Gordon Teskey Bücher

Composed after the collapse of his political hopes, Milton's great poems Paradise Lost , Paradise Regained , and Samson Agonistes are an effort to understand what it means to be a poet on the threshold of a post-theological world. The argument of Delirious Milton , inspired in part by the architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York , is that Milton's creative power is drawn from a rift at the center of his consciousness over the question of creation itself. This rift forces the poet to oscillate deliriously between two incompatible perspectives, at once affirming and denying the presence of spirit in what he creates. From one perspective the act of creation is centered in God and the purpose of art is to imitate and praise the Creator. From the other perspective the act of creation is centered in the human, in the built environment of the modern world. The oscillation itself, continually affirming and negating the presence of spirit, of a force beyond the human, is what Gordon Teskey means by delirium. He concludes that the modern artist, far from being characterized by what Benjamin (after Baudelaire) called "loss of the aura," is invested, as never before, with a shamanistic spiritual power that is mediated through art.

Großartig erzählt Milton den tragischen Fall des Menschengeschlechts: Satan und sein Gefolge haben sich gegen Gott erhoben, wurden besiegt und zur Strafe in die Hölle verbannt. Sie errichten dort das Pandämonium, die Heimstatt aller gefallenen Engel, und beschließen, Gott von nun an durch List und Trug zu bekämpfen und ihn in seinem neuen Lieblingsgeschöpf zu treffen, den Menschen zu verführen und so Gottes Ratschluss zu durchkreuzen. Das bedeutendste religiöse Werk angelsächsischer Dichtkunst des 17. Jahrhunderts! John Dryden setzt Milton im Vorwort zur 4. Auflage auf eine Stufe mit Homer und Vergil und schreibt, Milton hätte mit seiner Dichtung beide übertroffen, macht ihn somit zum größten epischen Dichter aller Zeiten. Mit dem Bilderzyklus von Gustave Doré.

This Norton Critical Edition is designed to make Paradise Lost accessible for student readers, providing invaluable contextual and biographical information and the tools students need to think critically about this landmark epic.