This thesis concerns the themes of godhood and creation in modern, secular works. Using literary analysis, the thesis examines how the creation myth and the relationship between creator and creation is written in David Almond’s novel Clay and the video game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, in comparison with how the same relationship is presented in Frankenstein and Paradise Lost. The thesis focuses on how the different works portray the themes of god, creation, original sin, and atonement, where the portrayals differ and where are the same. It ends with a discussion on how modern, secular stories using these themes manage to separate themselves from their religious origins while still remaining true to their inspirations. / Denna uppsats behandlar ämnena gudomlighet och skapelse i moderna, sekulära verk. Genom att använda litterär analys undersöker uppsatsen hur skapelseberättelsen och förhållandet mellan skapare och skapelse skildras i David Almonds roman Clay och datorspelet Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs i jämförelse med hur samma förhållande presenteras i Frankenstein och Paradise Lost. Uppsatsen fokuserar på hur de olika verken skildrar temana gud, skapelsen, syndafallet och försoningen, samt skillnader och likheter i skildringarna. Den avslutas med en diskussion om hur moderna, sekulära berättelsen som använder dessa teman separerar sig från sitt religiösa ursprung men ändå förblir trogna sina inspirationer.

科学研究費補助金 研究種目:基盤研究(C)(2) 課題番号:10610468 研究代表者:鈴木 繁夫 研究期間:1998-1999年度

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.

The present thesis considers the allusive and narrative function of fate and its associated concepts of providence, free will, necessity, and natural law in Paradise Lost. It argues that the narrative function of these concepts is shaped by Milton's allusions to classical epic, and assesses their impact on the Christian theology of the poem. It identifies unnoted allusions to well-known epic models (Homer, Vergil, Lucan), and examines how Lucretius' account of natural laws and post-Vergilian representations of epic aftermath influence Milton's own depiction of transgression and its aftermath in Paradise Lost. Chapter 1 considers Satan and other fallen angels' definition of fate as a materialist alternative for the personal rule of the Father. It traces several allusions to fate in cosmological and ethical settings, in Lucretius, Vergil, Lucan, and Statius, and analyses how these allusions interact with the Hesiodic mythical material in the opening books of Milton's epic. Chapter 2 focuses on a pattern of previously unnoted allusions to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura in the narrative of the Fall, culminating in Book 9. It argues that in his temptation of Eve, Milton's Satan subverts Lucretian teachings about the boundaries governing the physical universe as he persuades Eve to transgress her natural state in Eden. Chapter 3 discusses the appearance of the Father in an allusive epic council scene in Book 3. In the dialogue between Father and Son, I suggest, Milton evokes negotiations between the Homeric and Vergilian deities, depicting his God as surpassing his pagan epic counterparts who can only delay the fate of mortals, but not change them. Chapter 4 suggests that Milton's depiction of the aftermath of the Fall is indebted to post-Vergilian epic narratives of 'aftermath'. The final Books of Paradise Lost and the portrayal of Adam and Eve's moral freedom as they leave paradise, with providence their guide, should be read, I posit, against the backdrop of scenes and imagery from Lucan's Bellum Civile and Statius' Thebaid.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation aims mainly to make a comparative study of the renaissance and baroque aesthetic resources in epics, using, therefore, The Lusiads (1572), which is a heroic poem on the Portuguese maritime expansion, and Paradise Lost (1667), by John Milton, better known and studied as a protestant humanist epic about the fall of the first human couple. The main theoretical basis for this study is the formulations of Gilbert Highet (1954), Anazildo Vasconcelos da Silva (1984, 1987, 2007) and Christina Ramalho (2013) on the epic genre and the classical tradition. There were also major contributions to this work: Joaquim Nabuco (1872), Bowra (1950), Metzer and Coogan (2002) and Saraiva and Lopes (2010). The aspect of comparison between the works is the permanence of classical mythology in the literary plan of the works. Therefore, it was adopted Hesiod (1995, 1996) as a mythographic source, because of the educational intentions of his works. The Lusiads are considered, according to the theory of literary speech and semiotization of Anazildo Vasconcelos da Silva, a renaissance epic and, thus it contains the reference to authors, works and pagan mythology present in the classic epic model (Iliad, Odyssey), besides the balance between thought and emotion and the formulation of universalizing concepts. While Paradise Lost is understood as a work of baroque epic model, which proposes the projection of the poetic persona in the narrative, the narrator as agent of the character subjective logic and sentimentalization of the epic proposition. Although, both have what Gilbert Highet calls classic influence. In other words, they are impregnated by classical thought, whose presence in the body of the poems varies in strength, importance and penetration. Consequently, this research will specifically treat the ways how the classic influence manifests in Camões and John Milton epics. / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo principal fazer um estudo comparado dos recursos estéticos em épicos renascentistas e barrocos, utilizando-se, para tanto, das obras Os Lusíadas (1572), poema heroico de Camões sobre a expansão marítima portuguesa, e Paraíso Perdido (1667), de John Milton, mais conhecida e estudada como uma epopeia humanista protestante sobre a queda do primeiro casal humano. A base teórica principal para esse estudo são as formulações de Gilbert Highet (1954), Anazildo Vasconcelos da Silva (1984, 1987, 2007) e Christina Ramalho (2013) a respeito do gênero épico e a tradição clássica. Também foram contribuições importantes: Joaquim Nabuco (1872), Bowra (1950), Metzer e Coogan (2002) e Saraiva e Lopes (2010). O aspecto de comparação entre as epopeias da era moderna é a permanência da mitologia clássica no plano literário das obras. Para tanto, adotou-se Hesíodo (1995, 1996) como fonte mitográfica, tendo vista as intenções didáticas de suas obras. Os Lusíadas é considerada, segundo a teoria da semiotização literária do discurso de Silva, uma epopeia renascentista e, portanto, apresenta referências a autores e obras e à mitologia pagã presentes no modelo épico clássico (Ilíada e Odisseia), além do equilíbrio entre pensamento e emoção e a elaboração de conceitos universalizantes. Já Paraíso Perdido é entendida como uma obra do modelo épico barroco, que propõe a projeção do eu-lírico no relato; o narrador como agente de uma lógica subjetiva do personagem e a sentimentalização da proposição épica. Contudo, ambas apresentam o que Gilbert Highet chama de influência clássica. Em outras palavras, são obras impregnadas pelo pensamento clássico, cuja presença no corpo dos poemas varia em força, importância e penetração. Por conseguinte, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo específico tratar dos modos como a influência clássica se manifesta nas epopeias de Camões e John Milton.

