The Satanic EpicPrinceton University Press, 2003 - 382 pages The 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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... politicians recently , and some have talked of the Devil as its representative . This kind of discourse has a long ... politics in my earlier book , The Old Enemy : Satan and the Combat Myth . I also showed how much it has to do with the ...
... political : he wrote that Milton had " put such long & horrible Blasphemyes in the Mouth of Satan , as no man that feares God can endure to Read it , or without a poysonous Impression . " That view of Milton's Satan was prophetic , as ...
... political sense , the remark was quickly read as a Tory slur against " that Grand Whig Milton . " The post- Restoration world continued to read Milton's politics through Satan's . A dis- cussion in the London Chronicle of 1763-64 pitted ...
... political context . " Joseph Wittreich , “ Milton's transgressive maneuvers : receptions ( then and now ) and the sex- ual politics of Paradise Lost , " in Stephen Dobranski and John Rumrich , eds . , Milton and Heresy ( Cambridge ...
... politics and the relation of men to women ( also a political issue ) are both approached initially through the figure of Satan . It is strange that some parts of the text , so blatantly subversive , were not censored by Restoration ...
Contents
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SATAN | 24 |
1 The Old Enemy | 25 |
2 Ancient Myth and Epic | 28 |
3 Hesiod | 30 |
4 Apocalypses | 35 |
5 The satan | 37 |
6 The New Testament | 39 |
7 The Early Church | 43 |
3 The Problem of Evil | 192 |
4 Satan and Ancient Evils | 195 |
Hells Fury | 196 |
6 The Darkness of Hell | 201 |
7 God created evil | 204 |
8 The Language of Sin | 206 |
9 Evil Eve | 207 |
10 Openings | 209 |
8 Heresy | 45 |
9 Medieval Heresy | 49 |
10 Old English Genesis to Chaucer | 50 |
11 Satans Rebellion | 54 |
12 Warfare and Imperialism | 56 |
13 Elizabethan Drama | 60 |
14 Politics | 62 |
15 The Miltonic Moment | 64 |
16 Subversive Satan | 66 |
17 Critical Controversies | 69 |
THE EPIC VOICE | 77 |
2 Hope and Despair | 81 |
3 Dark designs | 86 |
4 Devils into Dwarfs | 87 |
S The Critical Need for the Narrator | 90 |
6 Epic Similes | 100 |
7 Erring | 105 |
8 Parliamentary Devils | 108 |
FOLLOW THE LEADER | 114 |
1 Chaos | 115 |
2 Approaching Paradise | 124 |
3 Satans Entry into Paradise | 129 |
5 Sex | 134 |
MY SELF AM HELL | 147 |
1 Niphates | 148 |
2 Faustus and the Abyss | 152 |
3 God in Satan | 155 |
4 Hell in Heaven | 157 |
5 Witchcraft | 160 |
SATANS REBELLION | 167 |
1 Rebellion in Hesiod | 170 |
2 Gods Creative Word | 171 |
3 Satans Theology | 176 |
4 Sources of Satans Motive | 180 |
5 Hebrews | 183 |
6 Psalm 2 | 185 |
THE LANGUAGE OF EVIL | 188 |
2 Hate in Heaven | 190 |
11 Perverse | 212 |
12 Odium Dei | 214 |
OF MANS FIRST DIS | 217 |
1 Dis | 218 |
2 Satans dark suggestions | 221 |
3 Quibbles | 224 |
4 Vergil | 228 |
S Ovid | 229 |
6 Dante | 233 |
7 Difference | 235 |
HOMER IN MILTON THE ATTENDANCE MOTIF AND THE GRACES | 239 |
SATAN TEMPTER | 259 |
2 Stupidly good | 261 |
3 Sexual Serpents | 263 |
4 Discourse | 265 |
5 The Seductive Text | 268 |
6 Commentators | 272 |
7 What delight | 277 |
8 Satans Sewers | 280 |
9 Satanic Verses | 282 |
IF THEY WILL HEAR | 285 |
AT THE SIGN OF THE DOVE AND SERPENT | 301 |
1 Irenaeus | 303 |
2 The Wisdom of the Serpent | 304 |
3 Image | 305 |
4 The Brazen Serpent | 308 |
5 The Meaning of History | 309 |
6 Christ and Serpent | 311 |
THE STRUCTURES OF PARADISE LOST | 314 |
SIGNS PORTENTOUS | 329 |
2 Disastrous twilight | 332 |
3 Editors | 338 |
4 SunSon | 341 |
5 Reading Signs | 342 |
6 Good with bad expect to hear | 344 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 349 |
371 | |