Paradise Lost and The Blazing World: Knowledge of Knowledge that is Best Left Unknown

Defined as a complete trust in people, faith prevails as an essential quality for the development of interpersonal and personal connections. Accordingly, John Brehm, author of “Sea of Faith,” illustrates a scholar experience in a freshman class. A teacher, which the reader implies as Brehm himself, becomes irritated at the lack of knowledge in his students at such a simple topic: figurative language. Disgruntled at the question he begins to examine the significance behind it. Ultimately, after self-examination, he comes to understand the young lady who posed the question that annoyed him (1000). Through the use of literary devices such as personification, tone, and comparison: the author illustrates the changing perspective and ultimate connection the teacher makes with the students as he realizes the positivity that arises from faith.

Many people would argue that knowledge is power, but can too much knowledge be dangerous? How much is too much? Throughout history, the human race has had struggles with “too much knowledge” or going to extreme lengths to gain such knowledge. Is the everlasting quest to know something really worth it? In today’s generation, there is constantly new inventions of technology and theories of science. But maybe knowledge is starting to ruin people’s life and it shouldn’t be sought after. Very similar in the novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein deals with the deadly pursuit of knowledge. He is constantly intrigued into

One’s identity may be questioned when suffering; ultimately suffering is what creates one’s sense of self or what destroys it. The poetry of John Donne and the play W;t, 1993, by Margaret Edson, both illustrate and explore a sense of suffering and identity. In John Donne’s poetry, suffering, both emotionally and physically allows the speaker to understand their identity in more depth, in comparison to Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s suffering leads her identity to be stripped away. In Donne’s sonnet, ‘If poysonous mineralls’ we are shown suffering religiously and emotionally, through one’s sin’s, questioning god’s justice, which leads to a realisation of one’s identity. In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s emotional suffering

It is presumed that journeys are uplifting experiences, with the implication that new knowledge and greater insight allow travelers to gain wisdom and solidify a coherent view of the world. Yet, experiences through journeys can result in new knowledge clashing with preconceived beliefs, potentially disabling the traveler’s epistemology. Furthermore, a traveler cannot ignore this conflicting knowledge and return to his prior self at the conclusion of his journey. These themes are explored in Robert Gray’s poems

In the books Candide, The Glass Menagerie, Their Eyes were Watching God, and My Name is Asher Lev written by Voltaire, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, and Chaim Potok, they are all discernibly different stories, yet they all appear to share the common theme of perseverance in varying degrees to find that happiness is not always awaiting them. I have found that the various symbolic language combined with each author’s different style of writing not only makes each story unique, but they also affect each reader’s perceptions.

Chapter six, … Or the Bible, of How to Read Literature Like A Professor (HTRLLAP) asserts that connect all of the dots is vital, and how a story about the loss of innocence always hit so hard because they are final. The two biggest points of this chapter, though, are how not all uses of religion are straight-forward, how some are there just to illustrate a disparity and that the names of the characters in a novel are almost always important to a writer's point and can help carry their message.

express his moment of epiphany that opened him to the world of reading: an understanding that words

[Literature] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves, and an evasion of the visible and sensible world.

Ray Bradbury is the author of 600 short stories and 27 novels, which have received ample praise and attention. Bradbury produced multiple extremely interesting themes and ideas about life and human nature. After reading a few of his books, one may start to notice a trend and certain feel to his writing. Specifically, Bradbury had the unique ability to portray his early life and experiences throughout his writing. Many have wondered whether or not Bradbury had any belief in God or the Bible because he referenced these ideas on more than one occasion in his novels. In order to determine the activity of God in Bradbury’s life, one must observe in detail his early life and

James Joyce’s short stories “Araby” and “The Dead” both depict self-discovery as being defined by moments of epiphany. Both portray characters who experience similar emotions and who, at the ends of the stories, confront similarly harsh realities of self-discovery. In each of these stories, