Social Redemption of Undefaced Gods
Session Organizers : Lisa Marie Byrd and Christy A. Porter
University of Missouri—Columbia
Tate Hall Rm. 107
Columbia, MO 65211
scholarli@peoplepc.com

The Failure of the Divided and Unconnected Christ to Regain Paradise

Milton's character of Christ in Paradise Regained is unable to return (with or without a 'difference') to the crucial act of Adam and Eve, not because he will not participate in the later act of contrition vis-a-vis crucifixion, but because the two acts are psychologically dissimilar. Having no original connection to the socio-political transgression which Adam and Eve committed, he has neither the ability nor the necessary passion to enact redemption through his successful denial of temptation. Though both Satan and Christ wrap themselves with the social comportment, rhetorical strategies, and disguises which characterize later rakes, Satan refuses and Christ ignores the passionate humanity which typically allows rakes to be appropriated by society. Divided from his parallel in Satan and disconnected from humanity, Christ remains Other—a messiah, but not the social redeemer posited by Milton. Instead of being socially appropriated, Christ is figured as a folkloric sacrifice—unblemished but charismatically bankrupt, and unable to provide in Paradise Regained the sense of wholeness shattered in Book 9 of Paradise Lost.

Lisa Marie Byrd
University of Missouri—Columbia
scholarli@peoplepc.com

Branded Speech in Byron's Cain

Byron's Cain struggles against, but ultimately confirms, the redemptive power of the social, family, and spiritual roles which his murder of Abel initially seems to sever. His destroyed dreams of life in Paradise turn into questions about God, truth, justice, and the nature of power which culminate in verbal warfare with an unanswering God and Abel’s murder. Cain’s new titles—murderer and outcast—lead him to redefine and re-affirm the social structures of his life. While his branded aspect and violent acts visually separate him from family and humanity, his conversations with his wife Adah reestablish his self-definitions as brother, father, husband, and son. He is both in rebellion against and required to remain part of society, just as the rakes also both challenge and define social structures. The "terror and pity" his story excites links him to humanity, and his brand of speech marks him as part of the human community in a way God's mark cannot deface.

Christy A. Porter
University of Missouri—Columbia
c.porter@gte.net

A Defense of Rakishness

What happens if the rake is right?  I.e., his (or her) "devilish" stance is the only one proper, an act of continuing, and very necessary, defiance of oppressive social (and political) mores.  In this case, wouldn't "wickedness" itself become any act of resistance—at least when viewed through the eyes of the offended society?  In this circumstance as well, wouldn't the final reintegration or appropriation of the offending rake back into society mark a defeat for the forces of reform and progress?   My thesis examines the rake in Romantic poetry, particularly as embodied in the work of Blake, Byron, and Keats. Characters such as Orc, Satan, Don Juan, Manfred, Porphyro and Madeline all possess, to differing extents, ostensibly rakish qualities; alternately, they can be seen as loose, disorderly, and/or vicious, addicted to lewdness and other scandalous vices. Yet they also help define the Romantic quest itself, transcending through the sheer force of their imaginative wills the mores of the time.  Their very defiance, their resistance of reintegration to the very end, both attracts and 'heals' us, testing—and thereby expanding—the boundaries of the morally and physically possible.  

Bern Mulvey
Idaho State University
bernmulvey@yahoo.com