김선형 -- 사탄의 독백과 지옥의 내면화:  ｢낙원상실｣의 정치성에 대한 소고


Sunhyung Kim, “Hell within him”: A Commentary on the Politics of Paradise Lost

Abstract 

This paper is a close analysis of Satan’s famous monologue at the beginning of Paradise Lost, Book 4, as an inscription of the poem’s poetics interlocking with its politics. The first part of this paper locates the allegorical poetics of Paradise Lost in a political context and demonstrates that the concept of “paradise within,” reputed to be a token of Milton’s newly-adopted escapism, is actually the locus of his ongoing political engagement in Paradise Lost. The second part re-examines Milton’s complex idea of “representation” in this light in order to repudiate the argument of some critics that Milton’s poetics inadvertently subverts his official purpose of the poem, thus failing his politics. Central to both arguments is the passage describing Satan’s inner conflict in Book 4. The way Hell as a geographical locus gradually re-establishes itself in Satan’s mind as a set of psychological topoi illustrates how to read the “paradise within.” Hell inside Satan is a reverse image of the perfectly ordered inside of Jesus, indeed a paradise within celebrated in Paradise Regained. These complex loci are depicted in obvious political terms, warranting a highly politicized reading of the prophesy of “paradise within” and Paradise Lost itself.


Key words
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Satan’s monologue, paradise within, allegory, politics and poetics, representation