Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate

Abstract

This essay chronicles significant responses to C. S. Lewis’s A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942) that occurred from the 1960s into the twenty-first century. Important responses include those of William Empson, Stanley Fish, Stuart Curran, John Rumrich, Peter C. Herman, Michael Bryson, and Joseph Wittreich. All of these scholars challenged Lewis on various points—most commonly concerning matters of Lewis’s analysis of Milton’s Satan, his alleged oversimplification of Milton’s theologically complex epic, the supposed similarities between A Preface and Fish’s Surprised by Sin, and his assumed hegemonic prevention of new avenues of critical inquiry into Milton’s epic. This essay contends that certain of these critics have misread or misinterpreted Lewis, and it suggests that such portrayals of A Preface obfuscate the insights that it continues to offer readers of Paradise Lost.

First Page

67

Last Page

98

DOI

10.25623/conn030-urban-1

Publication Date

12-9-2021

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