![]() ![]() He then talks to Satan (how?), they level their weapons at each other with, so we are told, 'fatal hands', and an elaborate simile conveys their mutually hostile posture. He approaches Satan 'with horrid strides' (of what?). He has no distinguishable parts, but he seems to wear a crown on his head, and he shakes (what with?) his dart at Satan. Death is supposed to be indescribable, but he is described. But the application of the idea is always attended with (in my view) insuperable problems. Critics, of course, love the idea of (in general) ineffability it is one of their favourite clichés. It is hardly satisfactory for the critic simply to take over Milton's own claims concerning shapelessness and indescribability. But what one misses here is a deeper investigation of the very ideas of formlessness and ineffability, and of the way in which our understanding of these notions - if indeed we can understand them - affects our reading of Milton's poem. Zamir concludes his discussion of this part of the poem with the thought that death's formlessness is 'the polar opposite of gardening - the form-bestowing activity with which Adam and Eve are tasked' (p. One does not experience death' ( Tractatus §6.4311). We are given no evidence for this latter claim, but one might think of Wittgenstein: 'Death is not an event in life. Philosophers assert that death 'is not a state or an event for a subject' (p. 'To fear death is to recoil from disintegration'. 'Death is at once destructive agency and an ineffable state words must slide off its formless surface'. Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,įor each seemed either - black it stood as Night,Īnd shook a dreadful dart what seemed his headĭeath, Zamir tells us, is indescribable he 'proves resilient to linguistic impositions' in this respect he resembles Chaos, 'that amorphous element into which everything is in danger of disintegrating' (p. ![]() ![]() If shape it might be called that shape had noneĭistinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Zamir quotes the initial description of Death (666-73): There he encounters the portress Sin, whom he himself had created, and Death, whom he had fathered on Sin. I shall consider four areas where this especially emerges.Īt the end of Book II, Satan undertakes his daring mission and flies to Hell Gates. But the discussion remains at a rather superficial level. Tzachi Zamir discusses a number of respects in which Paradise Lost raises difficulties for Milton's philosophical reader, and he considers how Milton either did respond to these in the poem and elsewhere in his writings, or would have responded if asked. This is a suggestive but also a very unsatisfying book. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |