Infinity, Faith, and Time: Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature (McGill-Queen’s Studies in the Hist of Re) (Volume 29) - Hardcover

Hill, John Spencer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0773516611 ISBN 13: 9780773516618

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997

Synopsis

In Part 1 Hill examines the effect of the idea of spatial infinity on seventeenth-century literature, arguing that the metaphysical cosmology of Nicholas of Cusa provided Renaissance writers, such as Pascal, Traherne, and Milton, with a way to construe the vastness of space as the symbol of human spiritual potential. Focusing on time in Part 2, Hill reveals that, faced with the inexorability of time, Christian humanists turned to St Augustine to develop a philosophy that interpreted temporal passage as the necessary condition of experience without making it the essence or ultimate measure of human purpose. Hill's analysis centres on Shakespeare, whose experiments with the shapes of time comprise a gallery of heuristic time-centred fictions that attempt to explain the consequences of human existence in time. Infinity, Faith, and Time reveals that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period during which individuals were able, with more success than in later times, to make room for new ideas without rejecting old beliefs.

About this title

Review

"Hill's assertion that the Renaissance Christian humanist had an alternative to both the other-worldliness of Neo-Platonism and the utilitarianism of the so-called nascent 'scientific' thinkers forces us to redefine our understanding of Renaissance humanism." Anthony Raspa, Département des littératures, Faculté des lettres, Université Laval "Infinity, Faith, and Time is full of interesting and important things. Its great strength lies in Hill's profound understanding of Renaissance English literature and his serious attempt to place it within the intellectual tradition of Europe, historically and philosophically." Robert Crouse, professor emeritus of Classics, Dalhousie and King's Universities

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0773516611
• ISBN 13: 9780773516618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 216