Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost, 2nd ed.
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Excerpt
"In 1967 the world of Milton studies was divided into two armed camps: one proclaiming (in the tradition of Blake and Shelley) that Milton was of the devil's party with or without knowing it, the other proclaiming (in the tradition of Addison and C. S. Lewis) that the poet's sympathies are obviously with God and the angels loyal to him. The achievement of Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin was to reconcile the two camps by subsuming their claims in a single overarching thesis: Paradise Lost is a poem about how its readers came to be the way they are - that is, fallen - and the poem's lesson is proven on a reader's impulse every time he or she finds a devilish action attractive or a godly action dismaying. Fish's argument reshaped the face of Milton studies; thirty years later the issues raised in Surprised by Sin continue to set the agenda and drive debate."--BOOK JACKET.
Description
lxxiii, 361 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
067485747X
Publication Date
1998
Publisher
Harvard University Press
City
Cambridge, MA
Keywords
John Milton, 1608-1674, Paradise Lost, Sin in literature, Reader response criticism, Fall of man in literature, Epic poetry, English, History and criticism, Christianity and literature, 17th century
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature
Recommended Citation
Fish, Stanley, "Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost, 2nd ed." (1998). Faculty Books. 37.
https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty_books/37
Comments
With a New Preface by the Author, Second Edition. Includes bibliographical references and indexes