Time's Purpled Masquers

Alastair Fowler's fascinating study explores the extraordinary prominence of astronomical imagery in Renaissance literature. Although the stars were important astrologically, this is at best a partial explanation for the popularity of such imagery, and the impact of astronomical discoveries (particularly their implications for stellification, or translation to the stars) is also an important factor. Seventeenth-century culture was both religious and materialistic and the literature of the period shows a great variety of negotiated reconciliations of the two.