Satan from Paradise Lost (1866)

By Gustave Doré

The first thing the reader needs to know about Paradise Lost is what Milton meant it to be. This need is specially urgent in the present age because the kind of poem Milton meant to write is unfamiliar to many readers. He is writing epic poetry which is a species of narrative poetry, and neither the species nor the genus is very well understood at present.

(From A Preface to Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis)

Paradise Lost at the Morgan Library

Some features of epic poetry:

• an opening invocation to the muse or God
• an epic hero who possesses a serious character flaw or physical weakness and must overcome several trials and tribulations
• a moral or cultural lesson to be learned
• it begins in medias res
• it contains long lists and long speeches
• it involves relationships between humans and supernatural or divine creatures
• it takes place in multiple locations, occurrences in several episodes, and may include long formal speeches by the main characters
• it deals with important historical, religious or legendary events that relate to the development or identity of the nation

Some specific features of Milton’s epic:

• it opens with the purpose to “justify the ways of God to men”
• it begins in medias res with Satan and fellow rebels residing in Hell after their Fall
• it contains long catalogues, such as when Satan recounts the war in great detail
• it includes several locations, such as Hell, Heaven, and Eden
• it recounts several events over the course of its twelve books
• characters make long-winded rhetorical arguments, such as when Satan and other primary devils recount the Angelic War and debate how to destroy mankind

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1889)

by John Singer Sargent

Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Act 5, sc. 5)

MACBETH:

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Orson Welles

Ian McKellen

Patrick Stewart

Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)

by Salvador Dalí

Literary character before Shakespeare is relatively unchanging; women and men are represented as aging and dying, but not as changing because their relationship to themselves, rather than to the gods or God, has changed. In Shakespeare, characters develop rather than unfold, and they develop because they reconceive themselves. Sometimes this comes about because they overhear themselves talking, whether to themselves or to others. Self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation, and no other writer, before or since Shakespeare, has accomplished so well the virtual miracle of creating utterly different yet self-consistent voices for his more than one hundred major characters and many hundreds of highly distinctive minor personages. (xix)

From Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

The Ancient Greek Theatre

Skene is the building that functions as background to the stage.

Parodos is the side entrance for the actors and chorus; it is also the name of the first song the chorus sings as they come on stage.

Orchestra is the center spot where the chorus stands.

Theatron is where the audience sits.

FROM ARISTOTLE’S POETICS:

For tragedy is not an imitation of men but of actions and of life … it is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have. Thus, what happens—that is, the plot—is the end for which a tragedy exists, and the end or purpose is the most important thing of all.

Thus, Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear [what we call] the catharsis of such emotions. By “embellished language” I mean language having rhythm and melody, and by “separately in different parts” I mean that some parts of a play are carried on solely in metrical speech while others again are sung.

Oedipus the King in film

IMPORTANT TERMS RELATED TO GREEK TRAGEDY

Tragic irony is the incongruity (disharmony) created when the (tragic) significance of a character’s speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned. For example when Oedipus vows to find the murderer and curses him for the plague that he has caused, not knowing that he himself is the murderer.

Peripeteia (Reversal) is a change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite. For example when the Messenger comes to relieve Oedipus’s fear with regard to his mother and it has the opposite effect because he reveals his true identity.

Anagnorisis (Recognition) is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to hostility on the part of those persons who are marked for good or bad fortune.

Hamartia is a mistake or error of judgment, sometimes translated as “tragic flaw” – for Aristotle, it is not a moral defect.

Katharsis is the process of releasing repressed emotions, and is an uplifting of the spectators “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.”

THE DELPHIC ORACLE

Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier

Video of Delphic Oracle on YouTube

Harry Clarke (1919)

While the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation.