Baconian Epistemology and the Test for Vocation in George Herbert's

Baconian Epistemology and the Test for Vocation in GeorgeThe Herbert’s Temple Katherine V. Haynes A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree August 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3275942 Copyright 2007 by Haynes, Katherine V. All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3275942 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Baconian Epistemology and the Test for Vocation in GeorgeThe Herbert’s Temple Katherine Haynes Approved Graduate Committee: 1, Major Professor DrTMarion Hollini Reader Dr. Tom Strawman, Chair of the Department of English Dr. Michael D. Allen, Dean of the College of Graduate Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © Copyright by Katherine Y. Haynes 2007 i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For all my teachers, formal and informal, living or dead: Thank you for showing the way. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements Dissertation research can seem a daunting forest and the writing of it a heroic act complete with dragon and in want of the hero. Such was my experience until I discovered with a start that this particular challenge is my own to confront. Learning how to traverse the landscape courageously and not be overcome by growing recognition of personal inadequacy in the face of so much to do and the very real accomplishments of those who have gone before is to a large degree the product of those whose kindness undergirds any successful attempt. For that I have many people to thank within a circle of professors, friends, and family, whose generous courtesy, compassion, and commitment have been extended far too long without public acknowledgement. Without the wise and patient guidance of my Dissertation Committee Chair, Dr. Kevin Donovan, whose keen eye caught many deficiencies in organization and infelicities of style, this paper would never have left the draft stage. “Coraggio,” he would write by way of encouragement as I toddled off for yet another round of writing. To him I owe much of what I’ve managed to do right in this paper, not least of which is putting key texts in my way and listening as I learned to articulate what I had discovered. Indeed, the dissertation began as a product of several courses he teaches so well that I felt compelled to consider the intellectual and spiritual environment of seventeenth-century English literature as the focus of my dissertation research. His nominating me for a Peck Award gave me a renewed sense of ability and the desire to match the faith he had in my work. Dr. Marion Hollings, my dissertation’s Second Reader, and the Graduate Program Director, was my first professor in a graduate English course. I have been the recipient of iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. her guidance and support on so many occasions that it is impossible to convey my debt. Her latest in a long line of helps has been invaluable, for her clear diction has silently smoothed many otherwise rough edges from this project. For this dissertation, as for the projects of so many other students, her encouragement and positive reinforcement lent resolve, and her sense of humor provided comic relief when I needed it, which was quite often, actually. In short, I could not have asked for better advisors. I heartily thank them both. Many others in the English Department, current and retired, have taught me more about what it is to be a scholar and academician than I consciously realize. I wish to thank Dr. Allison Smith for recommending that I apply as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and for twice nominating me for a Doctoral Fellowship. Her generous mentoring in teaching graduate students the ins and outs of the profession is a school in itself. In fact, the English Department is replete with learned and caring scholars under whom I have been privileged to study and from whom I have grown as a scholar, including Drs. Tom Strawman, William Connelly, Ted Sherman, Philip Phillips, Alfred Lutz, Ayne Cantrell, Carl Ostrowski, David Lavery, William Levine, and Michael Dunne. One professor in particular, Dr. Rhonda McDaniel, has been in turn professor, mentor, and friend. Others within the university community, administrators, faculty, and staff, have been instrumental in encouraging me to pursue the terminal degree. Thank you all for your many quiet acts of encouragement along the way. I am honored to be given the academic robe of Dr. Phyllis Davidson, now retired from the College of Education and iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Behavioral Sciences, whose character is a living book of professionalism and courtesy. I look forward to donning the robe with a sense of the privilege that comes from such an unmerited gift and am so pleased to have this material artifact of her own scholarship as a testament of her faith in mine. My family are so deeply a part of my success that I cannot speak of their gifts without failing to express my debt adequately. I especially thank my mother, Marie W. Amos, for teaching me the joys of literacy when I was very young and helping me build upon each academic success, and my late father, John O. Amos, for his reminder that opportunity for real knowledge is all around us, but wisdom is especially revealed in how we treat others. My brothers and sister, nephews and nieces, and many other relatives have patiently borne with my excuses from participating in family festivities far too long. Finally, I thank my dear husband, William Haynes, for a quarter- century of love and devotion, exercised most recently in his patient encouragement to get this paper done, at last. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract While Francis Bacon’sThe Advancement o f Learning was being translated into the elegant Latin ofDe Dignitate etAugmentis Scientiarum, a translation credited to George Herbert, Herbert was composing a series of religious English lyrics that would be published posthumouslyThe as Temple. Public Orator for Cambridge University and Fellow, George Herbert was a candidate for Francis Bacon’s call to begin the great instauration of learning that Bacon believed would ultimately usher in the Solomonic society that Bacon hoped would be established in England during the reign of James I. Part of his call was to open the experimentation to all who would be willing to share their results for the mutual advancement of knowledge. In addition to being a deeply spiritual and highly trained poet, Herbert was interested in the provocative academic issues of his day and was personally dedicated to furthering intellectual and scholarly inquiry. Although Herbert scholarship has focused largely on issues related to his confessional tradition and religious context, his position on Bacon’s philosophy has received little interest. Some conclude that Herbert distrusted and eventually rejected the Baconian agenda. Over the past decade, the paradigm of a scientific revolution that irrevocably split objective scientific method from religious belief has been challenged by sociologists and historians of science and philosophy who recognize that at the core of Bacon’s rhetorical argument is a Protestant worldview that believes it is fulfilling a divinely ordained mission to provide the autonomy and method needed in science to root out superstition and ignorance and promote human progress in light of the anticipated millennium. As one of the probable translatorsDe of the vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Augmentis, Herbert was very familiar with Bacon’s epistemology. After establishing the historical context, the following Baconian concepts identified inThe Herbert’s Temple are considered: avoiding the “idols” of the mind, living out one’s vocation in service to God and the state in charity, uses of encryption and codes to unlock the secrets of God’s two books (nature and sacred scripture) in providential time and space, matter theory, and the consequences of these ideas for literary form and function. vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Acknowledgements......................... iii

Load more