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. |
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Page 5
... spirit in what he creates . From the theoretical perspective that Milton adopts to support his ideological vision ... spirit - helper - Milton calls her Urania - that is only formally allied with the original Creator . For this spirit is ...
... spirit in what he creates . From the theoretical perspective that Milton adopts to support his ideological vision ... spirit - helper - Milton calls her Urania - that is only formally allied with the original Creator . For this spirit is ...
Page 6
... spirit from afar . SPENSER IS ALSO a theoretical poet , and an important one , but his manner of thinking is so profoundly different from Milton's that one could be forgiven for supposing that any comparison between them as thinkers is ...
... spirit from afar . SPENSER IS ALSO a theoretical poet , and an important one , but his manner of thinking is so profoundly different from Milton's that one could be forgiven for supposing that any comparison between them as thinkers is ...
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... any coherent ideological intention but rather from beyond , from spirit helpers such as Milton's muse . What Milton's career predicts for the artist in modernity is not , therefore , a " loss of the aura , " 8 Introduction.
... any coherent ideological intention but rather from beyond , from spirit helpers such as Milton's muse . What Milton's career predicts for the artist in modernity is not , therefore , a " loss of the aura , " 8 Introduction.
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... spirit in a way that makes no claims whatever on our belief and is only more intense for that refusal . This , it seems to me , is the direction of Milton's career through the great po- ems he wrote at the end of his life . Along that ...
... spirit in a way that makes no claims whatever on our belief and is only more intense for that refusal . This , it seems to me , is the direction of Milton's career through the great po- ems he wrote at the end of his life . Along that ...
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Contents
Artificial Paradises | 10 |
Miltons Halo | 20 |
Milton and Modernity | 45 |
Why This Is Chaos Nor Am I Out of It | 65 |
Gods Body CONCEPT AND METAPHOR | 86 |
A Bleeding Rib MILTON AND CLASSICAL CULTURE | 107 |
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abyss Adam alienated Anaximander Aristotle artifact artist body called chaos choice choose Christian classical culture concept created createdness creative Creator critical dead delirium divine Creation earth epic everything 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 material matter meaning metaphor metaphysical metonymical Milton modern modernist monist narrative nature necessity and chance original Paradise Lost Paradise Regained perhaps Philistines phrase physical pinnacle poem poet poet's poetic poetry political present problem question reading rebel angels refer Rem Koolhaas 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