Heaven and its discontents
Subtitle: Milton's characters in Paradise lost
By: Bernard J. Paris
Publisher: Transaction Publishers; Routledge
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New Brunswick, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 146
ISBN-13: 9781412810913
Description: "There is a tradition of little books that make a huge difference in how we read Paradise Lost, and Bernard J. Paris's Heaven and Its Discontents is a worthy member of this group. Rather than looking at Adam, Eve, God, and Satan in purely doctrinal or theological terms, Paris insists that we read Milton's creations as characters whose inner conflicts drive the story. His analysis of how God's and Satan's rivalry and psychological conflicts drives the story is revelatory. Milton's critics will profit from how the brilliant, short book continues the project of the New Milton Criticism, and students will find Heaven and Its Discontents an extremely helpful entree into Paradise Lost. Highly recommended for beginners and experts alike."--Peter C. Herman, professor of English Literature, San Diego State University; author of Destabilizing Milton: "Paradise Lost" and the Poetics of Incertitude.

The enduring appeal of Shakespeare's works derives Iargely from the fact that they contain brilliantly drawn characters. Interpretations of these characters are products of changing modes of thought, and thus past explanations of their behavior, including Shakespeare's, no longer satisfy us. In this work, Bernard J. Paris shows how Shakespeare endowed his tragic heroes with enduring human qualities that have made them relevant to people of later eras. The author's combination of literary and psychoanalytic perspectives guides us to a humane understanding of Shakespeare and his protagonists, and, in turn, to a more profound knowledge of human behavior.

Andre Gide once said that Feodor Dostoevsky "lost himself in the characters of his books, and, for this reason, it is in them that he can be found again." In this book, Louis Breger approaches Dostoevsky psychoanalytically, not as a "patient" to be analyzed, but as a fellow psychoanalyst, someone whose life and fiction are intertwined in the process of literary self-exploration.

Many critics agree with C. S. Lewis that "Satan is the best drawn of Milton's characters." Satan is certainly a wonderful creation, but Adam and Eve are also complex and well-drawn, and God may be the most complicated character of all. Paradise Lost is above all God's story; it is his discontent, first with Lucifer and then with human beings, that drives the action from the beginning until his anger subsides at the world's end.

God and Satan have similarities not only in their pursuit of revenge, but also in their craving for power and glory. The ambitious Satan wants more than he already has, but what accounts for the voracity of God's appetite? Does the fact that each threatens the status of the other help to explain the intensity of their hatred and rage? Is their vindictiveness a response to being threatened, an effort to repair the injury they feel they've sustained? This seems to be the case for Satan, but must not God also have felt deeply hurt to have such a powerful need for vengeance? If so, why is the Almighty so vulnerable? And why is he so hard on Adam and Eve and the rest of humankind? These are the kinds of questions Bernard Paris tries to answer in this book.

Paris's purpose is not to focus on Milton's illustrative intentions but to try to understand God, Satan, Adam, and Eve as psychologically motivated characters who are torn by inner conflicts. Most critics treat Milton's characters as coded messages from the author, but their mimetic features interfere with the.

Process of decoding. Instead of looking through the characters to the author, Paris looks at Milton's characters as objects of interest in themselves, as creations inside a creation who escape their thematic roles and are embodiments of his psychological intuitions. This book heightens our appreciation of an ignored aspect of Milton's art and offers new insights into the critical controversies that have surrounded Paradise Lost. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.