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Title: Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0-19-500345-4 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: December, 1961 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: A shallow, erroneous reading by a fundamentalist
Comment: Lewis' interpretation of Satan makes absolutely no sense to anyone who knows the poem - until, that is, you realize that Lewis really believes in the devil and can't stomach the idea of a book that makes him into a hero.
Rating: 5
Summary: Not the last word, but much the best so far
Comment: Although a work of extraordinary brilliance and charm, this is not the critical last word on Milton. Lewis is brilliant almost to the point of being overwhelming on everything which is story and narrative and character; his comparison of Adam with Satan, his account of the diabolical cabinet meeting in book two, his description of what eating the apple did to Adam and Eve - the father of all bright epigrammatic wastrels meeting the mother of all [evil], selfish sentimentalists - his observation on Eve's sin, which could have been written by Chesterton, all are outstanding and hit the nail on the head so hard that it rings. And his immense learning is certainly up to the task of disentangling the intellectual background to the story - his account of the correspondence between Augustine's view of the Fall and Milton's, and his observation that both Satan and Abdiel "are good Aristotelians", show his easy, almost careless handling of vast stores of knowledge and understanding.
The problem with this otherwise superlative and certainly indispensable essay is that Lewis, taken with his vision of a common "mere Christianity" embracing Protestants, Anglicans, Catholics and Orthodox, simply misses the extent and significance of Milton's sectarian and heretical opinions. Sure, he knows that Milton was a sort of modified follower of Arius, who denied the divinity of Jesus - that is, that he stood at the outer edges of what is permissible for a Christian to believe - but he does not seem to understand that the consistently materializing imagination of Milton, that almost transforms the Trinity and the Angels into Greek Gods, was a typically Protestant and sectarian reaction against Catholic theology and especially against Thomism, with its wholly spiritual view of Angels. Nor does he give sufficient space to the most sectarian feature of Milton's spirit, the bitterness, amounting almost to bigotry, with which he denounced opposing viewpoints; in spite of the famous passage in the AEROPAGITICUS, he is a bad friend of liberty. Listen to the pointed observations of the historian Eric Voegelin:
"[Milton writes in Of True Religion , 1673:] Catholic worship cannot be tolerated "without grievous and unsufferable scandal giv'n to all consciencious Beholders." And he leaves it to the civil magistrate to consider whether Catholics in England can be tolerated at all, even without public worship. If Catholics should complain that their conscience is violated if the celebration of the mass is not permitted to them, he replies that "we have not warrant to regard Conscience which is not founded on Scripture." . . . . Radical scripturalism has become, in the field of social technique, the instrument through which the conscience of man can be kept within the limits of national jurisdiction.
"Milton goes even further in his scripturalism: he expects everybody to do his duty and to use the opportunity offered by the English Bible translation for becoming thoroughly acquainted with Scripture. "Neither let the Countryman, the Tradesman, the Lawyer, the Physician, the Statesman, excuse himself by his much business from the studious reading thereof. . . ."
Using a modern category, we might say that Milton was a totalitarian National Scripturalist. . . . "
Lewis is possibly too much in love with Milton's masterpiece; certain it is that at the end of this marvellous little tome we may find ourselves wondering why, if Milton is really so wonderful as Lewis makes him, we feel so little need to go and revisit his work; why, indeed, we would much rather re-read Lewis' own PREFACE than Milton himself.
Rating: 5
Summary: The only commentary you need.
Comment: This is the only comemntary you need about Paradise list
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Title: Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism (NORTON CRITICAL EDITIONS) by John Milton, Scott Elledge ISBN: 0393962938 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.20 |
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Title: The Discarded Image : An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0521477352 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 26 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0521645840 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 17 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0521422817 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 31 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Studies in Words by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0521398312 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 13 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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