Comparing the Spatial Images and Multiple Perspectives in Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy
Comparing the Spatial Images and Multiple Perspectives in Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy
In Paradise Lost, John Milton reinterpreted the first three chapter of Genesis, describing the rebellion of Satan, the creation of humankind and the downfall of the human ancestor whose descendants await for the salvation of God’ son. The theme of the poem was made clear in Book I, “I may assert eternal providence,/And justify the ways of God to men.” (I.25-6). Though the entire poem is filled with religious significances and abstract theological perspectives, Milton was still able to build a spacious setting, creating his divine tragedy from Hell, Chaos, Paradise to Heaven. Milton’s copious description of landscape and space structure made me really interested in the structure of setting in his epic poem.
In the following, discussions will be regarding Milton’s cosmography that includes the composition of Hell, the relationship of Satan, fallen Angels and Hell, the symbolical meaning of the Pandemonium structure of Paradise and Adam and Eve’s relationship with it. There are studies discussing the architectural structure as a physical or just an analogical one and analyzing the different concepts of “space” and “place” in the poem and how they were used. Some focus on the spatial symbolical meaning of the divine field against Chaos or order against disorder. These studies only looked at Milton’s spatial view from a certain perspective, but have failed to give a micro view about the spatial imagination in Paradise Lost, for example, how do we combine Heaven, the cosmos, Hell and paradise? What are the significances of these fields in the structure of Paradise Lost? Are these outlines and structures of the fields concrete, definite or vague? Do these spatial images have a complete principle or method?
A few cruxes of the problem in related studies of space are due to the very structure Milton had depicted. What he constructed was something that had no clear
In Paradise Lost, John Milton reinterpreted the first three chapter of Genesis, describing the rebellion of Satan, the creation of humankind and the downfall of the human ancestor whose descendants await for the salvation of God’ son. The theme of the poem was made clear in Book I, “I may assert eternal providence,/And justify the ways of God to men.” (I.25-6). Though the entire poem is filled with religious significances and abstract theological perspectives, Milton was still able to build a spacious setting, creating his divine tragedy from Hell, Chaos, Paradise to Heaven. Milton’s copious description of landscape and space structure made me really interested in the structure of setting in his epic poem.
In the following, discussions will be regarding Milton’s cosmography that includes the composition of Hell, the relationship of Satan, fallen Angels and Hell, the symbolical meaning of the Pandemonium structure of Paradise and Adam and Eve’s relationship with it. There are studies discussing the architectural structure as a physical or just an analogical one and analyzing the different concepts of “space” and “place” in the poem and how they were used. Some focus on the spatial symbolical meaning of the divine field against Chaos or order against disorder. These studies only looked at Milton’s spatial view from a certain perspective, but have failed to give a micro view about the spatial imagination in Paradise Lost, for example, how do we combine Heaven, the cosmos, Hell and paradise? What are the significances of these fields in the structure of Paradise Lost? Are these outlines and structures of the fields concrete, definite or vague? Do these spatial images have a complete principle or method?
A few cruxes of the problem in related studies of space are due to the very structure Milton had depicted. What he constructed was something that had no clear