Poetry and Atomism in the Civil War and Restoration

Poetry was a great communicator of natural philosophical ideas in 17th‐century England, and the writing and reading of it substantially increased the numbers of the audience engaging with and contributing to scientific knowledge. This was especially the case with atomism, a philosophical theory with poetical roots in the work of Lucretius, which considered the existence of unfathomable particles that could only be described by what they were not – invisible indivisibles – or by what they could be likened to. Atomism captured the popular literary imagination. In this article, I address some of the many ways in which the ‘atom’ assumed greater philosophical, political and theological significance through its appearances in poetry from the Civil War to the Restoration, and I consider the shape of recent critical interest in atomism and imaginative literature, especially in the reception of Lucretius. While the negative connotations of atomic imagery have long been discussed by critics, I argue that the field should move forward by drawing out the equally diverse, yet largely untold, ways in which atomism assumed metaphysical and spiritual significance in 17th‐century poetry.