Marvell's Religious Dialogues: The Ordo Salutis, Home and Doubleness

Abstract

Andrew Marvell's religious dialogues are often discussed separately but are not often considered together. When they are, what connects them and what differentiates them are seldom closely examined. Although they are all dialogues spoken by different participants with more or less religious concerns, what else might be said of the poems, taken as a group? Here I argue that to contextualize them in terms of the ordo salutis, the idea of home, and what I describe as Marvell's doubleness in his religious verse illuminates what connects them—especially, problematic connections—and also what distinguishes them from each other.