>Milton's effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to make it indefinite; Dante's, to make it definite. Both, indeed, describe it as entered through gates; but, within the gate, all is wild and fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers, – the last vestige of the mediaeval tradition, – but rivers which flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and by 'many a frozen, many a fiery Alp.' But Dante's Inferno is accurately separated into circles drawn with well-pointed compasses; mapped and properly surveyed in every direction, trenched in a thoroughly good style of engineering from depth to depth, and divided, in the 'accurate middle' (dritto mezzo) of its deeper abyss, into a concentric series of ten moats and embankments, like those about a castle, with bridges from each embankment to the next
Milton is indicative of the schizo-rhizomatic tendency which modernity ultimately culminates in. Dante operated within far more spheres of immunization, to borrow from Sloterdijk, and found reality something more easily ordered. The medieval mind had a place not only in the cosmos, but in the supranatural world as well. It knew its position and status, in this life and the next. But already in Milton we see the collapse of those spheres and the admittance of more mercurial forces, an ontologically primary indecisiveness which lends neither direction nor distinction. Milton's Hell declares the inevitable: obviation of all formal structures. Dante's inferno reflects a divine, formal order--Milton's already tends towards a subjective flux. Milton confined such upheaval to gehenna, but the mere encounter with such a reality even in the abstract was enough for its contagion to take hold, and obviously it would not be contained by the decaying edifice that antiquated religious narratives had attempted to quarantine it in. Dante's hell was something that had to be descended into, but Milton's is something that one is cast into. The "thrown-ness" of Heidegger finds its precursory articulation, and Milton foretells the terrain which mortal man must inevitably navigate. Hell is found hiding beneath the atoms, and with that the whole idea of solidity collapses. There are no "little bits" at the bottom of matter that we are all standing on. And as above, so below. As with the physical, so with the psychological as well. Instead of tangibility and security, instead of Dante's comedy, we discover Milton's inferno. Desolate. Deterritorialized. A miasma of irrational torment and disorder haunted by demons of every nation that only he who was previously the highest and most illumined Angel of Light can be master of. If one is to exist in modernity, one must be a Satan. Milton knew this.
Are you telling me that all of reality is just a spook?
Anthony Rodriguez
There is no question here of who did it best. Milton and Dante had wholly different motivations in their constructions. Their goal was never to describe capital-H Hell, but to invent(!) a hell for their needs. Milton's Hell is something which is journeyed out of and Dante's, into. Hence, why one is dominated by chaos and the other order. (Personally, I find Milton's treatment the better in so far as art is concerned.)
Zachary Powell
Don't post this kind of thing. She's too beautiful
Jace Cook
Milton displayed a hell designed for Satan, but Dante imagined a hell made of Satan. when we reach the bottom we see that all levels above have grown from the first prisoner.
Oliver Barnes
Damn user, I feel that your analysis may still be a bit oversimplifying, but I would very much like to know where you take it. And you write quite well on top of it. give us moar
Matthew Howard
That’s a good list. Far more relevant than Beowulf would be Spenser’s Fairie Queene. Maybe also Butler’s Hudibras and some of Milton’s other poetry and prose. Also interesting are the Renaissance catholic epics: boiardo, ariosto, camoes, and above all Tasso. Also obviously the Bible.
Jose Wright
>There is no question here of who did it best. Obviously Dante.
Isaac Baker
This. But also, just jump into the poem if that's what you want to do. If you're moved, that will provide the impetus to read Milton's influences.
Adam Rogers
Yes agreed. Paradise Lost is worth rereading a few times anyway. It’s almost better to go into it blind (as I did the first time), and then come back to it after filling in some background.
Thomas Murphy
fat tiddies are my weakness, I can feel the onset of hypofrontality in my brain
David Stewart
>I find Milton's treatment the better in so far as art is concerned.
