
released 9/13/2024
Poet and hymnodist William Cowper (1731–1800) was ahead of his time in seeing the truth about the Enlightenment, says professor of English Daniel Ritchie. Cowper understood and wrote about how inadequate mere analytic reason is for forming convictions about God and creation. Ritchie says that “personal knowledge” and “imaginative apprehension” of God are needed for such convictions, and that Cowper saw how the Enlightenment would undermine them. Ritchie discusses what Cowper believed about dwelling in creation and learning from it. He also notes what Cowper thought about the Enlightenment’s preoccupation with method. This interview was originally published in 2001 on Volume 52 of the Journal.
16 minutes
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