Sunday, March 24, 2019
Genesis and Paradise Lost Essay -- Religion, God, Satan, Milton
The address God speaks at the Creation atomic number 18 the ultimate and original saving act as narrated in Genesis and Paradise Lost, God that has to speak and the words come into effectAnd God said, Let there be light and there was light... (Genesis, 13)Let there be light, said God, and flat light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure Sprung from the deep...(VII.243)Milton inverts the arrangement of the identification of the contri thoion and the spoken words themselves, thus absorbing Gods voice entirely into the poetical lines.s dickens is an inveterate liar who abuses lyric poem for his own evil purposes. Satans language is Ambiguous and with double superstar deluding (Paradise Regained, I.435), whereas the Sons language (and by extension Gods) enforces a tolerant of linguistic harmony where Thy actions to thy words accord (Paradise Regained, III.9). In Paradise Lost, Satans ambiguous words (V.703, VI.568) act as persuasive traps, replete with guile (IX.737, 733 ). He utters high words, that bore Semblance of worth not substance (I.528), and it is worth military posture this in mind should you be tempted to succumb to his enticing rhetoric, as evening or, more recently the poets Shelley and Blake have been known to do Gods words are necessarily congruent with their meaning (God is unable to lie). But while Satan lacks the power of speech acts, he has the sophistical ability to dissemble.In the low of platter I of Paradise Lost, true to epic convention, John Milton invokes the muse, but his muse is no less than the Holy SpiritAnd chiefly potassium O Spirit, that dost preferBefore every Temples th upright life and pure,Instruct me, for Thou knowst Thou from the firstWast present, and with mighty locomote outspreadDove-l... ...a child whose only reply from parental authority was an vapid Because I said so But then such children mother up and search for their own answers.Blakes point begins to make sense if Paradise Lost is evaluate d on its poetic success and its theological failure. Milton was a true Poet, and of the Devils party without knowing it in that his song unwittingly brought Satan to life while trying to destroy him. Satan, warts and all, is plausibly the most memorable presence in the poem and likely all readers retain of it. Similarly Miltons theology is so weak and flawed that it opens the door to a devastating philosophical counterattack. In trying to release God, Milton actually accomplishes the opposite as demonstrated by the failure of Book III. For Blake, Milton the Epic Poet ultimately trumps Milton the Christian Apologist who surely desired otherwise.
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