Giles Whiteley
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474426138
- eISBN:
- 9781474438681
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474426138.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This article examines in detail a number of unattributed quotations taken from the journals of 1907, signed ‘O.W.’, ‘A Woman’ and ‘A.W.’. I call into question the critical heritage on these ...
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This article examines in detail a number of unattributed quotations taken from the journals of 1907, signed ‘O.W.’, ‘A Woman’ and ‘A.W.’. I call into question the critical heritage on these signatures, which has taken them to refer to Oscar Wilde and to Mansfield herself, an error traced to the early work of John Middleton Murry. This article instead establishes Mansfield’s hitherto unknown source as the novel The Tree of Knowledge, by an anonymous author, and offers a close reading of the Mansfield’s use of the novel in these pages. The article concludes by speculating as to the author, and as to how Mansfield came to read the text.Less
This article examines in detail a number of unattributed quotations taken from the journals of 1907, signed ‘O.W.’, ‘A Woman’ and ‘A.W.’. I call into question the critical heritage on these signatures, which has taken them to refer to Oscar Wilde and to Mansfield herself, an error traced to the early work of John Middleton Murry. This article instead establishes Mansfield’s hitherto unknown source as the novel The Tree of Knowledge, by an anonymous author, and offers a close reading of the Mansfield’s use of the novel in these pages. The article concludes by speculating as to the author, and as to how Mansfield came to read the text.
The late A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184621
- eISBN:
- 9780191674327
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184621.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, Drama
The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion ...
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The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion is inconceivable before the rise of Romanticism but the Ophite Gnostics of the 2nd century AD appear to have thought that God the Father was a jealous tyrant because he forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and that the serpent, who led the way to the Tree of Knowledge, was really Christ. This book explores the possibility of an underground ‘perennial heresy’, linking the Ophites to Blake. The ‘alternative Trinity’ is intermittently visible in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and even in Milton's Paradise Lost. Blake's notorious detection of a pro-Satan anti-poem, latent in this ‘theologically patriarchal’ epic is less capricious, better grounded historically and philosophically, than is commonly realised.Less
The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion is inconceivable before the rise of Romanticism but the Ophite Gnostics of the 2nd century AD appear to have thought that God the Father was a jealous tyrant because he forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and that the serpent, who led the way to the Tree of Knowledge, was really Christ. This book explores the possibility of an underground ‘perennial heresy’, linking the Ophites to Blake. The ‘alternative Trinity’ is intermittently visible in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and even in Milton's Paradise Lost. Blake's notorious detection of a pro-Satan anti-poem, latent in this ‘theologically patriarchal’ epic is less capricious, better grounded historically and philosophically, than is commonly realised.
Russell M. Hillier
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199591886
- eISBN:
- 9780191725326
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199591886.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter offers a suggested cause for Milton's representation of the Fall in Book Nine of Paradise Lost as Eve and Adam's transgression of the law of charity, that is, their violation of the love ...
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This chapter offers a suggested cause for Milton's representation of the Fall in Book Nine of Paradise Lost as Eve and Adam's transgression of the law of charity, that is, their violation of the love of God, self, and neighbour. The law of charity, as it is expounded in De Doctrina Christiana, comprises the essence of the divine prohibition not to eat from the Forbidden Tree, constitutes the kernel of the Ten Commandments and the heart of gospel teaching, and forms the basis for Milton's conception of natural law. Milton's drama of the Fall, as well as detailing the fallen couple's violation of the law of charity, anticipates and announces the good communicated, namely the restoration of humanity through the Son, Milton's ‘one greater Man’, through a poetic web of intertextual reference, cross-reference, irony, and scriptural allusion.Less
This chapter offers a suggested cause for Milton's representation of the Fall in Book Nine of Paradise Lost as Eve and Adam's transgression of the law of charity, that is, their violation of the love of God, self, and neighbour. The law of charity, as it is expounded in De Doctrina Christiana, comprises the essence of the divine prohibition not to eat from the Forbidden Tree, constitutes the kernel of the Ten Commandments and the heart of gospel teaching, and forms the basis for Milton's conception of natural law. Milton's drama of the Fall, as well as detailing the fallen couple's violation of the law of charity, anticipates and announces the good communicated, namely the restoration of humanity through the Son, Milton's ‘one greater Man’, through a poetic web of intertextual reference, cross-reference, irony, and scriptural allusion.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226590073
- eISBN:
- 9780226590097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226590097.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author and Ludovico Foscarini, a Venetian governor, debated the question in 1451 of whether Adam or Eve had committed the greater sin when they ate of the Tree ...
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Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author and Ludovico Foscarini, a Venetian governor, debated the question in 1451 of whether Adam or Eve had committed the greater sin when they ate of the Tree of Knowledge and were expelled from Paradise. Quoting Aristotle, Foscarini argues first that ignorance is no excuse and second that pride was the cause of Eve's sin. Nogarola argues throughout that the female is by nature more fragile, more inconstant, and more ignorant than the male and that therefore she is not responsible for her actions. Two arguments point to Nogarola's final authorship. The first rests on an analysis of the arguments presented—Nogarola is the driving force, it is she who repeatedly raises new perspectives to challenge very old perceptions. The second rests on Foscarini's words to invite Nogarola to compose a polished literary work based on the views the two had exchanged.Less
Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author and Ludovico Foscarini, a Venetian governor, debated the question in 1451 of whether Adam or Eve had committed the greater sin when they ate of the Tree of Knowledge and were expelled from Paradise. Quoting Aristotle, Foscarini argues first that ignorance is no excuse and second that pride was the cause of Eve's sin. Nogarola argues throughout that the female is by nature more fragile, more inconstant, and more ignorant than the male and that therefore she is not responsible for her actions. Two arguments point to Nogarola's final authorship. The first rests on an analysis of the arguments presented—Nogarola is the driving force, it is she who repeatedly raises new perspectives to challenge very old perceptions. The second rests on Foscarini's words to invite Nogarola to compose a polished literary work based on the views the two had exchanged.
