Description
Book SynopsisFocusing particularly on literary texts, but including biographical and intellectual background, this study examines numinous feeling as it is recorded by a number of seventeenth and eighteenth-century writers: Browne, Drydcn, Pascal; Pope and Swift; Hume and Johnson; eight other poets, including Watts, Smart, Cowper, and Blake; and four novelists,
Table of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. vii*Plates, pg. ix*Introductory. The Demons and the Scholars, pg. 3*Chapter I. The Plurality of Brave New Worlds: the Numen and the Lumen, pg. 9*CHAPTER II. High Doctrines of the Holy: The Supposed Fideism of Sir Thomas Browne, Dryden, and Pascal, pg. 24*Chapter III. The Witch of Endor and the Gadarene Swine: The Debate over Witchcraft and Miracles in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, pg. 61*CHAPTER IV. Propping with a Twig: Rationalism and Daemonianism in Pope and Swift, pg. 117*Chapter V. Terror and Awe in Mid-Century Poetry: Watts, Akenside, Thomson, Young, pg. 161*CHAPTER VI. Skeptical and Reverent Empiricism: Hume and Johnson, pg. 201*CHAPTER VII. Spiritual Horror in the Novel: Richardson, Radcliffe, Beckford, Lewis, pg. 259*CHAPTER VIII. Religious Love and Fear in Late Century Poetry: Smart, Wesley, Cowper, Blake, pg. 314*EPILOGUE. The Next Stage, pg. 374*INDEX, pg. 387
