During the plague years 1665-1666, Isaac Newton retreated to Woolsthorpe Manor where he developed fundamental concepts of calculus, optics, and gravitational theory. This annus mirabilis of scientific discovery laid groundwork for mathematical physics and represented a paradigm shift toward understanding nature through mathematical laws rather than Aristotelian qualities.

Newtonian physics profoundly influenced eighteenth-century poetry's imagery and worldview, providing metaphors of cosmic order and mechanical precision. Poets like Pope celebrated Newton in verse ('Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night'), while the mathematical sublime influenced descriptions of infinity and vastness in later Romantic and modernist poetry.