Significant Ideas of the 17th Century

(notes drawn from E. M. W. Tillyard's The Elizabethan World Picture: A Study of the Idea of Order in the Age of Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton)

GENERALIZATION

An overly simplified summary of the idea of order in the age of Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton (for convenience I will use the term Elizabethan) is that the educated person of this time was solidly theocentric: God was in his heaven and all was well.

ORDER

The notion that everything had its own place in the great scheme of God's plan was a commonplace idea. Note that this is not a commonplace idea to the twentieth century mind; we have been taught to believe that everything (physics, biology, theology, morality, and so on) is in flux; that is, in a constant state of change. Elizabethans believed that any attempt to alter God's established ordered universe was doomed to failure and chaos. For instance, Gen. 1 seems to offer evidence of God's careful ordering of the universe; there we do not see confusion but instead purpose and order. Another example is found in Psalm 8. Spenser's "Hymn of Love" is a literary reflection of this as well as he underscores God's hand in the cosmic order (see transparency)

Any break in the idea of order was terrifying to the Elizabethan. "To us chaos means hardly more than confusion on a large scale; to an Elizabethan it meant the cosmic anarchy before creation and the wholesale dissolution that would result if the pressure of Providence relaxed and allowed the law of nature to cease functioning" (16). Elizabethans truly believed that the cosmic order was God-ordained and controlled; they truly believed that if God withdrew His controlling hand mankind was doomed and damned; they truly believed in the notions of heaven and hell, and that man was heading either to heaven or hell.

SIN

An equally important idea to them was the theological scheme of sin and salvation--the revolt of Satan and his followers, the creation, the temptation and fall of man, the incarnation, the atonement and regeneration through Christ--was paramount in their thinking. Note even in this scheme there is a clear line of order and linking of cause and effect. This orthodox scheme of salvation was foundational, essential, accepted, and earnestly believed by

the Elizabethan. "You could revolt against it, but you could not ignore it" (18).

THE CHAIN OF BEING

According to Arthur Lovejoy' The Great Chain of Being, Elizabethans pictured the cosmic order as chain with every link in its proper place. The metaphor of the chain "served to express the unimaginable plenitude of God's creation, its unfaltering order, and its ultimate unity" (25-26). Furthermore, "the chain stretched from the foot of God's throne to the meanest of inanimate objects. Every speck of creation was a link in the chain, and every link except those at the two extremities was simultaneously bigger and smaller than another: there could be no gap" (26). This was a commonplace for all Elizbethans. A fine short passage expressing this is found on Tillyard, pp. 26-27.

Although everything was assigned a place, there was the possibility of change. "The chain is also a ladder. . . There is a progression in the way the elements nourish plants, the fruits of plants beasts, the flesh of beasts men. And this is all one with the tendency of man upwards towards God" (28). In addition, within every class there is a top-dog. "For instance, the elephant among the higher animals, the dolphin among the fishes, the eagle among the birds, the king among men. In Shakespeare's The Tempest we see this in the relationship between Prospero and Caliban. See transparency for a visual depiction of this chain of being.

OTHER POINTS