Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T18:30:04.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Father's Word/Satan's Wrath

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Mary Nyquist*
Affiliation:
New College and Victoria College University of TorontoToronto, Ontario

Abstract

Milton's two epic beginnings are interrelated by a network of structural parallels and verbal echoes and by the articulation of the Father's Word with Satan's wrath. An important if unacknowledged intertext for Satan's temptations against the Word, which occur in both epics, is the Reformed reading of the Genesis exchange between the serpent and Eve. Granting it status as an intertext permits a fresh exploration of the intertextual relations of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Under a poststructuralist and Lacanian analysis, the distinctive logocentric structures and operations at work in these two epics reveal the authority and self-presence of the Father's Word systematically yet progressively being caught up in or displaced by Satan's plotting, by history, and by writing.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 100 , Issue 2 , March 1985 , pp. 187 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Ainsworth, Henry. Annotations upon the Five Books of Moses, the Booke of the Psalms, and the Song of Songs, or Canticles. London, 1627.Google Scholar
Augustine. The City of God. Trans. Levine, Philip. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1966.Google Scholar
Barish, Jonas. The Antitheatrical Prejudice. Berkeley: U of California P, 1981.Google Scholar
Bullinger, Henry. The Decades. Trans. “H. I.” Ed. Harding, Thomas. Parker Society. Cambridge, 1849.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. The Commentaries of John Calvin. 19 vols. Edinburgh, 1844–56.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. Trans. Owen, John. Vol. 18 of The Commentaries of John Calvin.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Commentaries upon the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Trans. King, John. Vol. 1, pt. 1, of The Commentaries of John Calvin.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Commentarius in harmoniam evangelicam. Ed. Reuss, E., Erichson, A., and Lobstein, P. Vol. 23 of Opera exegetica et homiletica. Vol. 45 of Corpus reformatorum. Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1891.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Trans. Anderson, James. Vol. 4, pt. 1, of The Commentaries of John Calvin.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Trans. Pringle, William. Vol. 10, pt. 1, of The Commentaries of John Calvin.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. F. L. Battles. Ed. John T. McNeill. Library of Christian Classics 21. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.Google Scholar
Carey, John, and Fowler, Alastair, eds. John Milton. London: Longmans, 1968.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Mary W.Milton's Secret Garden.” Milton Studies 14 (1980): 153–82.Google Scholar
Christopher, Georgia. Milton and the Science of the Saints. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982.Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel. “Lacan: An Ethics of Speech.” Trans. Logan, Marie-Rose. Representations 3 (1983): 2139.10.2307/3043785CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. De la grammatologie. Paris: Minuit, 1967.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. “La pharmacie de Platon.” La dissémination. Paris: Seuil, 1972. 69197.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Paris: Minuit, 1972.Google Scholar
Empson, William. Milton's God. Rev. ed. London: Chatto, 1965.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. “Things and Actions Indifferent: The Temptation of Plot in Paradise Regained.Milton Studies 17 (1983): 163–85.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. The Great Code: The Bible and Literature. New York: Harcourt, 1982.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. The Return of Eden: Five Essays on Milton's Epics. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition. Introd. L. E. Berry. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1969.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Allan H.The Temptation in Paradise Regained.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 15 (1916): 599611.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Allan H.The Theological Basis of Satan's Rebellion and the Function of Abdiel in Paradise Lost.” Modern Philology 40 (1942): 1942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, W. B. Jr. “Milton on the Exaltation of the Son: The War in Heaven in Paradise Lost.” ELH 36 (1969): 219–24.Google Scholar
The Interpreter's Bible. Ed. Harmon, Nolan B. 12 vols. New York: Abingdon, 1951–57.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. “Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan: Marxism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, and the Problem of the Subject.Yale French Studies 55–56 (1977): 338–95.Google Scholar
Knott, John Jr. The Sword of the Spirit. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. “Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis.” Ecrits. Trans. Sheridan, Alan. New York: Norton, 1977. 829.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. “Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse.” Ecrits I. Paris: Seuil, 1966. 111208.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. “D'une question préliminaire à tout traitement possible de la psychose.” Ecrits II. Paris: Seuil, 1971. 43102.Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara K. Milton's Brief Epic: The Genre, Meaning, and Art of Paradise Regained. Providence: Brown UP, 1966.Google Scholar
Luther, Martin. On the Bondage of the Will. Trans. Watson, and ed. P. S. and Drewery, B. Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation. Library of Christian Classics 17. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969. 101334.Google Scholar
MacCallum, Hugh. “Most Perfect Hero: The Role of the Son in Milton's Theodicy.” Paradise Lost: A Tercentenary Tribute. Ed. Rajan, B. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1969. 79105.Google Scholar
Milton, John. De doctrina Christiana. Trans. John Carey. Ed. Maurice Kelley. Vol. 6 of Complete Prose Works of John Milton. New Haven: Yale UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Milton, John. De doctrina Christiana. Trans. Hanford, Charles R. Sumner. Ed. James H. and Dunn, W. H. Vol. 14 of The Works of John Milton. New York: Columbia UP, 1933.Google Scholar
Milton, John. John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed Merritt Y. Hughes. New York: Odyssey, 1957.Google Scholar
Milton, John. Pro populo Anglicano defensio secunda. Trans. Burnett, George. Rev. Moses Hadas. Vol. 8 of The Works of John Milton. New York: Columbia UP, 1933.Google Scholar
Nohrnberg, James. “‘Paradise Regained’ by One Greater Man: Milton's Wisdom Epic as a ‘Fable of Identity.‘Centre and Labyrinth: Essays in Honour of Northrop Frye. Ed. Eleanor Cook et al. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1983. 83114.Google Scholar
Nyquist, Mary. “Reading the Fall: Discourse and Drama in Paradise Lost.” English Literary Renaissance 14 (1984): 199229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pareus, David. In S. Matthaei evangelium commentarius. Oxford, 1631.Google Scholar
Pope, Elizabeth M. Paradise Regained: The Tradition and the Poem. New York: Russell, 1962.Google Scholar
Revard, Stella P. The War in Heaven: Paradise Lost and the Tradition of Satan's Rebellion. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. Boston: Houghton, 1974.Google Scholar
Webber, Joan. Milton and His Epic Tradition. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1979.Google Scholar
Weber, Burton J. Wedges and Wings. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, A. S. P. The Heavenly Muse: A Preface to Milton. Ed. MacCallum, Hugh. U of Toronto Dept. of English Studies and Texts 21. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1972.Google Scholar