Cosmos and image in the Renaissance

"Renaissance images could be real as well as linguistic. Human beings were often believed to be an image of the cosmos, and the sun an image of God. Kathryn Banks explores the implications of this for poetic language and argues the linguistic images were a powerful tool for rethinking cosmic conceptions. She reassesses the role of natural-philosophical poetry in France, focusing upon its most well-known and widely-read experiment, Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas. Through a sustained study of Maurice Sceve's Delie, Banks also rethinks love lyric's oft-noted use of the beloved as an image of the poet." "Cosmos and Image presents a fresh analysis of Renaissance thinking, about the cosmic, the human, and the divine. It also proposes a mode of reading other Renaissance texts, and reflects upon the relation of 'literature' to history, to the evidence of science, and to political turmoil."--Jacket.