The New Science and English Literature in the Classical Period .

The New Science And English Literature In The Classical Period by Carson S. Duncan. This study examines how the rise of experimental philosophy in seventeenth?century England reshaped literature across poetry, prose, and drama. Duncan traces the formation of the Royal Society, Bacon, Descartes, Harvey, and Newton as catalysts for a new habit of mind—inductive inquiry, mathematical reasoning, and an emphasis on demonstrable evidence—and analyzes how these ideas confronted the old order of Aristotelian authority, astrology, and witchcraft. The book surveys the reaction of major writers—Milton, Cowley, Waller, Denham, Dryden—showing how their imagery, rhetoric, and themes adapted (or resisted) the new science. It also covers the era’s comic responses, from Shadwell’s Sir Nicholas Gimerack to Swift’s satires, and concludes with a discussion of how science began to enter prose and poetry as a legitimate subject and method rather than mere curiosity. Duncan situates science as an evolving force shaping modern English thought.