Formal Forces: Mid-Seventeenth Century Women's Poetry and Natural Philosophy

形式力量：十七世纪中叶女性诗歌和自然哲学

• 批准号: 2606092
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2606092
• 关键词: Formal; Forces; Mid; Seventeenth; Century

This project will explore the lively interaction between natural philosophy and poetic form in mid-seventeenth century women's poetry. Natural philosophy, the study of nature, was a nebulous discipline. It encompassed the ancestors of modern physics and chemistry, alongside diverse disciplines including alchemy and astrology. Critics, like Liza Blake, have begun to explore the seriousness of women writer's engagement with natural philosophy (2017). Moreover, recent research has shown the impact of intellectual culture on form in women's writing (Scott-Baumann, 2013), while Claire Preston has revealed the importance of seventeenth century poetics in shaping the parameters of natural philosophy specifically (2015). My thesis argues for a reciprocal relationship between natural philosophy and poetic form. I will explore how women poets used natural philosophy to conceive of poetic form, and how they used poetic form as an extension of their philosophical enquiry. Analysing the poetry of Margaret Cavendish, Hester Pulter, Anne Bradstreet and Lucy Hutchinson among others, this project will demonstrate the coherence and energy of a group of poets who remained largely unknown until recently.The thesis will begin by examining the concepts of chaos and formlessness. Far from condemning chaos as a "literary ghetto" of the female imagination (Bowerbank, 1984), I will reposition it as an important concept in seventeenth century ideas of scientific, divine and poetic creation used by both women and men. Cavendish and Hutchinson, for instance, embrace the "Chaos in [their] mind[s]" (Cavendish, 1666; Hutchinson, 1679) to probe form's dynamism and mutability in a way that has yet to be appreciated by critics.Moving forward, the project will examine the interparticle forces which women evoke to explain the formation of the universe. Women's theories of creation rely on the convergence of disparate parts, such as elements or atoms, to form the world. Critics still struggle to reconcile the religious poetry of Puritan women like Hutchinson and Bradstreet with their more scientific verse. The scientific systems these women engaged with reveal their understanding of how contrasting poetic interests could be combined generatively.The poets I will explore in this thesis are notable for their scientific subject matter and the poetic energy they derive from it. Their major works were also produced in political and military turmoil. Scientific theories were used by those across the political spectrum to justify their beliefs (Rogers, 1998). My thesis will go on to analyse presentations of deformation (a scientific and political idea) and its application to the English Civil War and Restoration. As political pressures deformed the state, women like Pulter respond creatively to the "Hydra" of the Republican nation.The final part of my thesis will explore dissolution and decay in the genre of elegy. Elegies tackle the loss of form resulting from death and grief, with loss itself often figured as a dissolution, notably in Pulter's poetry. In the context of the Civil War, elegy becomes a melting pot of scientific, religious and political concerns. Hutchinson's "ne'er to be re-entered paradise" is both Eden in the biblical epic 'Order and Disorder' (1679) and Hutchinson's lost life with her husband following his imprisonment (Scott-Baumann & Ross, 2018; Norbrook, 2009). Elegy becomes a genre pulled in multiple directions, enacting a formal dissolution that enquires into the nature of dissolution itself.The entanglement of natural philosophy, literature, religion and politics in the early modern period is well attested (McLeish, 2019; Marchitello and Tribble, 2017; Preston, 2015; Rogers, 1998) - but largely for male writers. This project reveals the significant connection between formal and philosophical innovation in women's poetry, advancing our understanding of the sites and processes of scientific investigation in the 17th century.

该项目将探讨十七世纪中叶女性诗歌中自然哲学与诗歌形式之间的生动互动。自然哲学，即对自然的研究，是一门模糊的学科。它涵盖了现代物理和化学的祖先，以及包括炼金术和占星学在内的多种学科。像丽莎·布莱克这样的评论家已经开始探索女性作家参与自然哲学的严肃性（2017）。此外，最近的研究表明了知识文化对女性写作形式的影响（Scott-Baumann，2013），而克莱尔·普雷斯顿（Claire Preston）则揭示了十七世纪诗学在具体塑造自然哲学参数方面的重要性（2015）。我的论文主张自然哲学和诗歌形式之间的相互关系。我将探讨女诗人如何利用自然哲学来构想诗歌形式，以及她们如何使用诗歌形式作为哲学探究的延伸。通过分析玛格丽特·卡文迪什、海丝特·普尔特、安妮·布拉德斯特里特和露西·哈钦森等人的诗歌，该项目将展示一群直到最近还鲜为人知的诗人的连贯性和活力。本论文将从研究混乱和无形的概念开始。我不会将混乱谴责为女性想象力的“文学贫民窟”（鲍尔班克，1984），而是将其重新定位为十七世纪女性和男性所使用的科学、神圣和诗意创作思想中的一个重要概念。例如，卡文迪什和哈钦森拥抱“他们头脑中的混沌”（卡文迪什，1666；哈钦森，1679），以一种尚未得到批评家认可的方式探索形式的活力和可变性。展望未来，该项目将研究女性唤起的粒子间力量来解释宇宙的形成。女性的创造理论依赖于不同部分（例如元素或原子）的聚合来形成世界。批评家们仍在努力将哈钦森和布拉德斯特里特等清教徒女性的宗教诗歌与她们更科学的诗歌调和起来。这些女性参与的科学系统揭示了她们对如何将不同的诗歌兴趣创造性地结合起来的理解。我将在本文中探讨的诗人以其科学主题和从中获得的诗意能量而闻名。他们的主要作品也是在政治和军事动荡时期产生的。科学理论被各个政治派别的人用来证明他们的信仰（Rogers，1998）。我的论文将继续分析变形（一种科学和政治思想）的表现及其在英国内战和王政复辟中的应用。当政治压力使国家变形时，像普尔特这样的女性创造性地回应了共和党国家的“九头蛇”。我论文的最后部分将探讨挽歌类型的解体和衰落。挽歌解决了因死亡和悲伤而造成的形式损失，损失本身通常被视为一种消解，尤其是在普尔特的诗歌中。在内战的背景下，挽歌成为科学、宗教和政治问题的熔炉。哈钦森所说的“再也无法进入的天堂”既是圣经史诗《秩序与混乱》（1679）中的伊甸园，也是哈钦森在丈夫入狱后与丈夫一起失去的生命（Scott-Baumann & Ross，2018；Norbrook，2009）。挽歌成为一种向多个方向拉动的流派，实现了一种形式上的解体，探究解体本身的本质。现代早期自然哲学、文学、宗教和政治的纠缠已得到充分证明(McLeish, 2019; Marchitello and Tribble, 2017; Preston, 2015; Rogers, 1998)——但主要是针对男性作家。该项目揭示了女性诗歌的形式创新和哲学创新之间的重要联系，增进了我们对 17 世纪科学研究地点和过程的理解。