Robert Fludd’s Kabbalistic Cosmos

Abstract

‘In the beginning, God created heaven and earth’. ‘In the beginning was the Word’. ‘God spoke, and it was’. If any object raises the question of the relationship between science and poetry, then it is the created cosmos. Etymology indicates what was meant, even though the inherent meaning of the words is blurred in linguistic usage. The Greek poiein means ‘making’; in this sense, the product of poetry is something made, something produced through action. In its poetic process, the cosmos—the beautiful whole—is the product of action. This whole is not just beautiful on its own account; rather, it is beautiful as the result of a process which is understood as logical and poetic. Ultimately, it concerns creation through the Word.