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This dissertation tries to locate Milton's optimistic view of man and nature as expressed in Comus, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and Paradise Lost in the long tradition of natural law that goes back to Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas.

Ce projet consiste en une étude comparative de trois traductions de Paradise Lost, l'oeuvre majeure de John Milton, effectuées à trois époques différentes. Le corpus est constitué d'éléments de corpus de la première traduction de Paradise Lost de Nicolas-François Dupré de Saint-Maur, réalisée en 1729, de la « grande traduction » de Chateaubriand, écrite en 1836, de la version plus contemporaine d'Armand Himy, faite en 2001, et de l'oeuvre originale. L'objectif principal consiste à vérifier si les éléments de corpus contenant des éléments mythologiques et religieux des traductions sont équivalents aux éléments de corpus correspondants dans l'oeuvre originale. Pour ce faire, nous avons analysé de façon quantitative l'équivalence et étudié les écarts sémantiques entre les traductions et l'original, dans le but de cerner les projets de traduction de leurs auteurs.

This thesis is a comparative study between Michelangelo Buonarroti's ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and John Milton's Paradise Lost. The parallels discussed arise out of the Renaissance humanism shared by both of these artists and expressed their works of art. Beginning with Michelangelo, I will establish the relation of Renaissance humanism to the Sistine Chapel ceiling decoration and define Michelangelo's specific conception of the theories associated with this movement. Subsequently, the same critical approach will be applied to Milton's Paradise Lost, which will be revealed to be notably humanistic despite its positioning at the end of the Renaissance in a Protestant country. After exploring the individual works of Michelangelo and Milton separately, I will then consider the views shared by these two in their treatments of the myth of the Fall of humanity: both artists believe in the ultimate dignity and freedom of humankind, and portray both Adam and Eve as free and autonomous individuals; the Sistine ceiling frescoes and Paradise Lost likewise emphasize the regenerative rather than the damning aspect of the Fall of humanity, expressing the humanistic insistence on the value of human experience; finally, the humanistic notion that art, both literary and visual, instructs its audience while entertaining it, provides the governing artistic theory behind the works of both Michelangelo and Milton. Although the commonalities between Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling and Milton's Paradise Lost are extensive, I will not attempt to claim that Milton was specifically influenced by Michelangelo's frescoes. However, my study will reveal the potential for interart analogies to provide greater insight into the individual works of art and literature being analysed.

This study arranges symptoms of polarity into a causal sequence# beginning with the origin of contrarieties and ending with the ultimate effect. The origin is considered as the fall of man, denoting both a mythic concept and a specific act of betrayal. This study argues that a sense of separateness precedes the fall or act of separation; the act of separation produces various kinds of fragmentation; and the fragments are reunited through paradox. Therefore, a causal relationship exists between the "fall" motif and the concept of paradox.

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Thesis (MA (English Literature))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Seventeenth-century England witnessed a time of radical sociopolitical conflict and transition. This thesis aims to examine how two writers closely associated with this period and its controversies, John Milton and Andrew Marvell, represent events as they unfold. This thesis focuses specifically on Milton’s Paradise Lost and Marvell’s Cromwellian poems in order to show how these poets reinterpret established literary conventions and invoke traditional Puritan practices in order to explain and legitimise the precarious new dispensation of post-Civil War England. At the same time, their work produces ambiguities and tensions that threaten to undermine the very discourse that they attempt to endorse. Both poets’ work indicates an active involvement in the political embroilments of their time while retaining its aesthetic value. Therefore, these texts do not only function on an aesthetic level but also within the historical framework of political ideologies. The focus of this thesis is a discussion of the relationship between politics and poetry, with the emphasis on poetry of conflict and transition in civil society. In other words, it is not only considered how different poetic genres reflect social and political change in different ways but also how these genres in turn contribute to political rhetoric. During the English Revolution Milton and Marvell try to provide solutions for the political disturbance, even while remaining aware of the new conflicts produced in the attempt.

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The poetic effectiveness of Milton's God is a fundamental critical issue in Paradise Lost, and the thesis addresses this concern by first surveying the various representations of God contained in the Hebrew scriptures. To speak of the biblical God, one must first understand the tremendous diversity o f his portrayals: he meets with some people in human form, and with others as a voice, a light, or an awesome presence. Milton's God shares less with the God o f Genesis than he does with the God of the prophets; yet Milton's representation demonstrates that though Eden will be lost, God will continue to manifest himself to those who seek his face. The cosmology of the epic reveals both the immensity o f creation and the intimacy o f its Creator, since the entire world is filled with the glory o f God, and yet the garden where Adam and Eve live is an archetypal sanctuary and their bower a type of Inner Temple. Milton's justification o f God's ways rests upon the timelessness of God; events that appear anachronistic at first are used to establish a context that looks beyond the strict limits of human time. On the one hand, the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Apocalypse are separate events that have not yet come to pass; but on the other hand, Milton shows how these events are simultaneously present and completed in God's presence. From God's throne, we participate in a cosmic perspective where the categories of past, present, and future are compressed into one time: we are before and beyond time. Such a transcendent perspective engenders a powerful truth: before Adam and Eve have been tempted, God's grace and mercy have found them out and they have been restored. Though Eden must be lost, the paradise of God's presence will remain. Adam and Eve will fall and the legacy of their rash act will be paradoxically for all time, but not forever. God will restore his people and wipe away their tears, and, in the context of Milton's depiction of God, that time of redemption is now. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate