Remembering and Repeating Biblical Creation in Paradise Lost [Hardcover]

A 1988 study of Milton's preoccupation with origins and how these elude him.While Miltons inability to discover a privileged origin allies him with postmodernism - and so this study, originally published in 1988, engages thinkers like Freud, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Lacan - that insight is far more ancient. According to Regina Schwartz, the Bible offers Milton his pattern of repeated beginnings.While Miltons inability to discover a privileged origin allies him with postmodernism - and so this study, originally published in 1988, engages thinkers like Freud, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Lacan - that insight is far more ancient. According to Regina Schwartz, the Bible offers Milton his pattern of repeated beginnings.As a reinterpretation of Milton, this study engages the ideas of Freud, Nietzsche, and Derrida. However, the author derives her thesis from Milton's own debt to ancient Biblical sources. The Bible, says Schwartz, offers Milton a pattern of repeated beginnings that informs his depiction of the universe and characterizes his poetic and interpretative processes. This original reading of the Bible enables a powerful rereading of Paradise Lost.Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. 'And the sea was no more': chaos vs. creation; 2. 'Secret gaze or open admiration': the invitation to origins; 3. 'Remember and tell over': creation in sacred song; 4. 'Yet once more': re-creation, repetition, and return; Notes; Index. An original study of a neglected aspect of the poem. --Louis Martz ...a brilliant study that quiety but powerfully recharacterizes many of the contexts of discussion in Milton critism. Particularly noteworthy is Schwartz's ability to introduce advanced theoretical perspectives without ever taking the focus of attention away from the dynamics and problematics of Milton's poem. --Stanley Fish ...a fascinating and provocative book. Virginia R. Mollenkott, Christianity and Literature In a time when much of literary criticism is steeped in a mimicry of fashionalCs