Moving from Francis Bacon’s and John Donne’s epistemological distrust in man’s capacity to achieve knowledge and construct reliable interpretative frames, this essay explores the diverging ways in which empirical science and metaphysical poetry respond to early modern scientific solicitations. Progressing through Bacon’s Essays and his later scientific writings, as well as through Donne’s early paradoxical prose pieces, the two Anniversaries and his sermons, the essay focuses on the dialectics between scientia and sapientia in the two cases. Bacon’s attempt to reconcile man’s reason with faith and Donne’s contrary effort to demonstrate the shortcomings of empirical investigation are the two faces of one and the same epistemological anxiety which devises new ways to voice a sceptical attitude towards knowledge. Discursive reasoning is fragmented in Bacon’s aphoristic rhetoric, while self-sufficient argumentation disables reasoning in cerebral Donne. In particular, Donne’s disclaiming of rational thinking forms the core of a close discussion of a ‘rhetoric of dissection’ in his two Anniversaries within the context of the anatomical fad of the age and the patronage system in which these laudatory pieces are set. With the intent of dismantling empirical reliability in favour of divine knowledge and of lamenting the decay of the world as a consequence of the ‘new philosophy’, Donne fabricates two baroque pieces whose argumentative scaffolding belies the power of pathos and the failure of reason. The second Anniversary especially showcases a radical clash between form and content, encoding the ideological, existential, and epistemological tensions of the age in the poem’s paradoxical handling of ‘scientific’ discourse.

"The Foundering of Dissecting Reason: John Donne's Epistemological Anxiety and the New Science"

BIGLIAZZI, Silvia
2016-01-01

Abstract

Moving from Francis Bacon’s and John Donne’s epistemological distrust in man’s capacity to achieve knowledge and construct reliable interpretative frames, this essay explores the diverging ways in which empirical science and metaphysical poetry respond to early modern scientific solicitations. Progressing through Bacon’s Essays and his later scientific writings, as well as through Donne’s early paradoxical prose pieces, the two Anniversaries and his sermons, the essay focuses on the dialectics between scientia and sapientia in the two cases. Bacon’s attempt to reconcile man’s reason with faith and Donne’s contrary effort to demonstrate the shortcomings of empirical investigation are the two faces of one and the same epistemological anxiety which devises new ways to voice a sceptical attitude towards knowledge. Discursive reasoning is fragmented in Bacon’s aphoristic rhetoric, while self-sufficient argumentation disables reasoning in cerebral Donne. In particular, Donne’s disclaiming of rational thinking forms the core of a close discussion of a ‘rhetoric of dissection’ in his two Anniversaries within the context of the anatomical fad of the age and the patronage system in which these laudatory pieces are set. With the intent of dismantling empirical reliability in favour of divine knowledge and of lamenting the decay of the world as a consequence of the ‘new philosophy’, Donne fabricates two baroque pieces whose argumentative scaffolding belies the power of pathos and the failure of reason. The second Anniversary especially showcases a radical clash between form and content, encoding the ideological, existential, and epistemological tensions of the age in the poem’s paradoxical handling of ‘scientific’ discourse.
2016
978-88-6995-001-8
John Donne, Francis Bacon, Early Modern Culture
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/940717
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