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Allegorical analogies: Henry More's poetical cosmology
journal contribution
posted on 2023-09-01, 14:11 authored by Cassandra GormanAs a young fellow at Cambridge, Henry More wrote a collection of long allegorical poems that were first published in 1642. More’s poems are “Philosophicall Poems” in title and content; they are also Spenserian allegories. This article explores the ways in which More turns to the allegorical mode to express his key philosophical theory of “Vital Congruity,” the act of union between body and soul he knew “not better how to term.” I will argue that, in these experimental early works, when every material substance and action is considered analogous to its perfect divine source, the life of the soul between the terrestrial and celestial realms begins to assume an allegorical form. The isolated embodiment of allegorical images, the gap they inhabit between physical form and spiritual moral, makes the mode fittingly analogous to the limitations More places upon mortal enquiry. Contrary to critical assumptions, More’s poems demonstrate how allegory continued to be methodologically productive within early modern philosophical enquiry.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
114Issue number
1Page range
148-170Publication title
Studies in PhilologyISSN
0039-3738External DOI
Publisher
University of North Carolina PressFile version
- Accepted version
Language
- eng
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Legacy posted date
2017-10-12Legacy creation date
2017-10-11Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences (until September 2018)Usage metrics
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