The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution

357 Pages·2006·21.6 MB·English

by  Angelica Duran

DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page i
The Age of Milton and the
Scientific Revolution
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page ii
Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies
General Editor:
Albert C. Labriola
Advisory Editor:
Foster Provost
Editorial Board:
Judith H. Anderson
Diana Treviño Benet
Donald Cheney
Ann Baynes Coiro
Mary T. Crane
Patrick Cullen
A. C. Hamilton
Margaret P. Hannay
A. Kent Hieatt
William B. Hunter
Michael Lieb
Thomas P. Roche Jr.
Mary Beth Rose
John T. Shawcross
John M. Steadman
Humphrey Tonkin
Susanne Woods
The Age of Milton
and the
Scientific Revolution

Angelica Duran
Duquesne University Press
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Pageiv
Copyright © 2007 Duquesne University Press
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by:
DUQUESNEUNIVERSITYPRESS
600 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282
No part of this book may be used or reproduced,
in any manner or form whatsoever,
without written permission from the publisher,
except in the case of short quotations
in critical articles or reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Duran, Angelica.
The age of Milton and the scientific revolution / Angelica Duran.
p.cm — (Medieval & Renaissance literary studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–8207–0386–2 (cloth : acid-free paper)
ISBN-10: 0–8207–0386–9 (cloth : acid-free paper)
1.Milton, John, 1608–1674—Knowledge—Science. 2. Literature and sci-
ence—England—History—17th century. 3. Learning and scholarship—Eng-
land—History—17th century. 4. Milton, John, 1608–1674—Contemporaries.
5. Milton, John, 1608–1674—Influence. 6. England—Intellectual life—17th cen-
tury. I. Title.
PR3592.S3D87 2006
821'.4—dc22
2006030966
F∞irPstr ienBtoeodk o ned aictiiodn-f,r e2e0 1p1aper.
ISBN 978-0-8207-0531-6
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page v
Para Alicia Hernandez D.,
madre cariñosa,
autora de fuerza,
maestra exigente,
amiga extrañada
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page vi
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page vii
C
ONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Knowledge Regained 1
Part I. Teachers: The Sinews of Ulysses
ONE Milton among Early Modern Scientists 31
Two The Death of the Natural Philosopher and
Pastoral Teacher 49
THREE Milton’s Angelic Vanguard, Uriel and Gabriel 71
FOUR Pre- and Postlapsarian Teachers, Raphael and
Michael 93
Part II. Academic Subjects:
“The reforming of Education”
FIVE The Standard Academic Subjects and Their
Function 113
SIX Subjects of Change in L’Allegro,Il Penseroso,
and A Mask 131
SEVEN Subjects for Change in Of Education 153
EIGHT The Sexual Mathematics of Paradise Lost 179
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page viii
viii Contents
Part III. Students: “Poor striplings”
NINE Brave, New Students 211
TEN From Philomela to luscinia magarhynchos
in A Mask 225
ELEVEN The Son’s Last Stages of Education 251
TWELVE Samson and Natural Religion 271
Appendix A 297
Notes 303
Index 341
DURAN_f1_i-xii 1/5/70 12:41 Page ix
I
LLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1. Reproduction of Galileo’s refracting telescope 5
2. Reproduction of Newton’s reflecting telescope 5
3. Thomas Digges’s English-Copernican cosmos
(1576) 17
4. Title page to Milton’s Poems(1645) 45
5. Title page to Milton’s Poems &c.(1673) 45
6. Illustration depicting Tycho Brahe, Learned:
Tico Brahe (1632) 53
7. “The Integrated Universe,” from Robert Fludd,
Utriusque Cosmi(1617) 198
8. “Man as Macrocosm,” from Robert Fludd,
Utriusque Cosmi(1617) 199
9. A series of illustrations from Galileo Galilei’s
Sidereus Nuncius(1610) 201
10. Illustrations of motion from Isaac Newton,
Opticks(1704) 202
11. Visually stagnant mathematical illustrations from
Isaac Barrow (1674) 202
12. Frontispiece to Francis Bacon’s Instauratio Magna
(1620) 219
13. Frontispiece to Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum
(1627) 220
14. Frontispiece to John Evelyn’s An Essay on the
First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura
(1656) 229
ix