Last week I began my British lit class with my usual a-hem followed by the words, "I worship Satan."
My students know well enough by now when I'm being fantastical in an attempt to capture their attention, so only a few flinched. Still, from those few, daggers. We live in a Christian Nation, despite Sean Hannity's cries of the contrary, that we liberals are murdering Jesus (again!) and now Christmas.
We're reading Paradise Lost in British lit, and because the poem is so big and complicated and contains much of our world (both Christian and otherwise), I thought I might start with my personal connection to it. And that is my absolute adoration of the Satan character.
Critics love him too, ask my students (by way of Sparknotes). He is Interesting, and Complex. Ambivalent Concerning His Fall.
The past two fall semesters I've struggled teaching early British literature because, you probably know this already, it isn't my thing. I study modern American and world literature, particularly autobiography/memoir, more particularly the memoir of the disenfranchised (sorry, white men--I still love you). What occurred in Britain 200+ years ago doesn't get me going. Every Tuesday and Thursday of this fall semester at 5 p.m. with an encore at 6:30, I'm forced to fake it.
But Milton is different, because of his Satan. I'm genuinely in love with him. This is what I meant by "worship." His reactions to his plight are some of the buggiest I've seen in literature. Really. In his opening speech to his new dark hell he takes comfort in the fact that he proved something in the big fight he just lost. I mean, who would've ever known God was so powerful if it weren't for me, my challenge, my enormous defeat? There's an upside to this, after all!
And throughout that first book he revs up his fallen troops in the buggiest ways, suggesting maybe they could make something cool out of this infernal place, and that all is not lost. But the part I love most is that, even though he's grieving--I mean, he's in hell, and according to Milton that's even more painful than we imagine it to be--he's still grateful to have his mind. His wits will get him through, he tells himself, and even though we know he only delights in destruction there's something beautiful about the focus on the intellect. It's why he goes to Earth to check out Adam and Eve. Yes, he wants to bring them and their progeny down, but he's also intensely curious. Who are these people? What are they like? What might I do to learn and touch and conquer? Though he's quite fucked, he knows he'll figure things out.
It's optimism in the face of eternal damnation for which there is no escape. It's buggy.
Firstly, I can't believe we wrote about similar topics again, though my blog is about me being ambivalent towards religion.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I love your take on Paradise Lost. I have never really liked the work, but I now want to read it again.
I'll write a more detailed response later, because I'm watching the Yankees and Angels.
I love "Every Tuesday and Thursday . . . I'm forced to fake it." So true when I was teaching, sometimes even the stuff I really loved, because I could tell my students didn't love it, too. I hoped my affected ebullience would rub off on them. Sometimes it worked, but mostly it didn't. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has gone through this in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI seem to gravitate towards your final paragraphs. There's always so much going on in your concluding thoughts. In this case, I love how you put yourself in Satan's shoes and start asking questions. That's the kind of imaginative activity that I often forget to practice myself. I'm grateful that by reading your thoughts I can remember what really gets me jazzed about reading and about writing and wanting to write.
Lastly, this entry is making me rethink what it means to be buggy. I thought I understood, but now I'm not sure. I daresay buginess is taking on a life of its own . . .