{"id":43,"date":"2018-03-16T21:16:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T21:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/?page_id=43"},"modified":"2018-11-27T06:36:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T06:36:41","slug":"the-paradise-lost-library-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/about\/the-paradise-lost-library-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paradise Lost Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have often imagined that it might be possible to bring about a Milton-Society\u2026in order to perpetuate His<\/em> Ideas: but at present\u2026I can neither form nor properly digest a scheme of that kind.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Henry Fuseli, 1800<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Paradise Lost<\/em> Library<\/strong> is a virtual resource dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of British Romanticism\u2019s rich Miltonic branch.<\/p>\n

By the Romantic age, Milton had joined Shakespeare as a twin pillar of British culture, and Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em> (1667) loomed large over the creative output of the era. Yet Milton\u2019s Christian epic poem on the Fall of Man, while intended to \u201cjustify the ways of God to men,\u201d inadvertently gave rise to a sympathetic and sublime Satan, who curiously holds pride of place in the Puritan poet\u2019s magnum opus. Paradise Lost<\/em> thus became especially appealing to the counterculture\u2014to those Romantic rebels who, like Milton\u2019s Satan in his heroic struggle against what he decries as \u201cthe tyranny of Heaven,\u201d were at odds with an oppressive and seemingly unshakeable establishment.<\/p>\n

Milton, an antimonarchical revolutionary in his own right, was in the words of Romantic poet and artist William Blake \u201ca true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it\u201d (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell<\/em><\/a>, 1790\u201393). Milton\u2019s liberty-loving Romantics heirs, in their turn, quite knowingly joined the Miltonic Devil\u2019s party. (See Milton & the Romantics<\/a>.) Amidst the sociopolitical turbulence of the turn of the nineteenth century, Milton\u2019s Satan\u2014the apostate angel who aspired above his station in courageous self-assertion and, dauntlessly defiant against all odds, staked his flag on the burning marl of Hell\u2014was celebrated as the true hero of Paradise Lost<\/em> and a dynamic icon of noble resistance to despotic power, the Romantics mobilizing the Miltonic Satan as such in their own work.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon of \u201cRomantic Satanism\u201d\u2014as the most singular strand of Romanticism\u2019s cult of Milton is known<\/a>\u2014emerged organically from the collective contributions of various Romantic titans, from prose writers (Godwin, Wollstonecraft, Hazlitt) and poets (Blake, Shelley, Byron) who fashioned the fallen angel as a Promethean standard-bearer for the unfettered human spirit, to painters and illustrators (Fuseli, Barry, Lawrence, Blake) who rendered the archangelic arch-rebel as a truly magnificent figure\u2014a fallen but godlike Lucifer, clothed in the beauty and dignity of a classical hero and adorned with the splendor and grandeur of a Grecian god.<\/p>\n

As the so-called \u201cRomantic Satanists\u201d observed, it was a transformation invited\u2014or rather insisted upon\u2014by Paradise Lost<\/em> itself. \u201cAs to the Devil,\u201d noted Percy Bysshe Shelley, \u201che owes everything to Milton,\u201d as it was after all none other than Milton himself who \u201cdivested him of a sting, hoofs, and horns, clothed him with the sublime grandeur of a graceful but tremendous spirit\u2014and restored him to the society\u201d (Essay on the Devil and Devils<\/em><\/a>, ca. 1819\u201320). For the Romantics, to restore luster to the fallen Lucifer\u2019s much tarnished name and image was to follow in the footsteps of Milton\u2014in Shelley\u2019s words, \u201cthe sacred Milton\u201d (Preface to Prometheus Unbound<\/em><\/a>, 1820).<\/p>\n

The Paradise Lost<\/em> Library<\/strong> follows in the footsteps of Milton and the Romantics, taking up the torch by preserving and celebrating the history, poetry, prose, and illustrations produced by this remarkably rich, grand, and groundbreaking Miltonic-Romantic tradition. Spearheaded by some of the most prestigious figures at the heart of the cultural moment that helped shape our modern consciousness and sensibilities, this extravagant Miltonic branch of Romanticism and its irreverent, infernal reading of Paradise Lost<\/em> made for the most radical cultural challenge to the status quo in Western history. A movement so monumental merits reflection, and The Paradise Lost<\/em> Library<\/strong> serves to perpetuate its memory, highlight its influence on the cultural milieu today, and keep the Miltonic-Romantic flame kindled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have often imagined that it might be possible to bring about a Milton-Society\u2026in order to perpetuate His Ideas: but at present\u2026I can neither form nor properly digest a scheme of that kind.\u201d \u2014 Henry Fuseli, 1800   The Paradise Lost Library is a virtual resource dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of British Romanticism\u2019s… <\/p>\n

Read more The Paradise Lost Library<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-43","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43\/revisions\/748"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theparadiselostlibrary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}