Renaissance & Seventeenth - Century Studies

Abstract

First published in 1964, Renaissance & Seventeenth - Century Studies contains essays which fall into two groups. The first four are concerned with problems of metaphor and style and treat two important eras in literary history when these problems underwent critical re-examination. St. Augustine marks the classical attempt to take account of "biblical poetics" while the two essays on the theory of the "metaphysical" style treat the attempt of seventeenth century critics to comprehend, at the theoretical level, the expansion of metaphysical possibilities that marked the "metaphysical" movement. The second group of essays are, in general, concerned with Machiavelli and Machiavellism and Andrew Marvell. However, they are again essentially concerned with the way in which crucial metaphors and idea-images serve as principles for organising experience both in Machiavelli’s own writings and in that of work of Marvell which reflects his influence. The final essay "Cromwell as Davidic King", weaves together Machiavellian and Augustinian strands as they are manifested in the works of a poet of wit, the "various light" of whose mind responded harmoniously to the different currents of thought and taste these essays discuss. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of literature, literary history, political philosophy, and philosophy in general.