Delirious Milton: The Fate of the Poet in ModernityComposed after the collapse of his political hopes, Milton's great poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes are an effort to understand what it means to be a poet on the threshold of a post-theological world. The argument of Delirious Milton, inspired in part by the architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York, is that Milton's creative power is drawn from a rift at the center of his consciousness over the question of creation itself. This rift forces the poet to oscillate deliriously between two incompatible perspectives, at once affirming and denying the presence of spirit in what he creates. From one perspective the act of creation is centered in God and the purpose of art is to imitate and praise the Creator. From the other perspective the act of creation is centered in the human, in the built environment of the modern world. The oscillation itself, continually affirming and negating the presence of spirit, of a force beyond the human, is what Gordon Teskey means by delirium. He concludes that the modern artist, far from being characterized by what Benjamin (after Baudelaire) called "loss of the aura," is invested, as never before, with a shamanistic spiritual power that is mediated through art. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 10 | |
2 Miltons Halo | 20 |
3 Milton and Modernity | 45 |
4 Why This Is Chaos Nor Am I Out of It | 65 |
Concept and Metaphor | 86 |
Milton and Classical Culture | 107 |
7 Miltons Choice of Subject | 129 |
8 Revolution in Paradise Regained | 148 |
9 Samson and the Heap of the Dead | 180 |
Notes | 203 |
Index | 211 |
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Common terms and phrases
abyss Adam alienated Anaximander Aristotle artifact artist become body called chaos choice choose Christian concept created createdness creative Creator critical critical theory dead delirium divine Creation earth epic everything experience Faerie Queene fall Father foreskins forget God's Greek hallucination heap heaven Hebrews hell heroic Homer human imagine interpretation Jesus John Milton Jorie Graham kings literary Lycidas material matter meaning metaphor metaphysical metonymical Milton modern modernist monist narrative nature necessity and chance one’s original Paradise Lost Paradise Regained passage perhaps Philistines phrase physical pinnacle poem poet poet’s poetic poetry present problem question reading rebel angels refer Renaissance Samson Agonistes Satan says scene seems sense space speak Spenser spirit stand Stanley Fish structure substance Tasso temptation tempting thee theology theory things thou thought tion Torquato Tasso tradition truth University Press verse vision voice wilderness word writing