English poetry, history and criticism, early modern, 1500-1700, Religion and poetry
Time periods: Early modern, 1500-1700