"Angelicdevilish" combinations
Milton’s Satan and Salman Rushdie’sThe Satanic Verses
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2178325 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Antje M Rauwerda |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 94-107 |
| Publication date | 2005-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17449850500063020 |
| OpenAlex | W2315536126 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
This essay explores Rushdie’s references to Milton’s Paradise Lost, and his Satan in particular. Rushdie’s implicit allusions to Milton’s fallen angel allow him to establish the closeness of angelic and devilish qualities and the solubility of the boundary between good and evil. His explicit quotations from Paradise Lost allow him to diverge from Milton: Satan’s words in the mouth of Rushdie’s Gibreel Farishta insist not on the intransigence of Satan’s evil and punishment (as they do in Paradise Lost), but rather on evil’s amorphous pervasiveness and ubiquity. Rushdie suggests that “good” and “evil” exist simultaneously in everyone. He blurs the line between them, and in so doing also begins to blur the line between British and immigrant “Other”. Milton writes a Christian, canonical and sometimes imperialist text; Rushdie provides an Islamic, postcolonial response. Milton writes to examine the ways of a Christian God; Rushdie uses Milton’s poem as an intertext in investigating the words, acts and writings of an Islamic God’s prophet
Art · Comedy · Good and evil · Islam · Literature · Mythology · Paradise · Paradise lost · Poetry · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Islamic Studies and History · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · History · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |