The Satanic EpicThe Satan of Paradise Lost has fascinated generations of readers. This book attempts to explain how and why Milton's Satan is so seductive. It reasserts the importance of Satan against those who would minimize the poem's sympathy for the devil and thereby make Milton orthodox. |
From inside the book
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... poem and it needs to be rescued from its orthodox critics. This book contends that the best way back to the poem Milton composed, rather than the one the orthodox would have us read, is to reassert the importance of Satan, heretic and ...
... poem, one that would continue to disturb its readers and perhaps excite commitment. Custom, tradition, indeed all the common glosses of theologians, are, for Milton, enemies of truth, whereas constant labor, tireless seeking, and ...
... poem. Paradise Lost is a long poem, as epics are, and its more important meanings emerge gradually. So the order of chapters in this book, after the first, is governed very roughly by the struc- ture of Paradise Lost, since I try to ...
... poem (almost) begins. Without that sympathy for Satan that is our Romantic inheri- tance, we cannot properly read Milton. For some readers, this pressure of Satan in the poem is quite a simple matter: he is heroic early on, in public ...
... poem makes him seem always to be reacting to Satan. Even when he appears to take the initiative, to “beget” the Son, it is only to antici- pate Satan's reaction. Theologically that may not be true, but it is what the structure of the ...
Contents
1 | |
24 | |
2 THE EPIC VOICE | 77 |
3 FOLLOW THE LEADER | 114 |
4 MY SELF AM HELL | 147 |
5 SATANS REBELLION | 167 |
6 THE LANGUAGE OF EVIL | 188 |
7 OF MANS FIRST DIS | 217 |
9 SATAN TEMPTER | 259 |
10 IF THEY WILL HEAR | 285 |
11 AT THE SIGN OF THE DOVE AND SERPENT | 301 |
THE STRUCTURES OF PARADISE LOST | 314 |
SIGNS PORTENTOUS | 329 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 349 |
INDEX | 371 |
THE ATTENDANCE MOTIF AND THE GRACES | 239 |