VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 12 ]


[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 05:51:30 04/25/08 Fri
Author: Janelle
Subject: Re: Contagion in Paradise Lost
In reply to: Janelle 's message, "Paradise Lost" on 06:34:14 04/23/08 Wed

In Book 5 of Paradise Lost I noticed that Milton uses one of our favorite terms: contagion. Raphael recounts how Abdiel withstood Satan's attempts to recruit all the angels in joining his rebellion and notes that Abdiel says "I see thy fall / Determined, and thy hapless crew involved / In this perfidious fraud, contagion spread / Both of thy crime and punishment" (lines 878-881).

A little further on Raphael describes Abdiel:
"faithful found, / Among the faithless, faithful only he; / Among innumerable false, unmoved, / Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified / His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; / Nor number, nor example with him wrought / To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind / Though single. (896-903)"

I thought this was a great passage all around, not only does Abdiel sum up the situation perfectly, he also refrains from it, resisting the temptation that has moved all the others to imitate one another and join in this mob. It's just great to see a character resist the contagion, especially when so many we've studied this semester have fallen victim to it.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]


Replies:



Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]


Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.