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
Recommended Citation
Urban, David V., "C. S. Lewis and Satan: A Preface to Paradise Lost and Its Respondents, 1942-1952" (2019). University Faculty Publications and Creative Works. 630.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/calvin_facultypubs/630