Literature and Natural Theology in Early Modern England

Guiding readers through the diverse forms of natural theology expressed in seventeenth-century English literature Katherine Calloway reveals how in ways that have not yet been fully recognized authors such as Donne Herbert Vaughan Cavendish Hutchinson Milton Marvell and Bunyan describe promote challenge and even practice natural theology in their poetic works. She simultaneously improves our understanding of an important and still-influential intellectual movement and deepens our appreciation of multiple major literary works. Natural theology as it was popularly understood changed dramatically in England over the seventeenth century from the application of natural light to divine things to a newer more brittle understanding of the enterprise as the exclusive use of reason and observation to prove theological conclusions outside of any context of faith. These poets profoundly complicate the story collectively demonstrating that some forms of natural theology lend themselves to poetry or imaginative literature rather than prose.