The Matter of Revolution, by John Rogers

Recommended by Lauren Shohet during our talk on Pullman, John Rogers' The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton is indeed a magnificent work of scholarship. I thought the name sounded familiar, and with good reason: along with Mazzotta's Dante lectures, which are tough to match, I've also enjoyed listening to Rogers' Yale Open Course on Milton. 

This book is much more technical, but it still remains mostly accessible and of interest to the general reader. Rogers posits a Vitalist Moment, an alternative to the dilemmas posed by the intellectual currents of predestination (Calvin) and mechanistic determinism (Hobbes) prevalent in the mid 17C, and he goes on "to tie a radical science to a radical politics and theology" (8). It's only a moment, because the monism of intelligent matter proved to cause too much tension to be sustained, even among its enthusiastic adherents; or else the world could look very different today. As it is, vitalism contributed to a revolution which is preserved in surprising ways in the literature of the time, and thus still has the potential of resurgence, should we care to read it. In the course of the argument, Rogers draws on authors clustered around the English Civil War, well-known poets like Marvell and Milton, but also Harvey, the anatomist, Winstanley, the radical, and Cavendish, a noblewoman and philosopher. Of them all, the latter's proto-fantasy/sci-fi The Blazing World sounds the most intriguing and potentially fruitful for the student of Pullman's HDM.

Along with burgeoning science and refined poetry, we hear about the Puritans and Royalists whose disputes carried over into the New World, as well as the Levellers and Diggers, whose utopianism did, too, in a way. We trace back to their encounters with vitalism the roots of liberalism in economics, and of the individual in politics. 

Along with Rogers' excellent read of Paradise Lost in this rich context, we get an elegant appraisal of Marvell, bracketed by introductions to the lesser-known Winstanley and Cavendish. The one a dreamer-populist, the other the first female member of the Royal Society, both were also authors of problematic programs of reform, which nevertheless shed light on the inherent tensions of self-rule.

A fair bit of the argument is too subtle for me--connections between Harvey's anatomical anecdotes and King Charles' beheading, for instance, are startling and thrilling, but seem like a stretch--but the link Rogers discerns between physics and politics is fascinating. Experimental theologians curious about Dust will have much food for thought in Rogers' discussion of chaos, generation, and alchemical tartar; or in his analysis of vitalist monism generally: "With the capacity to govern themselves, these infinitely wise particles are the architects of a true commonwealth" (198-99). A critical voice, in many respects a precursor, for Pullman's call for a Republic of Heaven to contend with.