Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate

Abstract

This essay discusses C. S. Lewis’s influential and controversial chapter, within A Preface to “Paradise Lost” (1942), on Milton’s Satan. Lewis’s chapter presents itself as a response to what Lewis sees as the dominant Romantic understanding of Milton’s Satan, but Lewis oversimplifies the critical landscape both by misrepresenting Shelley’s discussion of Satan and by failing to acknowledge various post-Shelley challenges to Milton’s Satan that had appeared before Lewis’s book. Lewis’s chapter elicited various sustained critical responses in the ensuing decade. This essay analyzes those responses—most of which seek to refute Lewis’s presentation of Satan by reasserting a Romantic understanding of Satan, although one Lewis sympathizer actually sees similarities between Lewis and Shelley. Various critics object to Lewis’s mockery of Satan, which is perceived as unfair or even unchristian. The essay addresses Lewis’s neglect of Coleridge’s criticism of Satan, which resembles Lewis’s own, as well as the environment in which A Preface was written.

First Page

192

Last Page

234

DOI

10.25623/conn028-urban-1

Publication Date

2019

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