The Pulter Project
Poet in the Making
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Sources Facsimile of manuscript: Photographs provided by University of Leeds, Brotherton Collection
Poem IndexNotes: TranscriptionTranscription
Creation from nothing (ex nihilo). Some theologians argued that Genesis 1.1 (AV: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) supported the view that God created the universe from nothing. The opposite view is found in Lucretius’De Rerum Natura: nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Lucy Hutchinson, the first translator of De Rerum Natura into English and Pulter’s contemporary, translates this principle as follows:
A parenthetical interjection (common in Pulter’s poetry) redefines “stars” as “suns,” which draws upon astronomical speculation about the plurality of worlds by suggesting that each of the stars may be a sun with its own Earth-like planets. This debate appears frequently in seventeenth-century poetry, often in lines that interrogate the metaphorical and philosophical consequences of cosmic pluralism. John Donne’s lament in the First Anniversary (1611) that “the new philosophy calls all in doubt” is a touchstone. Donne suggests that astronomical discovery threatens previous models of social stability:
Other poets, however, explored the creative possibilities of cosmic pluralism, notably Margaret Cavendish, who in Poems and Fancies (1653) published several poems, including “A World in an Eare-ringe,” “If Infinite Worlds There Must be Infinite Centers,” and “A World Made by Atoms.” Cavendish’s “Of Stars” explicitly questions whether stars are suns: “But who knows, but those stars we see by night / Are suns which to some other worlds give light?” (see Poems and Fancies pp. 35-36). These debates also make up the subject of Adam’s conversation with Raphael in book 8 of Paradise Lost:
John Wilkins’s The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) and A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640) popularized recent astronomical discoveries in an accessible format for English-speaking audiences.
Notes: Elemental EditionElemental EditionCreation from nothing (ex nihilo). Some theologians argued that Genesis 1.1 (AV: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) supported the view that God created the universe from nothing. The opposite view is found in Lucretius’De Rerum Natura: nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Lucy Hutchinson, the first translator of De Rerum Natura into English and Pulter’s contemporary, translates this principle as follows:
A parenthetical interjection (common in Pulter’s poetry) redefines “stars” as “suns,” which draws upon astronomical speculation about the plurality of worlds by suggesting that each of the stars may be a sun with its own Earth-like planets. This debate appears frequently in seventeenth-century poetry, often in lines that interrogate the metaphorical and philosophical consequences of cosmic pluralism. John Donne’s lament in the First Anniversary (1611) that “the new philosophy calls all in doubt” is a touchstone. Donne suggests that astronomical discovery threatens previous models of social stability:
Other poets, however, explored the creative possibilities of cosmic pluralism, notably Margaret Cavendish, who in Poems and Fancies (1653) published several poems, including “A World in an Eare-ringe,” “If Infinite Worlds There Must be Infinite Centers,” and “A World Made by Atoms.” Cavendish’s “Of Stars” explicitly questions whether stars are suns: “But who knows, but those stars we see by night / Are suns which to some other worlds give light?” (see Poems and Fancies pp. 35-36). These debates also make up the subject of Adam’s conversation with Raphael in book 8 of Paradise Lost:
John Wilkins’s The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) and A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640) popularized recent astronomical discoveries in an accessible format for English-speaking audiences.