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

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The purpose of this paper is to present an opening to argue for a transtheoretical and - activist fellowship with Satan and the values connected to hir. A transactivist fellows-hip with Satan builds on two primary points of contact. It is on one hand the opportu-nity to take advantage of the non-conformist, non-normative and polemical signifi-cance Satan has been attributed, especially in the history of literature, but also in the history of religion. And on the other hand this study also dwells upon how Satan as a figure has served as an expression of evilness, hatred, darkness and suffering amongst people. The questions i ask, is if there is a course that allows me to theorize for a stra-tegic collaboration between the transactivist struggle and the ideas that is connected to the satanfigure in John Miltons Paradise Lost. I also ask if there is a transtheoretical-and activist approach where Satan can function as an ally within the transactivist re-sistance. The purpose of this paper also carries on a confrontation with the notion of ”tone-policing", and love and tenderness as the only sanctioned (and praised) incenti-ves for political struggle. In this thesis I make a link between the logic that connects to Satan as an ideological basis and a non-conformist (militant), seperatist, anti-capi-talist and queer attitude in transactivist struggle. With the help of Susan Stryker's the-ory of the monsteridentity I will experiment with extracts from John Milton's Paradise Lost, where the Satan figure and the transactivist position builds on a fellowship as my analysis proceeds. To do this i use a queer-deleuzian tool as a method that focuses on textual framings within the idea of spatial relations, meaning how the actual text can and should correspond with discourses outside its territorial space. This allow me to di-sengage Satan from its original amplitude, and instead of interpreting how Satan handles hirself in Paradise Lost, i will liberate Satan from this narrative and create a relation between hir and my thesis. In this way I create an occasion, through a theore-tical approach to trans-subjectivity as comparable to the perception of the monster as a non-normative figure, to bring the transgendered monster together with the satanic monster. The ”what” that will subsequently crystallize during the analysis have the intention to tell the story about the ways in which the non-confirmative transactivist have in common with Satan. After doing this i will conclude my thesis with a discus-sion that reflects on how this fellowship has evolved in relation to the proposed politi-cal and emotional connections between the non-confomative transactivist and Satan.