Poetry and Ecology in the Age of Milton and Marvell

276 Pages·2007·5.672 MB·English

by  Diane Kelsey McColley

POETRY AND ECOLOGY
IN THE AGE OF MILTON AND MARVELL
Literary and Scientific Cultures
of Early Modernity
Series editors:
Mary Thomas Crane, Department of English, Boston College, USA
Henry Turner, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
This series provides a forum for groundbreaking work on the relations between
literary and scientific discourses in Europe, during a period when both fields were
in a crucial moment of historical formation. We welcome proposals for books that
address the many overlaps between modes of imaginative writing typical of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – poetics, rhetoric, prose narrative, dramatic
production, utopia – and the vocabularies, conceptual models, and intellectual
methods of newly emergent “scientific” fields such as medicine, astronomy, astrology,
alchemy, psychology, mapping, mathematics, or natural history. In order to reflect
the nature of intellectual inquiry during the period, the series is interdisciplinary
in orientation and publishes monographs, edited collections, and selected critical
editions of primary texts relevant to an understanding of the mutual implication of
literary and scientific epistemologies.
Other titles in the series:
Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought
Essays to Commemorate The Advancement of Learning (1605–2005)
Edited by Julie Robin Solomon and Catherine Gimelli Martin
Ways of Knowing in Early Modern Germany
Johannes Praetorius as a Witness to his Time
Gerhild Scholz Williams
Food in Shakespeare
Early Modern Dietaries and the Plays
Joan Fitzpatrick
Science, Literature and Rhetoric in Early Modern England
Edited by Juliet Cummins and David Burchell
Robert Greene’s Planetomachia (1585)
Nandini Das
Poetry and Ecology
in the Age of Milton and Marvell

DIANE KELSEY MCCOLLEY
Rutgers University, USA
R
O
UT Routledge
L
E
D Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Diane Kelsey McColley 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Diane Kelsey McColley has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
McColley, Diane Kelsey, 1934-
Poetry and ecology in the age of Milton and Marvell. – (Literary and scientific cultures of
early modernity)
1. English poetry – Early modern, 1500-1700 – History and criticism 2. Nature in literature
3. Ecology in literature 4. Science in literature 5. Technology in literature
I. Title
821.4’0936

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McColley, Diane Kelsey, 1934-
Poetry and ecology in the age of Milton and Marvell / by Diane Kelsey McColley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-6048-4 (alk. paper)
1. English poetry—Early modern, 1500-1700—History and criticism.
2. Literature and science—Great Britain—History—17th century. 3. Great Britain—
Intellectual life—17th century. 4. Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678—Knowledge—
Natural history. 5. Milton, John, 1608-1674—Knowledge—Natural history.
6. Philosophy of nature in literature. 7. Ecology in literature. 8. Nature in literature.
9. Environmental policy in literature. I. Title.
PR545.S33M33 2007
821’.70936—dc22
2007003761
I SBN: 978 07546604 84 (hbk)
In memory of Fay Porter Nowell
to June and Alan in the shared love of poetry
and “Trees, flowers & herbs; birds, beasts & stones”

and for
Joschka,
Kelsey and Katie,
Max and Stuart
Lauren and Isabelle
Jae, Rowan, and Sachaa
Eden Fe, Peter, Eli, and Lucy Jean
Cassandra and Amalia,
Ian and Genevieve Joy,
Zhenya, Jacob, Julia, Clara, and Svetlana
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Plates viii
Note on Editions and Orthography ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction: The State of Nature and the Problem of Language 1
1 Perceiving Habitats: Marvell and the Language of
Sensuous Reciprocity 13
2 Earth, Mining, Monotheism, and Mountain Theology 43
3 Air, Water, Woods 79

4 Hylozoic Poetry: The Lives of Plants 109

5 Zoic Poetry: Animals, Ornithology, and the Ethics of Empathy 139
6 Animal Ethics and Radical Justice 171
7 Milton’s Prophetic Epics 197
Bibliography 229
Index 247
List of Plates
Plate 1 The Rail or Daker Hen and other birds, TAB. XXVIIII, from
John Ray’s Ornithology, 1678.
Plate 2 Natura nurturing Earth. Title page from Carolus Clusius,
Exoticorum LibriDecem. Plantin Press, 1605.

Plate 3 Terra Dei. Illustration to Job 38.4–6 by I. G. Pintz, designed
by J.M. Füssli, from Johanne Jakob Scheuchzer’s
Physica Sacra. Augsburg and Ulm, 1731–1735.
Plate 4 Reproductive parts of Goldenrod, Tab. 59, from Nehemiah Grew,
The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun, London, 1672.
Plate 5 Sumach Branch, from Grew, Tab. 34,
The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun.
Plate 6 Noah’s Ark, from John Wilkins, An Essay towards a Real
Character and a Philosophical Language, London, 1668, 166.

Plate 7 Nets and traps, from John Ray’s Ornithology.
Plate 8 Nicholaes de Bruyn. Orpheus Playing to the Animals. c. 1600.
Plate 9 Interroga Aves. Illustration to Job 12.7 by G. Lichtenteger,
designed by J.M. Füssli, from Johanne Jakob Scheuchzer,
Physica Sacra, 1731–1735.
Plate 10 The Blessing of the Seventh Day, from Guillaume Du Bartas,
Oevvres (Paris, 1614): headpiece to “Le Septiesme Jour.”
The Bridgewater copy has“Brackley” handwritten on the title page.
Note on Editions and Orthography
For the most frequently quoted poets I have used the following editions: for Milton,
primarily John Leonard’s gently modernized Milton: The Complete Poems, which
retains older spellings and puctuation when needed for wordplay or prosody,
supplemented by Merritt Hughes’s and Roy Flannagan’s editions; for Marvell,
Elizabeth Donno’s Andrew Marvell: The Complete Poems, with occasional changes
in punctuation from Nigel Smith’s recent The Poems of Andrew Marvell, which
provides a plenitude of information, both historical and poetic; for Vaughan, Alan
Rudrum’s Henry Vaughan: The Complete Poems (revised edition, 1983); for Margaret
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, London, 1653. Other modern editions used may be
found in the bibliography.
Much of the less-known poetry and early modern prose is from seventeenth-
century editions. I have kept quotations in the original spelling, but for the sake
of correspondences of eye and ear have conformed certain letters such as u and
v or I and J to modern fonts. Italics, abundant in texts whose writers habitually
underscored nouns in general, have been preserved only when used to indicate
quotations or special emphasis. I have silently corrected typographical errors, but,
unlike Mr. Bentley, only obvious ones.