Sunday 26 November 2023

The Culmination Of A Conceptual Sequence

The conceptual sequence that I propound here from Wells and Stapledon via Lewis to Blish and Anderson culminates in Anderson's Genesis, appropriately published in 2000, the year before Anderson died.

Genesis has:

a Stapledonian cosmic timescale;

the Miltonic/Frankensteinian question whether it is right to create human life.

Lewis had written:

A Preface to Paradise Lost;

Perelandra in which God/Maleldil creates a second Adam and Eve on Venus.

Frankenstein's monster quotes Milton' Adam. This is quite a literary sequence since it traces back to the original Genesis. "Go with God," in the words of Blish's Jorn the Apostle.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would expect educated people like Mary Shelley to have read Milton's PARADISE LOST.

Truthfully, I found PL a hard struggle to read even just once. The second time I tried reading it, I gave up after four or five books. Some very readable parts, but too much of the rest was heavy and ponderous.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Only the first three or so books are regarded as any good, I think.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

"What though the day be lost?
All is not lost:
Deathless hate, and study of revenge
Courage never to submit or yield..."

-- which is one of the reasons later critics said "Milton was of Satan's party, though he didn't know it."

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

Paul: I agree!

Mr. Stirling: I agree, and that line, "Deathless hate, and study of revenge," is a good definition of fanaticism. Yes, Milton was far too sympathetic to Satan.

I far prefer Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, despite needing to read it in translations (3). Not only did I find the story of Dante's visions of the afterlife* far more readable and easier, I approved of how he did not glamorize evil.

Ad astra! Sean


*Dante insisted in his LETTER TO CAN GRANDE DELLA SCALA that his COMEDY was based on a real vision

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: Milton was an example of the contortions that the wackier versions of Calvinist Protestantism could lead to!

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I did not think of Milton like that, but it makes sense.

Ad astra! Sean