In Part 1 Hill examines the effect of the idea of spatial infinity on
seventeenth-century literature, arguing that the metaphysical cosmology
of Nicholas of Cusa provided Renaissance writers, such as Pascal,
Traherne, and Milton, with a way to construe the vastness of space as
the symbol of human spiritual potential. Focusing on time in Part 2,
Hill reveals that, faced with the inexorability of time, Christian
humanists turned to St Augustine to develop a philosophy that
interpreted temporal passage as the necessary condition of experience
without making it the essence or ultimate measure of human purpose.
Hill's analysis centres on Shakespeare, whose experiments with the
shapes of time comprise a gallery of heuristic time-centred fictions
that attempt to explain the consequences of human existence in time.
Infinity, Faith, and Time reveals that the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were a period during which individuals were able, with more
success than in later times, to make room for new ideas without
rejecting old beliefs.