Notes: Amplified EditionCreation from nothing (ex nihilo). Some theologians argued that Genesis 1.1 (AV: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) supported the view that God created the universe from nothing. The opposite view is found in Lucretius’De Rerum Natura: nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Lucy Hutchinson, the first translator of De Rerum Natura into English and Pulter’s contemporary, translates this principle as follows:
A parenthetical interjection (common in Pulter’s poetry) redefines “stars” as “suns,” which draws upon astronomical speculation about the plurality of worlds by suggesting that each of the stars may be a sun with its own Earth-like planets. This debate appears frequently in seventeenth-century poetry, often in lines that interrogate the metaphorical and philosophical consequences of cosmic pluralism. John Donne’s lament in the First Anniversary (1611) that “the new philosophy calls all in doubt” is a touchstone. Donne suggests that astronomical discovery threatens previous models of social stability:
Other poets, however, explored the creative possibilities of cosmic pluralism, notably Margaret Cavendish, who in Poems and Fancies (1653) published several poems, including “A World in an Eare-ringe,” “If Infinite Worlds There Must be Infinite Centers,” and “A World Made by Atoms.” Cavendish’s “Of Stars” explicitly questions whether stars are suns: “But who knows, but those stars we see by night / Are suns which to some other worlds give light?” (see Poems and Fancies pp. 35-36). These debates also make up the subject of Adam’s conversation with Raphael in book 8 of Paradise Lost:
John Wilkins’s The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) and A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640) popularized recent astronomical discoveries in an accessible format for English-speaking audiences.
Amplified EditionCreation from nothing (ex nihilo). Some theologians argued that Genesis 1.1 (AV: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) supported the view that God created the universe from nothing. The opposite view is found in Lucretius’De Rerum Natura: nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Lucy Hutchinson, the first translator of De Rerum Natura into English and Pulter’s contemporary, translates this principle as follows:
A parenthetical interjection (common in Pulter’s poetry) redefines “stars” as “suns,” which draws upon astronomical speculation about the plurality of worlds by suggesting that each of the stars may be a sun with its own Earth-like planets. This debate appears frequently in seventeenth-century poetry, often in lines that interrogate the metaphorical and philosophical consequences of cosmic pluralism. John Donne’s lament in the First Anniversary (1611) that “the new philosophy calls all in doubt” is a touchstone. Donne suggests that astronomical discovery threatens previous models of social stability:
Other poets, however, explored the creative possibilities of cosmic pluralism, notably Margaret Cavendish, who in Poems and Fancies (1653) published several poems, including “A World in an Eare-ringe,” “If Infinite Worlds There Must be Infinite Centers,” and “A World Made by Atoms.” Cavendish’s “Of Stars” explicitly questions whether stars are suns: “But who knows, but those stars we see by night / Are suns which to some other worlds give light?” (see Poems and Fancies pp. 35-36). These debates also make up the subject of Adam’s conversation with Raphael in book 8 of Paradise Lost:
John Wilkins’s The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) and A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640) popularized recent astronomical discoveries in an accessible format for English-speaking audiences.
All Notes Creation from nothing (ex nihilo). Some theologians argued that Genesis 1.1 (AV: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) supported the view that God created the universe from nothing. The opposite view is found in Lucretius’De Rerum Natura: nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Lucy Hutchinson, the first translator of De Rerum Natura into English and Pulter’s contemporary, translates this principle as follows:
A parenthetical interjection (common in Pulter’s poetry) redefines “stars” as “suns,” which draws upon astronomical speculation about the plurality of worlds by suggesting that each of the stars may be a sun with its own Earth-like planets. This debate appears frequently in seventeenth-century poetry, often in lines that interrogate the metaphorical and philosophical consequences of cosmic pluralism. John Donne’s lament in the First Anniversary (1611) that “the new philosophy calls all in doubt” is a touchstone. Donne suggests that astronomical discovery threatens previous models of social stability:
Other poets, however, explored the creative possibilities of cosmic pluralism, notably Margaret Cavendish, who in Poems and Fancies (1653) published several poems, including “A World in an Eare-ringe,” “If Infinite Worlds There Must be Infinite Centers,” and “A World Made by Atoms.” Cavendish’s “Of Stars” explicitly questions whether stars are suns: “But who knows, but those stars we see by night / Are suns which to some other worlds give light?” (see Poems and Fancies pp. 35-36). These debates also make up the subject of Adam’s conversation with Raphael in book 8 of Paradise Lost:
John Wilkins’s The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) and A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640) popularized recent astronomical discoveries in an accessible format for English-speaking audiences.
