Delirious Milton: The Fate of the Poet in ModernityComposed after the collapse of his political hopes, Milton's great poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes are an effort to understand what it means to be a poet on the threshold of a post-theological world. The argument of Delirious Milton, inspired in part by the architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York, is that Milton's creative power is drawn from a rift at the center of his consciousness over the question of creation itself. This rift forces the poet to oscillate deliriously between two incompatible perspectives, at once affirming and denying the presence of spirit in what he creates. From one perspective the act of creation is centered in God and the purpose of art is to imitate and praise the Creator. From the other perspective the act of creation is centered in the human, in the built environment of the modern world. The oscillation itself, continually affirming and negating the presence of spirit, of a force beyond the human, is what Gordon Teskey means by delirium. He concludes that the modern artist, far from being characterized by what Benjamin (after Baudelaire) called "loss of the aura," is invested, as never before, with a shamanistic spiritual power that is mediated through art. |
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Page 2
... modern German artist Joseph Beuys , at the Barbican gallery in London . I had been interested in Beuys for some time , more as a cultural phenomenon than an artist : he was a fired professor , a founder of the Green Party , a creator of ...
... modern German artist Joseph Beuys , at the Barbican gallery in London . I had been interested in Beuys for some time , more as a cultural phenomenon than an artist : he was a fired professor , a founder of the Green Party , a creator of ...
Page 4
... modern poetry but also , if I may so term them , on the “ deliriamentarians " of rock music spectacle from Jim Morrison to Patti Smith and Trent Reznor . Rimbaud's Illuminations , " Lightings , " is a rapid series of hallucinatory ...
... modern poetry but also , if I may so term them , on the “ deliriamentarians " of rock music spectacle from Jim Morrison to Patti Smith and Trent Reznor . Rimbaud's Illuminations , " Lightings , " is a rapid series of hallucinatory ...
Page 5
... modern world , but is aided by a spirit - helper - Milton calls her Urania - that is only formally allied with the original Creator . For this spirit is actually something new , a resurgence into European culture , at the moment when ...
... modern world , but is aided by a spirit - helper - Milton calls her Urania - that is only formally allied with the original Creator . For this spirit is actually something new , a resurgence into European culture , at the moment when ...
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... modern bondage of rhyming . " When he wanted to compose a great poem that would seize human existence in its arche , Milton began at the beginning , in the moment , in the garden of Eden , when perfect human liberty was lost . This is ...
... modern bondage of rhyming . " When he wanted to compose a great poem that would seize human existence in its arche , Milton began at the beginning , in the moment , in the garden of Eden , when perfect human liberty was lost . This is ...
Page 8
... modern architecture , of " Man- hattanism , " as he calls it , is a striking confirmation of what the French poet , a century before , set out to find . Not only do we live inside what we have made , but we also recognize that we can ...
... modern architecture , of " Man- hattanism , " as he calls it , is a striking confirmation of what the French poet , a century before , set out to find . Not only do we live inside what we have made , but we also recognize that we can ...
Contents
Artificial Paradises | 10 |
Miltons Halo | 20 |
Milton and Modernity | 45 |
Why This Is Chaos Nor Am I Out of It | 65 |
Gods Body CONCEPT AND METAPHOR | 86 |
A Bleeding Rib MILTON AND CLASSICAL CULTURE | 107 |
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abyss Adam alienated Anaximander Aristotle artifact artist body called chaos choice choose Christian classical culture concept created createdness creative Creator critical dead delirium divine Creation earth epic everything Faerie Queene fall Father foreskins forget God's Greek hallucination heap heaven Hebrews hell heroic Homer human imagine interpretation Jesus John Milton Jorie Graham kings literary material matter meaning metaphor metaphysical metonymical Milton modern modernist monist narrative nature necessity and chance original Paradise Lost Paradise Regained perhaps Philistines phrase physical pinnacle poem poet poet's poetic poetry political present problem question reading rebel angels refer Rem Koolhaas Renaissance Samson Agonistes Satan says scene seems sense space speak Spenser spirit stand Stanley Fish structure substance Tasso temptation tempting thee theology theory things thou thought tion Torquato Tasso tradition truth University Press verse vision voice wilderness word writing