The Unfolding God of Jung and MiltonIn this first extensive Jungian treatment of Milton's major poems, James P. Driscoll uses archetypal psychology to explore Milton's great themes of God, man, woman, and evil and offers readers deepened understanding of Jung's profound thoughts on Godhead. The Father, the Son, Satan, Messiah, Samson, Adam, and Eve gain new dimensions of meaning as their stories become epiphanies of the archetypes of Godhead. God and Satan of Paradise Lost are seen as the ego and the shadow of a single unfolding personality whose anima is the Holy Spirit and Milton's muse. Samson carries the Yahweh archetype examined by Jung in Answer to Job, and Messiah and Satan in Paradise Regained embody the hostile brothers archetype. Anima, animus and the individuation drive underlie the psychodynamics of Adam and Eve's fall. Driscoll draws on his critical acumen and scholarly knowledge of Renaissance literature to shed new light on Jung's psychology of religion. The Unfolding God of Jung and Milton illumines Jung's heterodox notion of Godhead as a quarternity rather than a trinity, his revolutionary concept of a divine individuation process, his radical solution to the problem of evil, and his wrestling with the feminine in Godhead. The book's glossary of Jungian terms, written for literary critics and theologians rather than clinicians, is exceptionally detailed and insightful. Beyond enriching our understanding of Jung and Milton, Driscoll's discussion contributes to theodicy, to process theology, and to the study of myths and archetypes in literature. |
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... philosophical ideas that power the basic myths ordinary Christians believe. A ready, easy, and safe Jungian treatment of Godhead in Milton's major poems would enumerate and tactfully comment upon archetypes and mythic patterns. But that ...
... philosophical concepts, and archetypal themes shaping what follows. The second and third chapters spiral up, like a widening gyre, each recapitulating, amplifying, and deepening what went before. Because these three chapters address two ...
... philosophical and psychological methods designed to probe the archetypal. Implementing these changes, this chapter will utilize the combined methods of modern philosophy and Jungian psychology to explore the graver import in Milton's ...
... give rise to critical difficulties. Since these difficulties reflect profound psychological conflicts along with philosophical problems that have perplexed the best minds of two millennia, we will not expect definitive solutions.
... philosophers, Stanley Fish invokes it in its most radical sense.20 It is a bold and, considering his aims, a shrewd move. He writes of man's primal sin and the transition from innocence to fall: “The unintelligibility, and hence freedom ...