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The Elizabethan World View - Referat
The Elizabethan world view
- 1. The belief in an absolutely structured and ordered universe.
- 2. Everything is clearly ranked in order of superiority (The Chain of Being).
- 3. Hierarchies are connected by “correspondences”.
- 4. The universe is geo-centric, in which the earth is surrounded by spheres.
- 5. There were eight spheres of varying size, on which Planets like Mars, Jupiter, the sun and the moon were fixed.
- 6. There were another two circles the firmament with the fixed stars and the master sphere which was the border to the cosmos
- 7. The nearer to the center,the more worse got the mixture of the four elements. Deep inside the earth was the hell and in cosmos the elements were perfectly mixed.
- 8. The stars influenced people’s feelings and what happens -> life was influenced by external facts
- 9. The nature was the instrument of God on earth, without chaos would break out.
- 10. The “Book of nature”, in which laws and rules were written down, after whom the humanity should life.
The Chain of Being
God:
- On top of the pyramide
- Omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent
- Outside of physic
Angels:
- Pure spirit
- No omnipresence and physical bodies
- Outside of physic
Humanity:
- Unique position
- Souls knotted to physical body (unlike angels)
- Subject to passions and physical sensations
Animals:
- Animated
- Limited intelligence and awareness of their surroundings
- No immortal soul
Plants:
- No mental attributes
- Can grow and reproduce
- Primate was the oak tree
Minerals:
- The lowest link
- Cannot grow and reproduce
- Magical powers
The three “Correspondences”:
1. Macrocosm: the univers, nature and the skies
2. Microcosm: the human body as a map of the universe
3. Body politic: the kingdom as a social institute
Influence on politics and society:
- Monarchy was ordained by God and inherent in the structure of the universe
- Rebellion was not only a sin against the state -> also against the heaven
- People did everything for peace and they were obsessed to perfection
- Accepting one‘s place in the chain was a duty -> get a reward by God in heaven
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