Paradise Lost Critics Flashcards
William Blake - Milton
‘Milton was the Devil’s party without knowing it.’
C.S. Lewis - why Eve fell
‘Eve falls through pride.’
C.S. Lewis - Eve persuading Adam to eat the fruit
“Murder”
Charles Williams - Adam
“Milton depicts Adam’s passion so intensely as to make us almost wish it could be approved.”
Northrop Frye - Adam is an anti-hero
“What happens when Adam eats the forbidden fruit, then, is not an act, but the surrendering of the power to act.”
David Loewestein - Adam and Eve virtuous
“Adam and Eve remain unfallen until the fall itself… though fallible and capable of sinning.”
Barbara Lewinski - Satan’s persuasion
“He confronts Eve with a barrage of definition, false syllogisms and rhetorical powers.”
Caroline Moore - Satan’s method of persuasion
“Pure slick advertising.”
Stanley Fish - logical reasoning vs faith
“Eve substitutes the law of reason and the evidence of things seen for the law of God.”
Caroline Moore - presentation of Eve
“Milton shifts his interpretation of Genesis away from conventional misogyny to give Eve more sympathy, and more equality.”
Caroline Moore - Satan on the Chain of Being
We see the “progressive degradation of Satan.”
Anna Baldwin - presentation of Satan debate
“Tragic hero”, “destructive villain”, or “absurd”
