Shade Softening into Shade: Georgic Causation in The Seasons

This chapter argues that Thomson, by obscuring whether the movement of The Seasons is across time or space, is able to suggest both the independence and interconnectedness of each moment in time and each occasion or event in the natural world. The crucial question is whether God is an immediate cause, intervening at each moment to shape the world, or a first or original cause, deferred from the present by time and a long chain of intermediate or secondary causes. By positing both possible shapes of time, Thomson is able to articulate a georgic cyclical temporality in which processes of growth and decay can continue flowing, but the concepts of ‘before’ and ‘after’ have little currency.