scholarly journals The Practical Christ: An Analysis of Christ as Expressed in John Milton's Paradise Regained

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charles Broughton

<p><b>The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the unique relationship between scripture and poetry.</b></p> <p>This analysis is primarily conducted through an investigation into the figure of Christ as heappears in poetry outside of scripture, specifically in John Milton’s Paradise Regained. Thepoem is distinctive in its treatment and characterisation of Christ and therefore acts as a uniquecase study with which to study this relationship between scripture and poetry. The mainargument of this thesis revolves around how Milton constructs Christ as a literary character atthe centre of his chosen narrative. The first chapter discusses the Gospels and the scripturalsources that Milton elects to use for his poem. Having analysed the scriptural material and howMilton has chosen to adapt it, the second chapter develops this by investigating the charges ofheresy that have been made against the poem. It is also in this chapter where Milton’s personaltheology is analysed to provide greater understanding of how this theology is expressed withinParadise Regained. The final chapter focuses on the form and genre of the poem,demonstrating that the way in which Milton constructs Christ as a literary figure highlights theintricacies which poets are faced with when it comes to creating a poetic vision of Christ, thusultimately asking: How does the poet reconcile the elements of scripture that cannot be ignoredwith their own artistic liberty? This thesis proposes that Milton is conscious of this conundrumand constructs his poem in such a way where this exact question is baked into the conflictbetween Christ and Satan. Paradise Regained is a poem that is concerned with scripture as acollective social and historical narrative and characterises Christ as a historian of this collectivenarrative. This is done, so as to best articulate the ways in which poetry can be utilised tocomment and build upon how the reader may integrate scripture into their own lives and socialnarratives.</p>


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charles Broughton

<p><b>The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the unique relationship between scripture and poetry.</b></p> <p>This analysis is primarily conducted through an investigation into the figure of Christ as heappears in poetry outside of scripture, specifically in John Milton’s Paradise Regained. Thepoem is distinctive in its treatment and characterisation of Christ and therefore acts as a uniquecase study with which to study this relationship between scripture and poetry. The mainargument of this thesis revolves around how Milton constructs Christ as a literary character atthe centre of his chosen narrative. The first chapter discusses the Gospels and the scripturalsources that Milton elects to use for his poem. Having analysed the scriptural material and howMilton has chosen to adapt it, the second chapter develops this by investigating the charges ofheresy that have been made against the poem. It is also in this chapter where Milton’s personaltheology is analysed to provide greater understanding of how this theology is expressed withinParadise Regained. The final chapter focuses on the form and genre of the poem,demonstrating that the way in which Milton constructs Christ as a literary figure highlights theintricacies which poets are faced with when it comes to creating a poetic vision of Christ, thusultimately asking: How does the poet reconcile the elements of scripture that cannot be ignoredwith their own artistic liberty? This thesis proposes that Milton is conscious of this conundrumand constructs his poem in such a way where this exact question is baked into the conflictbetween Christ and Satan. Paradise Regained is a poem that is concerned with scripture as acollective social and historical narrative and characterises Christ as a historian of this collectivenarrative. This is done, so as to best articulate the ways in which poetry can be utilised tocomment and build upon how the reader may integrate scripture into their own lives and socialnarratives.</p>



2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charles Broughton

<p><b>The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the unique relationship between scripture and poetry.</b></p> <p>This analysis is primarily conducted through an investigation into the figure of Christ as heappears in poetry outside of scripture, specifically in John Milton’s Paradise Regained. Thepoem is distinctive in its treatment and characterisation of Christ and therefore acts as a uniquecase study with which to study this relationship between scripture and poetry. The mainargument of this thesis revolves around how Milton constructs Christ as a literary character atthe centre of his chosen narrative. The first chapter discusses the Gospels and the scripturalsources that Milton elects to use for his poem. Having analysed the scriptural material and howMilton has chosen to adapt it, the second chapter develops this by investigating the charges ofheresy that have been made against the poem. It is also in this chapter where Milton’s personaltheology is analysed to provide greater understanding of how this theology is expressed withinParadise Regained. The final chapter focuses on the form and genre of the poem,demonstrating that the way in which Milton constructs Christ as a literary figure highlights theintricacies which poets are faced with when it comes to creating a poetic vision of Christ, thusultimately asking: How does the poet reconcile the elements of scripture that cannot be ignoredwith their own artistic liberty? This thesis proposes that Milton is conscious of this conundrumand constructs his poem in such a way where this exact question is baked into the conflictbetween Christ and Satan. Paradise Regained is a poem that is concerned with scripture as acollective social and historical narrative and characterises Christ as a historian of this collectivenarrative. This is done, so as to best articulate the ways in which poetry can be utilised tocomment and build upon how the reader may integrate scripture into their own lives and socialnarratives.</p>



Author(s):  
Emily Ridge

The final chapter of the book directs attention to questions of identity and selfhood. If modernism witnessed the rise of a culture of portability, what did this mean for understandings of literary character, and how did such understandings alter over the course of the interwar period? This chapter documents the development of late modernist suspicion of portable otherness as this is conveyed through interrogative appraisals of portable property. Such a development coincides with the sudden pervasiveness of the literary figure of the customs official from the late 1920s. This is a figure shown to share the psychoanalyst’s eye for the repressed contraband: ‘Have you anything to declare?’ As the chapter shows, this question of self-declaration becomes a critical one in conceptions and re-conceptions of character from modernism to late modernism. The chapter culminates with a reading of Henry Green’s autobiographical Pack My Bag (1940) in conjunction with his fictional Party Going (1939), both published around the outbreak of the Second World War.



