Abstract

The use of poetry to express philosophical or serious ideas has a history reaching back to Greek and Roman times. Yet, in the English language, Sir John Davies is acknowledged as the "first philosophical poet." His two lengthy poems, Orchestra and Nosce Teipsum, are excellent examples of didactic literature. Orchestra presents a catalogue of Renaissance notions of man, his world, and his universe. This work also reveals man as a psychological being, his inner self connected to the larger cosmos and understandable through the exercise of his unique quality of reason. Nosce Teipsum is Davies' answer to arid scholasticism, materialism, and extreme religious sects. The poet's classical education enables him to combine the ancient notion of "know thyself" with traditional Christian humanism. He argues brilliantly and forcefully for a synthesis of faith and reason, the natural and supernatural, and body and soul. Furthermore Davies presents evidence for a belief in the soul's immortality. a concept questioned more and more by his contemporaries. ;Aware of the revolutionary changes in his Renaissance world, Davies sought to voice orthodox Christian beliefs in the face of the "new science" and other challenges to his traditional medieval world view. This paradigm shift resulted in dramatic new ways of thinking and eventually to what we know as the modern world of science and technology. Thus, Davies stood at the cusp between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, confronted by the paradoxes created by the clashing of the old and the new. ;In his attempt to bring unity to man and his cosmos Davies stretches the limits of both revelation and knowledge. He is not afraid to ask life's most compelling questions: Who is man? What is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of God? and What is mortal man's relationship to immortal God? Davies seeks answers in the divine order of God. For here is man, part body and part spirit, mortal and divine, and capable of introspection and humanness, often the very aspects of man neglected by the Renaissance revolutionaries. Since modern man faces many of the same dilemmas of faith and reason, we can learn from Davies' argument for a rational faith in the God of the universe and his traditional belief in the spiritual nature of man