The satanic epic / Neil Forsyth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Forsyth, Neil, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian poetry, English--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

Christian poetry, English.

Epic poetry, English--History and criticism.

Epic poetry, English.

Fall of man in literature.

Devil in literature.

Good and evil in literature.

Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost.

Milton, John.

Milton, John, 1608-1674--Characters--Devil.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (394 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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. Neil Forsyth argues that William Blake got it right when he called Milton a true poet because he was "of the Devils party" even though he set out "to justify the ways of God to men." In seeking to learn why Satan is so alluring, Forsyth ranges over diverse topics--from the origins of evil and the relevance of witchcraft to the status of the poetic narrator, the epic tradition, the nature of love between the sexes, and seventeenth-century astronomy. He considers each of these as Milton introduces them: as Satanic subjects. Satan emerges as the main challenge to Christian belief. It is Satan who questions and wonders and denounces. He is the great doubter who gives voice to many of the arguments that Christianity has provoked from within and without. And by rooting his Satanic reading of Paradise Lost in Biblical and other sources, Forsyth retrieves not only an attractive and heroic Satan but a Milton whose heretical energies are embodied in a Satanic character with a life of his own.

Contents:

Frontmatter

contents

preface

Introduction

1. A brief history of satan

2. The epic voice

3. Follow the leader

4. "My se l f am h e l l "

5. Satan 's Rebellion

6. The language of "Evil "

7. Of mans first dis

8. Homer in milton: The attendance motif and the graces

9. Satan tempter

10. "If they will hear"

11. At the sign of the dove and serpent

12. "Full of doubt i stand": the structures of Paradise Lost

Conclusion: Signs Portentous

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 349-370) and index.

ISBN:

9786612157691

9780691099965

0691099960

9781282157699

1282157698

9781400825233

1400825237

OCLC:

436045950