Storming Heaven is an exploration of the lives of four outstanding individuals of the Elizabethan Renaissance: Essex, Marlowe, Raleigh and Donne. Each was to a greater or lesser degree a poet, though Essex and Raleigh were primarily men of action. While Essex and Marlowe are quintessential Elizabethans, Raleigh and Donne lived on beyond the Elizabethan period to see the beginnings of a new and stormy era leading to the English Civil War and beyond.
The mixture of biography, poetry, analysis, and historical narrative employed in the text, is designed to highlight the unique character and achievements of each, in the context of the greater ambitions and striving of their age. It makes use of theatrical elements of the period, including astrology and the employment of heightened language, as well as insights from our own period derived from anthropology and the history of religion, primarily the concept of the Goddess.
The lives of Donne, Raleigh and Marlowe show the close interrelation between poetry and contemporary events, and with that of Essex highlight the intense conflicts beneath the glittering surface of the age. Contrasting and complementing each other, in character and achievements, the four individuals exemplify the richness of thought and feeling within their society at a crucial moment in English history, out of which many elements of the modern age developed.
