Celebrating Universal Beauty

Abstract

Behind the philosophical poems published in the early decades of the eighteenth century lies the principle of an active, informing and benevolent deity that is perceptible in the manifestations of the natural world in all their diversity and ingenuity; it is a unifying principle, but one ultimately beyond the grasp of human understanding. The contours of this deity, more impersonal than personal, and thus less Christian than deistic, are shifting and vague; they vary from poem to poem and remain, inevitably, elusive at best. They gesture towards or intimate rather than delineate. The authors of these poems, ambitiously trying their hand, deploy various linguistic strategies that test the limits of language to express the attributes of their God and to celebrate the beauties and harmony of the created world, and the sense of wonder it inspires. At times, they also express a profound sense of disquiet concerning the role and place of man in the scheme of things.