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Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Online: 2576-0548 ISSN Print: 2576-0556 CODEN: JHASAY
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ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.04.007

A Bounded Satan vs. A Satan Unbound: a comparative study on Satanism between William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell and John Milton’s Paradise Lost

Tingting Wei

Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

*Corresponding author: Tingting Wei

Published: June 14,2023

Abstract

John Milton and William Blake are excellent poets of their time who have keen insight about humanities. Under their portrays, Satan image came alive and carries multiple connotations more than an evil incarnation. Satan, originated from Bible, is not just an allegorical figure, but also a carrier of ideology that reflects the status of the author as well as the society of the time. Milton’s Satan is an adapted Biblical Satan while Blake’s Satan is a Dionysian Satan, yet they are both the agent of free will. In this essay, the image of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Devil in William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell will be closely examined and their similarities and differences will be explored. Through probing into the characterization of the two figures of Satan, this essay will dig into the background of such differences and try to find the reasons behind.

Keywords

William Blake, John Milton, Satan image

References

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Copyright

© 2023 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper

A Bounded Satan vs. A Satan Unbound: a comparative study on Satanism between William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell and John Milton’s Paradise Lost

How to cite this paper: Tingting Wei. (2023) A Bounded Satan vs. A Satan Unbound: a comparative study on Satanism between William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell and John Milton’s Paradise LostJournal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science7(4), 672-676.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.04.007