The Ruins of Allegory: Paradise Lost and the Metamorphosis of Epic ConventionIn this reexamination of the allegorical dimensions of Paradise Lost, Catherine Martin presents Milton's poem as a prophecy foretelling the end of one culture and its replacement by another. She argues that rather than merely extending the allegorical tradition as defined by Augustine, Dante, and Spenser, Milton has written a meta-allegory that stages a confrontation with an allegorical formalism that is either dead or no longer philosophically viable. By both critiquing and recasting the traditional form, Milton describes the transition to a new epoch that promises the possibility of human redemption in history. Martin shows how Paradise Lost, written at the threshold of the enormous imaginative shift that accompanied the Protestant, scientific, and political revolutions of the seventeenth century, conforms to a prophetic baroque model of allegory similar to that outlined by Walter Benjamin. As she demonstrates, Milton's experimentation with baroque forms radically reformulates classical epic, medieval romance, and Spenserian allegory to allow for both a naturalistic, empirically responsible understanding of the universe and for an infinite and incomprehensible God. In this way, the resulting poetic world of Paradise Lost is like Milton's God, an allegorical "ruin" in which the divine is preserved but at the price of a loss of certainty. Also, as Martin suggests, the poem affirmatively anticipates modernity by placing the chief hope of human progress in the fully self-authored subject. Maintaining a dialogue with a critical tradition that extends from Johnson and Coleridge to the best contemporary Milton scholarship, Martin sets Paradise Lost in both the early modern and the postmodern worlds. Ruins of Allegory will greatly interest all Milton scholars, as well as students of literary criticism and early modern studies. |
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Page 38
... light . Yet , not much later , Milton's invocation to light acknowledges the problematic nature of the analogy between the corpuscular " expres- sions " of light , the " impressions " of divine energy , and the motions of the mind that ...
... light . Yet , not much later , Milton's invocation to light acknowledges the problematic nature of the analogy between the corpuscular " expres- sions " of light , the " impressions " of divine energy , and the motions of the mind that ...
Page 115
... light of men . And the light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not . . . . And this is the condemnation , that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather than light , because their deeds were ...
... light of men . And the light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not . . . . And this is the condemnation , that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather than light , because their deeds were ...
Page 358
... light ( that is to say , with the light of the fourth day rather than the supernal light of the first day of creation ) , the “ natural ” light also of an Old Testament figure ( which is to say , brilliant but shadowed ) . To these ...
... light ( that is to say , with the light of the fourth day rather than the supernal light of the first day of creation ) , the “ natural ” light also of an Old Testament figure ( which is to say , brilliant but shadowed ) . To these ...
Contents
Miltons Metamorphosis of Allegory | 31 |
Between the Visible and the Invisible | 81 |
From the Allegorical Kosmos to Miltonic Space | 121 |
Copyright | |
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Abdiel abstract Adam and Eve Adam's allegory allegory's ambiguous angels Areopagitica baroque allegory become Cartesian causal causes Chaos Christian cosmic cosmos creation dark Death deity demons dialectic divine earth emblematic emblems entropy epic similes eternal Eve's evil faith final freedom fruits God's grace heaven hell hermeneutical hierarchy human immanent infinite inherent interpretation ironically John Milton language light literal logic magical material matter meaning merely meta-allegorical metaphor metaphysical metonymy Michael Milton's epic mimetic mode monistic moral mysterious mystical myth narrative natural naturalistic negentropic Neoplatonic normative allegory once oral Pandaemonium Paradise Lost paradoxical Pascal's personification perspective physical poem poem's poet poetic poetry potential psychomachia Raphael rational reader revealed rhetoric ritual ruin sacramental Satan schema seems sense signs simile space Spenser spirit suggests symbolic synecdoche temporal theodicy things thir thou tion traditional transcendent truth ultimately University Press vanishing point virtue vitalistic words