ABSTRACT
For many people in early modern Europe, the natural world was a threatening and
‘What care these roarers for the name of king?’ asks the boatswain caught up in The Tempest.2 Nature had not always been so refractory. Its awesome, uncontrollable power was the product of a specific event: the Fall. Describing Eve’s lapse into
temptation, Milton tells us that
Earth felt that Wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.
