Surveying “Paradise’s only map”: Andrew Marvell and Early Modern Science

Abstract

Andrew Marvell has rarely been studied in relation to early modern science, even though his poetry reveals his interest in the scientific and technological developments of his time. In this study, I make a claim that Marvell’s poetic innovation of the country house poetry results from his active engagement with the new insights of early modern science, articulated most famously by Francis Bacon. In his poetic innovation, Marvell draws upon the new empirical and analytic methodology of early modern science. My focus is the poet’s impersonation of an estate surveyor. By taking up the role of an analytic and yet poetic surveyor, the poet maps out the discursive field of multiple visions competing at the historical juncture, which used to be hidden behind the monolithic vision of a utopian community in earlier precedents of the genre. In this poetic map, the surveyor-poet manages to capture not only the ascending logic of land improvement, represented by his lord, Sir Thomas Fairfax, but also the alternative views, namely, Diggers’ proto-communist ideas and fenmen’s protest against agrarian modernization. The poetic map delineates the contours of the discursive conflict surrounding the land in mid-seventeenth century England, the locus of the birth of capitalism.