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 59
... wisdom as surpassing that of our patriarchs and prophets , in whom divine wisdom was found ; since not even Egypt , who is wont falsely and foolishly to boast of the antiquity of her learning , is found to antedate with any wisdom of ...
... wisdom as surpassing that of our patriarchs and prophets , in whom divine wisdom was found ; since not even Egypt , who is wont falsely and foolishly to boast of the antiquity of her learning , is found to antedate with any wisdom of ...
Page 61
... wisdom , because wisdom is not arrived at by that study . For if the chance of coming upon truth were subject to this study , if this study were the path to wisdom , as it were , then it would be found at some time .... Those who phi ...
... wisdom , because wisdom is not arrived at by that study . For if the chance of coming upon truth were subject to this study , if this study were the path to wisdom , as it were , then it would be found at some time .... Those who phi ...
Page 237
... wisdom cultivates in human life , for no one deceives the wise man , or ever finds him unprepared . ) Cartari rejects Martianus Capella's misogynist view that Wisdom was born without a mother because wisdom can- not issue from a woman ...
... wisdom cultivates in human life , for no one deceives the wise man , or ever finds him unprepared . ) Cartari rejects Martianus Capella's misogynist view that Wisdom was born without a mother because wisdom can- not issue from a woman ...
Contents
ONE Milton and the Classics | 14 |
Two Milton and the Church Fathers | 54 |
THREE Milton Martianus Capella Bernard | 67 |
Copyright | |
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