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“Say First What Cause”: Ricoeur and the Etiology of Evil in Paradise Lost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

John S. Tanner
John S. Tanner*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
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Abstract

Paradise Lost traces evil through three inceptions—Satanic, Adamic, and historical. Each origin seems to envision a different etiology: Satanic evil springs exclusively from the self in an instant of radical “Pelagian” freedom. Adamic evil emerges from the ambiguous interplay between self and seductive environment. Historical evil contaminates the whole race by means of necessary “Augustinian” inheritance. Ricoeur's analysis of the “Adamic Myth” and original sin clarifies etiological traditions Milton assimilates from Christian symbol, myth, and dogma. Through Ricoeur, we can identify the contrasting modalities of evil (inherited and imitative, physical and moral, ontological and existential, necessary and free, communal and individual) fused in Paradise Lost. Ricoeur's work reveals Milton's text to be a subtly inclusive etiological myth, one whose complex genesis of evil recovers Scripture's fullness of meaning in a new mythopoesis.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 103 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 45 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1988

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