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The Father's Word/Satan's Wrath

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Mary Nyquist
Mary Nyquist*
Affiliation:
New College and Victoria College University of TorontoToronto, Ontario
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Abstract

Milton's two epic beginnings are interrelated by a network of structural parallels and verbal echoes and by the articulation of the Father's Word with Satan's wrath. An important if unacknowledged intertext for Satan's temptations against the Word, which occur in both epics, is the Reformed reading of the Genesis exchange between the serpent and Eve. Granting it status as an intertext permits a fresh exploration of the intertextual relations of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Under a poststructuralist and Lacanian analysis, the distinctive logocentric structures and operations at work in these two epics reveal the authority and self-presence of the Father's Word systematically yet progressively being caught up in or displaced by Satan's plotting, by history, and by writing.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 100 , Issue 2 , March 1985 , pp. 187 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1985

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