Table Of ContentVerena Olejniczak Lobsien
Transparency and Dissimulation
Transformationen der Antike
Herausgegeben von
Hartmut Böhme, Horst Bredekamp, Johannes Helmrath,
Christoph Markschies, Ernst Osterkamp, Dominik Perler,
Ulrich Schmitzer
Wissenschaftlicher Beirat:
Frank Fehrenbach, Niklaus Largier, Martin Mulsow,
Wolfgang Proß, Ernst A. Schmidt, Jürgen Paul Schwindt
Band 16
De Gruyter
Verena Olejniczak Lobsien
Transparency and Dissimulation
Configurations of Neoplatonism
in Early Modern English Literature
De Gruyter
Publication of this volume was assisted
by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lobsien, Verena Olejniczak.
Transparency and dissimulation : configurations of
Neoplatonism in early modern English literature / by
Verena Olejniczak Lobsien.
p. cm. -- (Transformationen der Antike, ISSN
1864-5208 ; Bd. 16)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-022884-7 (alk. paper)
1. English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--
History and criticism. 2. Neoplatonism in literature. 3.
English literature--Greek influences. 4. Renaissance--
England. 5. Plato--Influence. I. Title.
PR428.N46L63 2010
820.9'382--dc22
2010009126
ISBN 978-3-11-022884-7
ISSN 1864-5208
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Foreword
From One, to One, in one to see All Things
(Thomas Traherne, »The Vision«)
This is, in some respects, an escapist book. In a world filled with noise, pain,
mindless atrocities, and – less spectacular, but equally disturbing in the everyday
course of life – with too many things clamouring for attention, it has been a
comfort and a privilege to think about the One, the ways of ascending, and the
necessity of returning to it, about angelic hierarchies, sacred love, or the possi-
bilities of perfect happiness. Of course, this always meant to ponder equally the
obstacles to the kind of spiritual dynamic that Neoplatonic thinking promises as
well as demands. It has, however, taught me not only about ways of avoiding the
easy answers by means of aesthetic devices, but also about modes of resisting the
pressure of banalities – unfortunately without the implication of having achieved
lasting mastery of the art of life advocated by some of my authors. Over the last
five years, in which this book was written, many people have helped me in my
struggles with the various impediments to concentration. I only wish to mention
two of them: Cornelia Wilde and Lutz Bergemann, members of our project team
»Configurations of Neoplatonism« in the area of cooperative research
»Transformations of Antiquity« at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Many
relevant and irrelevant (not to mention irreverent) inspirations are due to our
discussions, and their voices are certainly among those in the daily concert I
should not like to miss. I am grateful also to the Deutsche Forschungs-
gemeinschaft for financing a sabbatical which made possible the writing of a
considerable part of this book.
Bad Nauheim/Berlin, January 2010 Verena Lobsien
Table of Contents
Foreword ..................................................................................................................... V
1 INTRODUCTION: »GOOD WORKS« AND »FINE THINGS«
Neoplatonic Configurations in Seventeenth-Century English Literature
and Culture ................................................................................................................... 1
Enigma and Excess ............................................................................................. 1
Edward Herbert's Wax-Candle ......................................................................... 16
2 CIRCULARITIES OR THE POETICS OF RETURN .................................................. 31
2.1 Squaring the Circle: Neoplatonic Versions of the Self –
Ficino to Donne ......................................................................................................... 31
Neoplatonic Circles of the Self: Ficino to Castiglione ................................... 31
Sidney: The Melancholy Lover as Poet ........................................................... 39
Wyatt: Refiguring Repentance ......................................................................... 42
Spenser: Retractation as Transparency ............................................................ 47
Donne: The Translators Translated .................................................................. 55
2.2 Recursivity and Perfection: Marvell's »On a Drop of Dew« .......................... 60
Images of the Soul ............................................................................................. 60
Neoplatonic Perfection ...................................................................................... 61
The Epistrophé of a Drop of Dew .................................................................... 66
Platonists and Perfectionists ............................................................................. 74
Exodus, or Perfect Imperfection ...................................................................... 83
3 KNOWLEDGE AND HAPPINESS ....................................................................... 87
3.1 »Uncertaine knowledge«
Or: How to Make Sense of an Intransparent World .............................................. 87
In the Labyrinth of Truth: Thomas Browne .................................................... 87
The Dynamics of Assimilation in Religio Medici .......................................... 92
Paradox in Urne-Buriall ................................................................................. 111
The Garden of Cyrus and Paralepsis ............................................................. 124
