“Stars (nay suns)”: Cosmic Pluralism and Early Modern Poetry

Cosmic pluralism, or the plurality of worlds, is the philosophical belief that there are numerous planets, potentially inhabited, orbiting around numerous stars (or suns). While the scientific confirmation of the existence of extra-solar planets occurred only in the twentieth century, the astronomical discoveries of the early modern period revived interest in this ancient theory. “The Wish” is one of many seventeenth-century poems that speculate about multiple suns, planets, or peoples.

John Donne, The First Anniversary

And new Philosophy cals all in doubt,
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sunne is lost, and th’earth, and no mans wit
Can well direct him where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse that this world’s spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seeke so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.
’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All iust supply, and all Relation:
Prince, Subiect, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,
[F]or euery man alone thinkes he hath got
To be a Phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kinde, of which he is, but he.

Johm Donne, “The First Anniversary” (luminarium.org)

John Milton, Paradise Lost

What if that light
Sent from her through the wide transpicuous aire,
To the terrestrial Moon be as a Starr
Enlightning her by Day, as she by Night
This Earth? reciprocal, if Land be there,
Fields and Inhabitants: Her spots thou seest
As Clouds, and Clouds may rain, and Rain produce
Fruits in her soft’nd Soile, for some to eate
Allotted there; and other Suns perhaps
With thir attendant Moons thou wilt descrie
Communicating Male and Female Light,
Which two great Sexes animate the World,
Stor’d in each Orb perhaps with some that live.

John Milton, “Paradise Lost” (8.140-52), Luxon, Thomas H., ed. The Milton Reading Room, June, 2018.

Margaret Cavendish, Of Stars

Wee finde in the East-Indies Stars there bee,
Which we in our Horizon did nere see;
Yet we do take great paines in Glasses cleere,
To see what Stars do in the Skie appeare;
But yet the more we search, the lesse we know,
Because we finde our Worke doth endlesse grow.
For who doth know, but Stars we see by Night,
Are Suns wich to some other Worlds give Light?
But could our outward Senses pace the Skie,
As well as can Imaginations high;
If we were there, as little may we know,
As those which stay, and never do up go.
Then let not Man, in fruitlesse paines Life spend,
The most we know, is, Nature Death will send.

Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies (London, 1653), pp. 35-6.

Though it focuses on the moon rather than the sun or other planets, the following text, and its expanded, second edition, A Discourse concerning a New world & Another Planet in 2 Books (1640), is important for popularizing ideas about cosmic pluralism in English.

John Wilkins
The Discovery of a World in the Moon

I have already handled the Seasons and Meteors belonging to this new World: ’tis requisite that in the next place I should come unto the third thing which I promised, and to say somewhat of the inhabitants, concerning whom there might be many difficult questions raised, as whether that place be more inconvenient for habitation then our World (as Kepler thinkes) whether they are the seed of Adam, whether they are there in a blessed estate, or else what meanes there may be for their salvation, with many other such uncertaine enquiries, which I shall willingly omit, leaving it to their examination, who have more leisure and learning for the search of such particulars.

Being for mine own part content only to set down such notes belonging unto these which I have observed in other Writers. Cum tota illa regio nobis ignota fit, remanent inhabitatores illi ignoti penitas, (saith Cusanus) since we know not the regions of that place, wee must be altogether ignorant of the inhabitants. There hath not yet beene any such discovery concerning these, upon which wee may build a certainty, or good probability: well may wee guesse at them, and that too very doubtfully, but we can know nothing, for if we doe hardly guesse aright at things which be upon earth, if with labour wee doe finde the things that are at hand, how then can wee search out those things that are in Heaven? What a little is that which wee know? In respect of those many matters contained within this great Universe, this whole globe of earth and water? Though it seeme to us to be of a large extent, yet it beares not so great a proportion unto the whole frame of Nature, as a small sand doth unto it; and what can such little creatures as wee discerne, who are tied to this point of earth? Or what can they in the Moone know of us? If we understand any thing (saith Esdras) ’tis nothing but that which is upon the earth, and hee that dwelleth above in the Heavens, may onely understand the things that are above in the height of the heavens.

So that ’twere a very needelesse thing for us, to search after any particulars, however, wee may guesse in the generall, that there are some inhabitants in that Planet: for why else did Providence furnish that place with all such conveniences of habitation as have beene above declared[?] …

Source: John Wilkins, The Discovery of a World in the Moon (London: 1638), excerpt from Proposition 13 “That it is probable there may be inhabitants in this other World, but of what kinde they are is uncertaine," pp. 187–90.