The unknowable in early modern thought : natural philosophy and the poetics of the ineffable / Kevin Killeen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Killeen, Kevin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--17th century--History and criticism.

Theology in literature--History--17th century.

Religion and science--History--17th century.

Ineffable, The, in literature.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 262 pages) : facsimile

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Natural philosophy and the poetics of the ineffable

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

"Early modern thought was haunted by the unknowable character of the fallen world. The sometimes brilliant and sometimes baffling fusion of theological and scientific ideas in the era, as well as in some of its greatest literature, responds to this sense that humans encountered only an incomplete reality. Ranging from Paradise Lost to thinkers in and around the Royal Society and commentary on the Book of Job, The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought explores how the era of the scientific revolution was in part paralyzed by and in part energized by the paradox it encountered in thinking about the elusive nature of God and the unfathomable nature of the natural world. Looking at writers with scientific, literary and theological interests, from the shoemaker mystic, Jacob Boehme to John Milton, from Robert Boyle to Margaret Cavendish, and from Thomas Browne to the fiery prophet, Anna Trapnel, Kevin Killeen shows how seventeenth-century writings redeployed the rich resources of the ineffable and the apophatic--what cannot be said, except in negative terms--to think about natural philosophy and the enigmas of the natural world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Jobean Apophatic and the Symphonic Unknowability of the World

Chapter 2 The Theopoetics of Jacob Boehme

Chapter 3 Thomas Browne's Poetics of the Unspeakable

Chapter 4 The Bewildering Surface from Boyle to Cavendish

Chapter 5 Anna Trapnel's Aesthetics of Incoherence

Chapter 6 Miltonic Vertigo and a Theology of Disorientation

Epilogue Ordinary and Exquisite Bafflement

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record and other sources.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Killeen, Kevin The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought

ISBN:

9781503635869

1503635864

OCLC:

1373984144