Philip Pullman and the Historical Imagination - Seventeenth Century Literature, Science, Religion in His Dark

Written in a colloquial style, this book is designed for the general reader, exploring seventeenth-century cultural history through the lens of Pullman's trilogies His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust. It discusses Renaissance language, literature, science, and religion as well as seventeenth-century hieroglyphics and atomic physics.

List of contents

• Introduction: All This History Around You


• PART 1. LANGUAGE AND MEANING


• A Short Introduction: What Is Truth?


• 1: The Alethiometer I: Allegory and Interpretation


• 2: The Alethiometer II: Literalism and Universal Language


• 3: The Language of Pictures: Dæmons and Hieroglyphs


• PART 2. SCIENCE


• A Short Introduction: Experiment and the New Science


• 4: Spyglasses and Other Worlds


• 5: The Secrets of Alchemy


• 6: Margaret Cavendish and the Physics of Dust: The Deepest Nature of Things


• PART 3. Religion


• A Short Introduction: Pullman and Religion


• 7: Angels and the War in Heaven


• 8: Rebelling against Authority: Satan and Asriel


• 9: Back to the Garden: Eve and Lyra

About the author

Kristen Poole is the Ned B. Allen Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She has published extensively on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, religion, and science, with particular focus on Shakespeare and Milton. She also has a keen interest in global history, and is the General Editor of the online platform Routledge Resources Online: The Renaissance World. In addition to holding an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard
University, she has a Master of Sacred Theology degree from United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, and has published a book on ethics and climate change. She lives in Philadelphia.

Summary

Written in a colloquial style, this book is designed for the general reader, exploring seventeenth-century cultural history through the lens of Pullman's trilogies His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust. It discusses Renaissance language, literature, science, and religion as well as seventeenth-century hieroglyphics and atomic physics.

Product details

• Authors: Kristen Poole, Kristen (Ned B. Allen Professor of English Poole, Poole Kristen
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.04.2025
• EAN: 9780192889317
• ISBN: 978-0-19-288931-7
• No. of pages: 290
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Classical texts, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Children's literature studies: general, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form