VIII Table of Contents
3.2 Transcendent Opacity: Edenic Imaginations of Happiness
in Marvell's »Garden« ............................................................................................ 140
The Gardener's Delight, or: All in One ......................................................... 141
3.3 Felicity: Thomas Traherne's Art of Life ......................................................... 156
A Philosopher's Idea of Happiness: Plotinian eudaimonia .......................... 157
Eudaimonia and Enjoyment Transformed into »Felicity« ........................... 167
Happy with Body and Soul ............................................................................. 174
4 TRANSPARENT SPHERES, OR THE BEAUTY OF CREATION ............................. 185
The Natural World as Subject of Neoplatonic Aesthetics ........................... 185
4.1 The Pleasures of the Pensive Eye: Henry Vaughan's Poetry ........................ 188
Vaughan and the Recalcitrance of Nature ..................................................... 188
Seeds of Eternity? ............................................................................................ 193
4.2 Transparent Spheres: A Neoplatonic Aesthetics of Creation ...................... 210
Cherubinic Writing on Both Sides of the Veil .............................................. 213
Shadows in the Water, or: Like a Face Seen in Many Mirrors ................... 227
5 TRANSPARENT DUPLICITIES ............................................................................ 237
5.1 Dissimulating Dogma in Andrew Marvell's Writings ................................... 237
The Resistance of Opposed Minds ................................................................ 237
Andrew Marvell and Dissimulation ............................................................... 238
»An Horatian Ode« and »The First Anniversary«:
Dissimulating Religious Authority ................................................................ 244
»On a Drop of Dew«:
Dissimulating Neoplatonic Metaphysics or Biblical Piety? ........................ 252
5.2 The Poetics of Glorious Ruin: Aphra Behn ................................................... 255
A New Neoplatonism? .................................................................................... 255
Truth Stranger than Fiction: Aphra Behn's Stories ....................................... 258
Transcendent Love? A Poetic Farewell to Neoplatonism ............................ 273
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 285
INDEX ................................................................................................................ 305
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
»GOOD WORKS« AND »FINE THINGS«
Neoplatonic Configurations in Seventeenth-Century
English Literature and Culture
Enigma and Excess
»The world is, as one calls it, Ænigma Dei.«1 This is one of the reasons,
Nathanael Culverwell claims, why we need the Spiritual Opticks he sets out to
provide. His treatise under this title was published posthumously in 1651 with the
subtitle »A Glasse Discovering the weaknesse and imperfection of a Christians
knowledge in this life«. It was, as Culverwell's friend and editor W.D.2 points out
in his epistle »To the Reader«, »intended onely for a taste« of Culverwell's work
on The Light of (cid:49)ature. It is perhaps not surprising that a mid-seventeenth century
Cambridge theologian should be concerned with questions of how God's truth is
hidden in the visible world, what it consists in, and why it is not immediately
apparent. It is, however, less self-evident why his explication of verse 13. 12 in
Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians – For now we see through a glasse darkly;
but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am
known – should place so little emphasis on the eschatological promise contained
in these well-known words and so much on the modes of ignorance they imply. It
is precisely the types and kinds of unknowing that Culverwell's exegesis unfolds
in some detail: the ways of not seeing, or rather, of not seeing properly. He
describes what impedes cognition and hinders insight; he analyses the obstacles
inhibiting certain knowledge, be they deficiencies in our epistemological equip-
ment or distortions of our spiritual perspective. Interest is focussed not in the first
place on the state to come, adumbrated in the apocalyptical meanings of a ›face-
to-face‹ recognition of the divine, but on the intervening medium responsible for
the ›darkness‹ and partiality of our temporal vision as well as on the glimpses of
_____________
1 Culverwell, Spiritual Opticks, 15. This was composed and delivered in 1641, probably in
the chapel of Emmanuel College, of which Culverwell was elected Fellow in 1642. It also
appears in An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of (cid:49)ature (1652).
2 William Dillingham, who was also to publish Culverwell's Elegant and Learned Discourse
of the Light of (cid:49)ature in 1652, and who was appointed Fellow of Emmanuel together with
him. Cf. the modern edition of this treatise: Culverwell, An Elegant and Learned
Discourse of the Light of (cid:49)ature, eds. Greene/MacCallum (for Dillingham and Culverwell
see the editors' »Introduction«, xii-viii).
Description:"Transparency and Dissimulation" analyses the configurations of ancient neoplatonism in early modern English texts. In looking closely at poems and prose writings by authors as diverse as Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Edward Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Thomas Traherne, Thomas