Author(s):  
Rebecca Skreslet Hernandez

The final chapter brings the discussion of al-Suyūṭī’s legal persona squarely into the modern era. The discussion explores how contemporary jurists in Egypt use the legacy of the great fifteenth-century scholar in their efforts to frame their identity and to assert authority as interpreters and spokesmen for the Sharīʿa in a political arena that is fraught with tension. In the midst of Mursī’s embattled presidency, leading scholars at Egypt’s state religious institutions rushed to news and social media outlets to affirm their status as representatives of “orthodoxy” and to distance themselves from more extreme salafī trends that threaten to change the way Islamic law is practiced in the modern Egyptian state. It is striking how closely the image of the moderate Sunni, Sufi-minded, theologically sound scholar grounded in the juristic tradition (according to the accepted legal schools) fits with the persona that al-Suyūṭī strove so tenaciously to construct.



Author(s):  
Zoran Oklopcic

As the final chapter of the book, Chapter 10 confronts the limits of an imagination that is constitutional and constituent, as well as (e)utopian—oriented towards concrete visions of a better life. In doing so, the chapter confronts the role of Square, Triangle, and Circle—which subtly affect the way we think about legal hierarchy, popular sovereignty, and collective self-government. Building on that discussion, the chapter confronts the relationship between circularity, transparency, and iconography of ‘paradoxical’ origins of democratic constitutions. These representations are part of a broader morphology of imaginative obstacles that stand in the way of a more expansive constituent imagination. The second part of the chapter focuses on the most important five—Anathema, Nebula, Utopia, Aporia, and Tabula—and closes with the discussion of Ernst Bloch’s ‘wishful images’ and the ways in which manifold ‘diagrams of hope and purpose’ beyond the people may help make them attractive again.



1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.



Perceptions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Biggs

This paper sought to place a collection of newsreels from Pathé News about the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya into the historical narrative of the revolt. The current understanding of the Mau Mau has not included a comprehensive discussion of the coverage of the group and the way that news of the revolt shaped the history that follows it. What was observed throughout the reels was an increasingly hostile propaganda campaign against the Mau Mau. This stronger rhetoric coincided with greater atrocities committed by the British as the war dragged on. The main findings of the paper were that the Mau Mau became a kind of “boogeyman” for the British about the dangers of decolonization, as well as the way that the news about the revolt served to paint the revolt in explicitly racist terms. The Mau Mau play an important role in the history of Kenya, and collections like that of Pathé News help to illuminate the narrative that the British developed for the independence struggle.



2018 ◽  
pp. 161-182
Author(s):  
Tim Lanzendörfer

The final chapter of the book discusses the question of race in contemporary zombie fiction. Departing from the observation that many zombie fiction texts insist that the zombie apocalypse will do away with race as a marker of difference, it reads two recent texts against this oft-used trope. Arguing against much recent criticism, it posits that Zone One is best read not as concerned with the history of racial oppression, but as concerned with the way capitalism constructs race as a category useful to it. It concludes by reading Díaz’s “Monstro” as a tale most instructive at the metalevel, for what it tells us about the zombie’s contemporary relation to Haiti on the pervasiveness of racial categories even outside a White-Black dichotomy. It also serves as a point for departure to the Coda, an investigation of the larger valences of zombie fiction.



Author(s):  
Timothy C. Campbell
Keyword(s):  

In this final chapter, the Italian actress Monica Vitti is read as the generous form of life par excellance in three of Antonioni’s most important films: L’avventura, La notte, and L’eclisse. The generosity she evinces is registered in the way that Antonioni shows her repeatedly grasping and releasing objects such that a distinction between possession as grasping and non-possession as release emerges. That same distinction appears later as a strategy that Vitti adopts in playfully evading her capture by Antonioni’s apparatus.



Author(s):  
Jonathan Moss

This final chapter returns to Ford, Dagenham to analyse the second strike that was organised by female sewing-machinists for skill recognition in the winter of 1984-1985. Whilst the 1968 strike analysed in chapter 2 was optimistically hailed as a turning point symbolising a new era of gender equality, the sewing-machinists were dissatisfied because the skilled nature of their work was not recognised. For the women at Ford, the underlying grading grievance and the sense of injustice that led to the 1968 dispute continued to shape their experiences of work and trade unionism for the next 17 years. This dispute marks an appropriate place to begin to draw some broader conclusions about women’s experiences of workplace activism between 1968 and 1985. The Ford sewing-machinists’ eventual success in winning their grading intimates a transition had occurred in the way women’s work was valued in the intervening 17 years between the strikes – at least within the Ford factory. Drawing upon contemporary representations of the dispute and interviews with women involved, this final chapter considers whether the women themselves believed the strike represented a change in attitudes towards female workers.



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