This work investigates the foundational intellectual framework of the Elizabethan era, specifically the concept of a divinely ordered 'Chain of Being' and how it informed the literature and thought of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. E.M.W. Tillyard, a noted scholar of English literature, synthesizes historical, philosophical, and theological concepts to explain how medieval worldviews persisted and evolved during the Renaissance. By examining the interplay between cosmic order and human experience, he provides a structural lens through which modern readers can better interpret the works of authors like Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton.

This text is widely regarded as a foundational, if occasionally debated, study of the intellectual climate of the English Renaissance. Its clear, concise articulation of complex cosmological ideas makes it a standard reference for students and scholars of early modern literature.