John Milton was blind by the time he wrote “Paradise Lost” in 1667. Throughout the text, he occasionally calls out to a “Heav’nly Muse” to inspire him to tell the story of human sin, as he does at the beginning of the book. He opens Book VII with a call to the Heavenly Muse who…

Evil things are frightening to many of us unless we are experiencing them from a distance. Sometimes it can be difficult to have the confidence to turn toward and confront evil. How might we truly identify evil and confront it with confidence? Deceptive Satan Inspires Discord In the last article of this series, we followed…

We continue to follow Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Gustav Doré’s accompanying illustrations. In the last part of our series, Milton’s Satan came upon God’s creation: two human beings, Adam and Eve, enjoying the fruits of paradise. The archangel Uriel, who unwittingly pointed out Earth to a disguised Satan, hurries to the archangel Gabriel to warn…

Our series “Illustrious Ideas and Illustrations: The Imagery of Gustav Doré” has shown the evil ways of Satan as he has vowed to take revenge on God. We’ve seen in our last article, that after having a difficult internal struggle in which he determinedly decides to continue defying God, Satan comes upon the paradise of…

Throughout our series “Illustrious ideas and illustrations: The imagery of Gustav Doré,” we’ve had the opportunity to take a deep look at how Milton saw Satan. Satan, the father of Sin and Death, has been shown as synonymous with pride, vanity, deception, and revenge.  There’s still more to understand about Milton’s conception of Satan. Continuing…

In the last part of our extensive series “Illustrious Ideas and Illustrations: The Imagery of Gustav Doré,” we saw Satan confront his children, Sin and Death, at the gates of Hell as told by John Milton in his epic poem “Paradise Lost.” Sin and Death agree to let Satan pass out of the gates of…