This PPT is prepared for Presentation of Semester 1 submitted to Department of English, MKBU. Sem.1 Paper no. 101 Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods and topic is The Great Chain of Being.

1. ● Name: Rajeshvariba Rana
● Roll No. : 20
● Enrollment No. : 4069206420220023
● Semester: 1st
● Paper No. : 101
● Paper Code: 22392
● Paper Name: Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Period
● Topic: The Great Chain of Being
● Submitted to: Smt. S.B.Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
● E-mail: rhrana148@gmail.com

2. Overview:
● Introduction
● Elizabethans Belief
● The Great Chain of Being
● Example of Shakespeare's Work
● The Great Chain of Being and the Problem of Evil
● The Great Chain of Being Today?
● Work Cited

3. Arthur O. Lovejoy drew attention in his 1936 work The Great
Chain of Being,
“The Great Chain of Being a tradition that incorporates
from Plato the principles of the world's Self -
sufficiency and Plenitude , and from Aristotle the
principles of Continuity and Gradation.”(Lovejoy)
The idea of the chain of being
was first systematized by the
Neoplatonist philosopher
Plotinus, though the
component concepts were
derived from Plato and
Aristotle.
Introduction:

4. Elizabethans believed that God everything Set out an order
for everything in the universe.
This was known as The Great Chain of Being.
On Earth God created a Social order for everybody and chose
where you belonged.
In other words , the King or Queen was in charge because
God put - them there and they were only answerable to God.
(The Divine Right of King.)
This meant that disobeying the - monarch was a sin, which
was handy for keeping people in their place.

5. God. In The Great Chain of Being ,
God is on Top level.
Demons. They are in third position.
Humans. Humans are in Middle.
Plants. Plants are coming in chain
after Animals.
Non living. Water,Wind,Land etc.

6. ● God: existence + life + will + reason + immortality +
omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent
● Angels: existence + life + will + reason + immortality
● Humanity: existence + life + will + reason
● Animals: existence + life + will
● Plants: existence + life
● Matter: existence

7. From the basic description of the chain of being as a vertical moral
hierarchy it becomes possible to sketch the outlines of a perceptual
moral hierarchy .(Brandt)
During Elizabethan time People believed that everyone and
everything was arranged in a certain order.
Indeed, each link in the Great Chain of Being represented a distinct
category of living creature or form of matter. Those creatures or
things higher on the Chain possessed greater intellect, movement,
and ability than those placed below. Thus each being in the Chain
possessed all of the attributes of what was below plus an additional,
superior attribute.

8. Social hierarchy:
The category of man was also
further subdivided into the
categories listed here.
– The monarch
– The royal family
– Nobles
– The courtiers
– The citizens
– Yeomen
– Artisans and labourers
(McEvoy)

9. "The state of monarchy is the most supreme thing upon
earth: for kings are not only God's Lieutenants upon earth,
and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are
called Gods." -King James I (MacArthur)
Not listening to Shakespeare but to the ideas
of the time , which will settle the matter for
him a priority. (Levin)
The Great Chain of Being is a Major
Influence on Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Macbeth disturb the natural order of things
by murdering the King and Got the Throne.
● Example of Shakespeare's Work :
(Fuseli)

10. The Great Chain of Being and the Problem of Evil:
The ancient and medieval view that all creation was ordered into a
great universal hierarchy greatly informed Christian theology for over
a thousand years.
Major Premise: God created everything that exists.
Minor Premise: Evil exists.
Therefore, God is the source of evil.
If the major and minor premises are true, This
conclusion, however, is highly undesirable.
“I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and
create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.”(Shlemon)

11. The Great Chain of Being Today?
Enlightenment thinkers also rebelled against the last vestiges of feudal
hierarchy by creating secular governmental structures that vested power
into the hands of ordinary citizens rather than divinely ordained monarchs.
In the 19th Century, Darwin's theory of natural selection explained how
living forms change and evolve time.
Even so, the Great Chain of Being still informs popular thinking. People
who feel intense sadness at a stray cat's death would not think twice about
swatting a mosquito. And animal activists who argue that animals should
have legal rights are often dismissed out of hand. Some critics have
suggested that latent notions of the Great Chain of Being still inform our
exploitation of the environment.

12. Works Cited
Brandt, Mark J., and Christine Reyna. “The Chain of Being: A Hierarchy of Morality.” Perspectives on
Psychological Science, vol. 6, no. 5, 2011, pp. 428–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41613515.
Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.
Fuseli, Henry. The Sleeping Walking Lady. Musée Du Louvre. Accessed 1784.
Levin, Richard. “Shakespeare or the Ideas of His Time.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary
Study of Literature, vol. 10, no. 3, 1977, pp. 129–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24778868.
Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea - the William James
Lextures Delivered at Harvard University, 1933. Harvard University Press, 1964.
MacArthur, Brian. The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. Penguin Books, 1996.
McEvoy, Sean. Order and Disorder. EMC, 2000,
https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/assets/uploads/preview_files/Pre-1770_Order_preview-
preview.pdf.
Shlemon, Alan. “Does Isaiah 45:7 Teach That God Created Evil?” Stand to Reason , 23 Mar. 2022,
https://www.str.org/w/does-isaiah-45-7-teach-that-god-created-evil-.