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Comparing Paradise Lost And Sedgwick's Position

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The Position Paper's final position is one of genuflection: prostrate, rump raised, ready to proffer thanks for something already received and also waiting receptively, patiently, for something else. If this deferential position is immediately recognizable as a whole-body symbol of gratitude, it is also simultaneously recognizable as an indication of one's readiness for punishment: my butt is extended as you commanded, or, I'm inviting you to inflict pain. It would be imprudent, perhaps even impudent, of the Position Paper to proceed any further without addressing the bared butt in the room: its very name, a tribute, of course, to one of literary theory's legendary masochists, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The Latin infinitive form of "tribute" is tribuere, "to give, distribute" (AHD). …show more content…

As mutually illuminating texts, Paradise Lost and "A Poem is Being Written," with their respective Eves, reveal the price paid for being a pioneer; for being daring …show more content…

As Sedgwick shares with us in the canonical "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl," the presentation of the topic of masturbation in its pre-paper iteration earned her peer approbation and flagellation in equal admensuration (109). Those of us who crave a particular kind of knowledge look to her as the bearer of a particularly mouth-watering fruit--heedless, or welcoming, of the price we might pay for biting into it. But "if such pleasure be / In things to us forbidden, it might be wished, / For this one tree had been forbidden ten" (Milton

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In 1795, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a letter addressing an acquaintance, who has stated and acted upon an offensive write off or common misconception. The letter consist of high diction, syntax, and sympathy to ensure Marys' situation is well presented, and the acquaintance is aware of the infuriated it arose. Diction is the first rhetorical device to arise in the letter to the acquaintance. “indignant...condescend...epistle”. The high diction is used to indicate to the reader that Mary is outraged and resentful about the offer presented without her consent, as if she had no say in the final decision.

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Author’s lives inspire their writing in many ways. An illustrious writer, Edgar Allan Poe, experienced continuous sufferings throughout his life. The heartaches he faced transferred into his writing. Poe’s works are dark and traumatic, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum.” He uses the unthinkable and shapes short stories out of them.

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OVERARCHING THEMES Though The Odyssey and Paradise Lost are penned during completely separate time periods–with a span of roughly nine centuries between the writing of each–the two works still share many similar themes and subject matters. Some are more vital components for the genre in general, necessary for a piece of literature to be considered an epic; others remain less conspicuous, though with just as great an impact on the overall story. Heroism and the Hero’s Journey: One of the most defining elements of an epic work is the presence of the Hero’s Journey, also known as the monomyth. Introduced by Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey describes the typical narrative pattern that accompanies many forms of storytelling, most commonly and most easily seen in classical literature.

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This creation allegory is made clear from the beginning with the epigraph from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), which begins the novel. In an attempt to further

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truly underline the entire novel and not only remain unanswered but become increasingly blurry for both the creature and his creator. Indeed, Baldick notes that as the two “refer themselves back to Paradise Lost – a guiding text with apparently fixed moral roles – they can no longer be sure whether they correspond to Adam, to God, or to Satan, or to

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Since these creators are the source of the idolization of nature, she writes to them in order to reverse their misconception. Oates realizes that their subject is not the authentic force, but rather one that was handed endless meaning by artisans. She addresses them mockingly, utilizing rhetorical questions as a way to aggravate their thought process. Including herself in the audience of authors, she toys with the image of authors and jokes that the reason they write so profusely on nature is that “...we must, we’re writers, poets, mystics (of a sort) aren’t we, precisely what else are we to do but glamorize and romanticize and generally exaggerate the significance of anything we focus the white heat of our “creativity” upon?” (Oates 226).

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Although John Milton’s Paradise Lost remains to be a celebrated piece recounting the spiritual, moral, and cosmological origin of man’s existence, the imagery that Milton places within the novel remains heavily overlooked. The imagery, although initially difficult to recognize, embodies the plight and odyssey of Satan and the general essence of the novel, as the imagery unravels the consequences of temptation that the human soul faces in the descent from heaven into the secular realms. Though various forms of imagery exist within the piece, the contrast between light and dark imagery portrays this viewpoint accurately, but its interplay and intermingling with other imagery, specifically the contrasting imagery of height and depth as well as cold and warmth, remain to be strong points

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Other than distracting readers from this horrific torture, it gave insight to the thoughts of the old man. “ I am swinging loose. The breeze lifts my smock, and plays with my naked body. I am relaxed, floating. In a women’s clothes, I cannot help but be reminded of the lustful affair that the clothes bring me”(Coetzee,118).

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