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Handmaid to Divinity Series for Science and Culture EDITOR, SERIES FOR SCIENCE AND CULTURE Robert Markley, West Virginia University ADVISORY BOARD Sander Gilman, Cornell University Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz N. Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles Bruno Latour, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines and University of California, San Diego Richard Lewontin, Harvard University Michael Morrison, University of Oklahoma Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine G. S. Rousseau, University of Aberdeen Donald Worster, University of Kansas Handmaid to Divinity Natural Philosophy, Poetry, and Gender in Seventeenth-Century England Desiree Hellegers University of Oklahoma Press : Norman Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hellegers, Desiree, 1961– Handmaid to divinity : natural philosophy, poetry, and gender in seventeenth-century England / Desiree Hellegers. p. cm. — (Series for science and culture; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8061-3183-7 (alk. paper) 1. English poetry—Early modern, 1500–1700—History and criticism. 2. Nature in literature. 3. Winchilsea, Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of, 1661–1720. Spleen. 4. Literature and science— England—History—17th century. 5. Religion and literature— History—17th century. 6. Milton, John, 1608–1674. Paradise lost. 7. Donne, John, 1572–1631. Anniversaries. 8. Philosophy of nature in literature. 9. Sex roles in literature. I. Title. II. Series: Series for science and culture; v. 4. PR545.N3H45 2000 821 .409356—dc21 99-37761 CIP Handmaid to Divinity: Natural Philosophy, Poetry, and Gender in Seventeenth-Century England is Volume 4 of the Series for Science and Culture. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc. ∞ Copyright © 2000 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 To the memory of my father, Andre E. Hellegers, and to my mother, Charlotte L. Hellegers, who taught me the three R’s: reading, writing, and resistance This page intentionally left blank Nor could incomprehensibleness deter Me, from thus trying to emprison her . . . John Donne This page intentionally left blank Contents Series Editor’s Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction: Science and Culture in the Seventeenth Century Chapter 1. Francis Bacon and the Advancement of Absolutism Chapter 2. John Donne’s Anniversaries: Poetry and the Advancement of Skepticism Chapter 3. The Fall of Science in Book 8 of Paradise Lost Chapter 4. “The Threatning Angel and the Speaking Ass”: The Masculine Mismeasure of Madness in Anne Finch’s “The Spleen” Afterword: An Anatomy of the Handmaid’s Tale Notes Works Cited Index ix xi xiii 3 22 67 103 141 168 173 195 209 This page intentionally left blank Series Editor’s Foreword In recent years, the study of science, both within and outside of the academy, has undergone a sea change. Traditional approaches to the history and philosophy of science treated science as an insular set of procedures concerned to reveal fundamental truths or laws of the physical universe. In contrast, the postdisciplinary study of science emphasizes its cultural embeddedness, the ways in which particular laboratories, experiments, instruments, scientists, and procedures are historically and socially situated. Science is no longer a closed system that generates carefully plotted paths proceeding asymptotically towards the truth, but an open system that is everywhere penetrated by contingent and even competing accounts of what con