Milton's Paridise Lost may be the paradigmatic exposition of felix culpa. After being cast out of Eden an angel announces that the banished couple may find: "A paradise within thee, happier far." This work brings up the question of genre in a poignant way. In the Romantic era, critics saw Satan as a heroic figure within the piece--even so much that Blake wrote that "Milton was a true poet and part of the Devil's party without knowing it" (Wiki).
Par. Lost may have been classified by Frye as being High Mimetic and a classic form of Tradgedy (Man--the protagonist seperated from Eden, the ideal society). However, Satan, as the anti-hero is seperated from the celestial kingdom--a higher realm--only to fight back with great vivacity. The high mimetic can be seen in Adam's Felix Culpa as ultimately comic; Frye terms this Apollonian; The deeper tradgedy of Satan, on the Mythic level, is termed Dionysiac.
Milton's Satan is in the catagory of the demonic, but is given the oratory skills of the heroic. Ultimately, the opsis of his apocalyptic battle is heroic. Dante's Satan is much more in the realm of Hillman's Underworld, where blackness, diarrhea, mastication, reversal and bodily perversion reign. The opsis is much richer and blacker.
Although reading Hillman sometimes worries me, I enjoy his perspective: that the soul is enriched by the world of dreams and darkness. The concept of felix culpa would be one that he is inherently uncomfortable with---perhaps his response would be: "What fall; our perceptual problem is in the belief of the necessary rise." This corresponds with a quote I found of his on the false perception of death--the belief that death is something to be physically overcome (Christianism and Materialism)
“Our emphasis upon physical death corresponds with our emphasis on the physical body, not the subtle one; on on physical life, not psychic life; on the literal and not the metaphorical. /For us pollution and decomposition and cancer have become physical only….The death we speak of in our culture is a fantasy of the ego, and we take our dreams in this same manner” (64).
What is the Fantasy? Is it Hillman's Dream world, where there can truly be no tragedy, or is it the assumption of the necessity of rising, back into the world of comedy? What is the impetus of soul making? (A term often utilized for human suffering as necessity--for building the moral depth of the soul--a defense for theodicy)
Par. Lost may have been classified by Frye as being High Mimetic and a classic form of Tradgedy (Man--the protagonist seperated from Eden, the ideal society). However, Satan, as the anti-hero is seperated from the celestial kingdom--a higher realm--only to fight back with great vivacity. The high mimetic can be seen in Adam's Felix Culpa as ultimately comic; Frye terms this Apollonian; The deeper tradgedy of Satan, on the Mythic level, is termed Dionysiac.
Milton's Satan is in the catagory of the demonic, but is given the oratory skills of the heroic. Ultimately, the opsis of his apocalyptic battle is heroic. Dante's Satan is much more in the realm of Hillman's Underworld, where blackness, diarrhea, mastication, reversal and bodily perversion reign. The opsis is much richer and blacker.
Although reading Hillman sometimes worries me, I enjoy his perspective: that the soul is enriched by the world of dreams and darkness. The concept of felix culpa would be one that he is inherently uncomfortable with---perhaps his response would be: "What fall; our perceptual problem is in the belief of the necessary rise." This corresponds with a quote I found of his on the false perception of death--the belief that death is something to be physically overcome (Christianism and Materialism)
“Our emphasis upon physical death corresponds with our emphasis on the physical body, not the subtle one; on on physical life, not psychic life; on the literal and not the metaphorical. /For us pollution and decomposition and cancer have become physical only….The death we speak of in our culture is a fantasy of the ego, and we take our dreams in this same manner” (64).
What is the Fantasy? Is it Hillman's Dream world, where there can truly be no tragedy, or is it the assumption of the necessity of rising, back into the world of comedy? What is the impetus of soul making? (A term often utilized for human suffering as necessity--for building the moral depth of the soul--a defense for theodicy)
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