Ecology and Apocalypse in Lucy Hutchinson's Order and Disorder

Lucy Hutchinson's epic Genesis poem, Order and Disorder: Or, The World Made and Undone (1679), views humanity's place in the natural world through both John Calvin's providential theology and Lucretius's materialism in his ancient Roman epic, De rerum natura. Hutchinson reads the biblical origins of the world as a precursor to its imminent destruction, depicting the coming Apocalypse as an ecological catastrophe foreshadowed by familiar crises such as floods, fires, and earthquakes. Hutchinson's Order and Disorder brings readers’ attention to three juxtapositions crucial to early modern thinking on nature: Genesis and Apocalypse; God's special providence toward humans and general providence toward all of creation; and the human microcosm and universal macrocosm. Hutchinson's intersection of Calvinist providentialism and Lucretian physics offers a unique conception of Creation, linking atomistic disorder to catastrophic natural disasters.