ABSTRACT
In the Christian paradigm, all meteora are materially constituted and operational but they are so composed and placed in motion to affect God's long-term plan for humans. Yet the meteora were always ultimately unpredictable in their local manifestations, in spite of all of Aristotle's efforts to identify their materials and motions. The rational and experientially-validated appeal of the materialist and thrill of the polytheistic explanations for creation and meteora gave writers room to argue, to differ, and to move readers in delight that might also be instructive and memorable. The tales are each a Titan, an earthquake, like early modern meteora generally in their disruptive, memorable, and, in Jane Bennett's words, "recalcitrantly" untamable "thing-power". This is the power of stories of the "wide-bosomed Earth" and of Titans like Prometheus who erupted irrepressibly in imaginations and in memories, taking many forms. "Put in for pleasure", such stories are nevertheless never merely "vanye/Devyce"s.
