This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of world order prevalent inthe Elizabethan age and later is an indispensable companion for readers of thegreat ... » 

This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of world order prevalent inthe Elizabethan age and later is an indispensable companion for readers of thegreat writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries8212Shakespeare andthe Elizabethan dramatists Donne and Milton among many others. The basicmedieval idea of an ordered Chain of Being is studied by Professor Tillyard inthe process of its various transformations by the dynamic spirit of theRenaissance. Among his topics are Angels the Stars and Fortunes the Analogybetween Macrocosm and Microcosm the Four Elements the Four HumoursSympathies Correspondences and the Cosmic Dance8212ideas and symbols whichinspirited the minds and imaginations not only of the Elizabethans but of allmen of the Renaissance. «