The uncertain world of Samson Agonistes

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John S. Tanner

Tanner draws on the philosophic character of Milton's poetry and the poetic nature of Kierkegaard's philosophy, particularly his theory of anxiety, to enrich and enliven a bold new reading of Milton's Paradise Lost. Proposing that Milton and Kierkegaard were remarkably similar in temperament, life-experience, and ideological commitment, Tanner argues that for both Christian writers the path to sin and to salvation lies through anxiety--that both the poet and the philosopher include anxiety, along with pain, suffering, and paradox, within the compass of paradise. Both Milton's Paradise Lost and Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety explore the psychology of innocence, sin, and guilt, probing the nature of human fallibility and freedom. The first half of the work explores anxiety in Eden before the Fall. This section provides fresh perspectives on such issues as free will, the problem of a fall before the Fall, original sin, the etiology of evil, and prelapsarian knowledge. The second half examines anxiety after the Fall, offering original insights into such issues as the demonic personality, remorse, despair, and faith. Taken as a whole, Tanner's study provides a philosophically coherent new reading of Paradise Lost. Further, though intended primarily as a work of literary criticism, the book touches on matters of broad philosophical, theological, and simply human interest--such as the nature of freedom, knowledge, sin, the self, and salvation. Anxiety in Eden will be of keen interest to literary scholars, philosophers, and theologians.

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Richard W. Saunders

Like other hermeneutic objects in Proust's novel, the body has a rich but equivocal potential as a signifier, both inviting and resisting interpretation. Setting out from the original transparency of the maternal body in Combray, the hero's successive misreadings of bodies from an important part of his extended subjection to illusion. This enthrallment to error will not dissipate until the final revelations of Le Temps retrouve, where, on the threshold of discovering his artistic vocation, bodies acquire a new transparency for the hero, stripped of the myth-making power characterized their earlier status in the novel.

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Ann McCallum

Jack climbs an enormous beanstalk and encounters a very lonely boy giant, and by using ratios and proportion he makes toys that are the right size for each of them.

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David Leeming

In Mythology, David Leeming offers an unusual and effective approach to the subject of mythology by stressing universal themes through myths of many cultures. This anthology collects a wide array of narrative texts from the Bible to English literature to interpretations by Joseph Campbell, C.G. Jung, and others, which illustrate how myths serve whole societies in our universal search for meaning. Leeming illuminates the various stages or rites of passage of the universal mythic hero, from birth to childhood, through trial and quest, death, descent, rebirth, and ascension. Real figures, including Jesus and Mohammed, are included, underlining the theory that myths are psychically real and can be applied to real life. This edition is updated to include additional heroine myths, as well as Navajo, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, and African tales. Myths might be called the dreams of humankind, Leeming writes. With Mythology, he provides an essential resource not only for those wishing to advance their knowledge of this vast subject, but for anyone who wants to better understand the human psyche.