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Allegorical analogies: Henry More's poetical cosmology

journal contribution
posted on 2023-09-01, 14:11 authored by Cassandra Gorman
As 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

114

Issue number

1

Page range

148-170

Publication title

Studies in Philology

ISSN

0039-3738

Publisher

University of North Carolina Press

File version

  • Accepted version

Language

  • eng

Legacy posted date

2017-10-12

Legacy creation date

2017-10-11

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences (until September 2018)

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