Atomic Theory in John Donne's "Obsequyes vpon the Lord Harrington"

Abstract:This article seeks to rehabilitate John Donne's "Obsequyes vpon the Lord Harrington"—a traditionally unpopular and misunderstood poem—and position it in relation to scientific debates concerning atomic theory at the turn of the seventeenth century. It argues that Donne's cosmological language, like that of contemporary scientific discourse, synthesizes aspects of the Aristotelian worldview with atomism. Previous critics have suggested that the poem betrays an epistemological confusion; however, Donne's object is to establish coherence out of the disorder of nature, and the fusion of seemingly irreconcilable cosmological systems regulates both his poem and his thinking about the physical and spiritual world.