The Life of the Mind: George Herbert, Early Modern Meditation, and Materialist Cognition

The fourth chapter describes the extent to which Augustine as well as a broad group of early modern homilists and poets were influenced by the ontological conception of love described in John’s First Epistle: “God is love, and hee that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 16). For John, responsive love expressed toward God is achieved fundamentally through an embrace of Christ’s Word, particularly because God’s love for Christ is expressed eternally for the Son prior to the Incarnation. This chapter addresses the unique ways in which three early modern English poets—George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne—appropriate the Johannine understanding of agape and an ontological conception of God’s love.

Download Full-text

Liberty of Mind

10.1093/oso/9780198810261.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Hutton

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

General Trend ◽

Political Liberty ◽

Male And Female ◽

Mary Astell ◽

The Mind

This chapter demonstrates how early modern male and female thinkers alike were concerned not only with ethical, religious, and political liberty, but also with the liberty to philosophize, or libertas philosophandi. It is argued that while men’s interests in this latter kind of liberty tended to lie with the liberty to philosophize differently from their predecessors, women were more concerned with the liberty to philosophize at all. For them, the idea that women should be free to think was foundational. This chapter shows how some women thinkers of the period, such as Damaris Cudworth Masham (1658–1708) and Mary Astell (1666–1731), followed through on the general trend of thinking about liberty in terms of freedom of the mind, to thinking about liberty for women in wider ethical and political terms. To support this point, the chapter explores their views on education, female rationality, and moral philosophy.

Download Full-text

Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780198826477.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Nora Goldschmidt ◽

Barbara Graziosi

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

The Body ◽

Specific Site ◽

Entire Volume ◽

The Third ◽

Religious Significance ◽

Classical Poetry ◽

Life Of The Mind ◽

The Mind ◽

Made In

The Introduction sheds light on the reception of classical poetry by focusing on the materiality of the poets’ bodies and their tombs. It outlines four sets of issues, or commonplaces, that govern the organization of the entire volume. The first concerns the opposition between literature and material culture, the life of the mind vs the apprehensions of the body—which fails to acknowledge that poetry emerges from and is attended to by the mortal body. The second concerns the religious significance of the tomb and its location in a mythical landscape which is shaped, in part, by poetry. The third investigates the literary graveyard as a place where poets’ bodies and poetic corpora are collected. Finally, the alleged ‘tomb of Virgil’ provides a specific site where the major claims made in this volume can be most easily be tested.

Download Full-text