Wednesday It’s so strange watching Mitch McConnell crafting a healthcare bill under a cloud of secrecy at the same time that everybody pretty much knows about the consequent disasters, beginning with the 20+ million who will lose healthcare. I feel like I’m in the position of the God and Jesus in Paradise Lost as they […]
Jesus’s promise to his disciples, to send them “another advocate with the father,” is picked up by a disheartened Milton as he seeks to justify the ways of God to man–and to himself.
Unfortunately centrists and liberals have been endorsing Trump’s bellicosity abroad. Milton’s Jesus in “Paradise Regained” would not approve.
Many wonder whether spite drives many of Donald Trump’s policy decisions. If so, he has good company in Milton’s Satan, who is defined by spite.
A recent “Atlantic” article argues that Milton’s Satan is quintessentially American, with the archangel as both rugged individualist and honey-tongued con man. Sounds a lot like our current president.
Milton’s “Paradise Lost” provides a powerful account of how we lose sight of God and how then have we can reconnect with the divine.
When Steve Bannon said that he plans to “deconstruct” the administrative state, it sounds vaguely impressive but maybe just be a pretentious way of saying that he’s planning on gumming up the works. A discussion of deconstruction is in order.
Looking back of 2016, I choose three posts that stood out to me, all dealing with Trump. One compares him to Satan inspiring the invasion of Earth by Sin and Death in “Paradise Lost.” The other two compare him to Herman Melville’s “Confidence Man” and to the narrator’s son in the Raymond Carver short story “Why, Honey?”
In a reprinted post, I describe how Trumpism gives permission to Americans to exhibit their dark side and compare it to how Sin and Death in “Paradise Lost” are energized after Adam and Eve bite into the apple.
When Donald Trump excited the alt-right with his Wednesday night speech promising to deport all undocumented immigrants, he reminded me of Milton’s Satan inspiring Sin and Death after engineering the Fall.
Perhaps more than any other American writer, Stephen King understands such incidents as the Orlando massacre. The famous horror writer dreams America’s nightmares and appears prescient when they come true.
Also posted in Beowulf Poet, King (Stephen) | Tagged Beowulf, Grendel, gun violence, It, John Milton, mass murder, Omar Mateen, Orlando killings, Paradise Lost, Stephen King |
Ted Cruz said that, if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, we would be gazing into the abyss. For what this would be like, I turn to Milton, an expert on abysses.
After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.
Also posted in Fielding (Henry), Shakespeare (William), Stoker (Bram) | Tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, Henry Fielding, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, politics, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare |
Monday When I wrote last week about a Virginia legislator attacking teachers for assigning Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I didn’t realize that there was a mother in an adjoining county also going after the book. And unlike the Virginia legislator she gives reasons. Here’s from The Post’s article about Laura Murphy, a Fairfax County mother whose son […]
I am a grandfather again. My latest granddaughter, Eden Rhys Wilson-Bates, brings to mind “Paradise Lost” and Lucille Clifton’s Garden of Eden poems.
This is the 20th anniversary of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, which gives me an excuse for once again tilting with the fantasy author and figuring out my own thoughts on our vexed relationship with sexuality and our bodies. Once again I conclude that Milton goes far deeper into these issues than Pullman does.
Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy is a frontal assault on sin-obsessed patriarchal churches. While I don’t find this depiction to be compelling, I am drawn into his coming of age story.
An epiphany is the moment when something divine enters the human realm. During the Epiphany season, Christians celebrate such moments. In the famous opening of “Paradise Lost,” Milton notes that the Holy Spirit is his muse and connects his own inspiration with a number of famous visitations of the Holy Spirit throughout Biblical history.
Weather disappeared largely from literature when it was seen unrealted to the actions of humans. With climate change now upon us, however, a new literary genre has arisen.
In “Areopagitica,” Milton puts forth powerful arguments against censorship. Milton says that we need to be exposed to scenes of temptation–say, Mammon’s Cave in “The Faerie Queene,” so that we will resist it.
Also posted in Spenser (Edmund) |
I’ve written a lot about Paul Ryan and his aspiration to be a John Galt figure. Now that he is Speaker of the House, I review other literary parallels I’ve drawn over the years.
Also posted in Achebe (Chinua), Carroll (Lewis), Conrad (Joseph), Dickens (Charles), Hardy (Thomas), Rand (Ayn) | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Ayn Rand, Chinua Achebe, GOP, Hard Times, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Twist, Paul Ryan, politics, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy |
Does Jeb Bush resemble at the moment Samson Agonistes? His rivalry with Marco Rubio also resembles any number of Shakespeare tragedies. There’s an Oedipus parallel as well.
Also posted in Shakespeare (William), Sophocles | Tagged 2016 election, GOP, GOP primary, Henry IV Part II, Jeb Bush, John Milton, Joseph Campbell, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, Oedipus, politics, Samson Agonistes, Sophocles, William Shakespeare |
The Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives has been behaving like Satan in “Paradise Lost.” They would be advised to see what happens to Milton’s anti-hero.
Oliver Sacks, as he is dying, shares Milton’s wonder at a night sky “powdered with stars.”
Once again, light has attracted darkness in America with the Charleston church killings. John Milton describes how this dynamic works in “Paradise Lost” and Leslie Marmon Silko does so as well in “Ceremony.”
Also posted in Silko (Leslie Marmon) | Tagged Ceremony, Charleston killings, domestic terrorism, Dylann Storm Roof, Emanuel AME Church, John Milton, Leslie Marmon Silko, mass killings, Paradise Lost, racism, white supremacy |
“Paradise Lost” can function as a lesson in how freedom fighters become dictators. It also shows what we must do to resist this tendency.
One of my science students found a way to examine her frustrations at her limited knowledge by looking at Satan and Eve in “Paradise Lost.”
I grapple today about why it is essential to read lit. And what happens to us when we don’t.
Also posted in Krauss (Nicole), Oliver (Mary), Williams (William Carlos) | Tagged "Blossom", Asphodel, ethical reading, Great House, Hero with a Thousand Faces, John Milton, Joseph Campbell, Mary Oliver, Nicole Krauss, Paradise Lost, reading, William Carlos Williams |
How to handle instances of prejudice in the classics? Let the values battles fly.
Also posted in Lawrence (D. H.), Rabelais (Francois), Woolf (Virginia) | Tagged D. H. Lawrence, Dion Boucicault, Heidi, Johanna Spyri, John Milton, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Octoroon, Paradise Lost, Prejudice, Rabelais, racism, Sexism, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf |
Fans’ obsession with autographs are like the Baron’s obsession with Belinda’s locks in “Rape of the Lock.”
Also posted in Pope (Alexander) | Tagged Alexander Pope, college football, Football, John Milton, Johnny Manziel, NCAA, Paradise Lost, Rape of the Lock, Sports, sports autographs, Todd Gurley |
Reading literature through the eyes of others brings special pleasures and insights.
