Through a Glass Darkly: Milton's Reinvention of the Mythological TraditionIn this wide-ranging and ambitious study, John Mulryan contributes significantly to our knowledge of the mythological underpinnings of John Milton's works. Perhaps our most Christian poet, Milton chose to communicate his vision of reality in the language of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. As Mulryan points out, Milton as no other poet before him mastered the texts of classical mythology in their original languages and seldom wrote a line that did not betray their influence. Here, we are reintroduced to the Renaissance millieu that was not only intimately familiar to Milton but that helped to shape his thinking about fundamental matters that he addresses in his poetry, particularly Paradise Lost. Mulryan's study first establishes the incredible richness of the mythological tradition that was available to Milton, including many sources that have either been ignored or depreciated in current scholarship. Milton's own view of classical myth is then explored, and Mulryan provides insight into how this view had to deal with the problem of reconciling pagan learning and Christian thought. Finally, this study demonstrates how Milton drew upon and assimilated the mythological traditions in his poetry as a reflection of the receptiveness to such acts of "creative mythologizing" during his own time. "Through a Glass Darkly" is primarily historical in its methodological approach, but it is relevant also for scholars using structuralist, deconstructionist, feminist, new historicist, psychoanalytic, or postmodernist approaches to Literary Studies. Myth is itself a kind of language that Milton, in a sense, "deconstructs." As this study shows, Milton decodes the mythological tradition, only to encode it in another way. |
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Page 35
... learning : If any man will say theis things may better lernèd bee Out of divine philosophie or scripture , I agree That nothing may in worthinesse with holy writ compare . Howbeeit so farre foorth as things no whit impeachment are Too ...
... learning : If any man will say theis things may better lernèd bee Out of divine philosophie or scripture , I agree That nothing may in worthinesse with holy writ compare . Howbeeit so farre foorth as things no whit impeachment are Too ...
Page 59
... learning , is found to antedate with any wisdom of her own , whatever its quality , the wisdom of our patriarchs . Nor in fact will any one dare to say that they were most skilled in scientific lore before they knew let- ters , that is ...
... learning , is found to antedate with any wisdom of her own , whatever its quality , the wisdom of our patriarchs . Nor in fact will any one dare to say that they were most skilled in scientific lore before they knew let- ters , that is ...
Page 64
... learning and theology in his Exhortation to the Greeks and Discourse to the Greeks . In the Exhortation , pagan learning is vigorously attacked , while at the same time Justin claims that Plato and other pagan philosophers had a ...
... learning and theology in his Exhortation to the Greeks and Discourse to the Greeks . In the Exhortation , pagan learning is vigorously attacked , while at the same time Justin claims that Plato and other pagan philosophers had a ...
Contents
ONE Milton and the Classics | 14 |
Two Milton and the Church Fathers | 54 |
THREE Milton Martianus Capella Bernard | 67 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown
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