Light and Death

Judith H. Anderson is Chancellor's Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University. Her books include Words That Matter: Linguistic Perception in Renaissance English; Translating Investments: Metaphor and the Dynamic of Cultural Change in Tudor-Stuart England (Fordham); and Reading the Allegorical Intertext: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton (Fordham).

"Analogy, 'the connector of the known to the unknown,' is given in-depth exploration in this fascinating study of life and death, darkness and light, language and meaning; a learned, richly textured study that contributes immeasurably to early modern studies." -- -Regina M. Schwartz Professor of English, Northwestern University "This fascinating book is above all a contribution to the history of early modern science that helps an ongoing critical process of revisionism by showing how both scientific and poetic thought use analogy in similar ways. It is also fascinating in its unusual structure: it allows us access to Anderson's subtle critical mind in the process of building interpretations." -- -Leah Marcus Vanderbilt University

• Introduction: Issues of Death, Light, and Analogy1. "The Body of This Death": Donne's Sermons,Spenser's Maleger, Milton's Sin and Death2. Mutability and Mortality in The Faerie Queene 3. Satanic Ethos: Evil, Death, and Individuality inParadise Lost4. Connecting the Cultural Dots: Classical to ModernTraditions of Analogy5. Proportional Thinking in Kepler's Science of Light6. Analogy, Proportion, and Death in Donne'sAnniversaries7. Milton's Twilight Zone: Analogy, Light, and Darknessin Paradise LostAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex