Orpheus Dis(re)membered: Milton and the Myth of the Poet-HeroThis is the first monograph-length study of the importance of Orpheus in Milton's conception of himself as an agonistic poet. It is one of the first monographs on Milton to make sustained use of Bakhtinian theory, specifically its concepts of author, hero and answerability. Without excluding a range of important classical sources, such as Statius's Birthday Ode to Lucan, this study argues-singularly in recent criticism-for the significant influence of Virgil. In Milton's writing (from prose to poetry), Orpheus functions as one of a number of heroes (masks, personae) by whom Milton creates an identity for himself as author. Orpheus in particular offers Milton a model (reflection) of the poet who fails, and yet turns that failure into a sign of his own identity as the faithful singer, the civilizer of men. |
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... Eurydice ; in these cases his perception of reality , and himself , is irrevocably changed . Genres such as epic and elegy , with their emphasis on memory , are particularly well equipped to express this archi- tectonic relationship ...
... Eurydice . This is the moment when Orpheus sees his wife made mortal , and receives back from that image a new awareness of his own mortality . The perceived mortality of the self in the other in turn enriches his song and empowers it ...
... Eurydice gives back to the hero an exact echo of himself . Ovid writes that Eurydice ' uttered no complaint against her husband . What was there to complain of , but that she had been loved ? ' ( Metamorphoses 10 ) . Virgil writes that ...
Contents
Preface | 1 |
Orpheus in the prose tracts | 18 |
Comus and the early verse | 39 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown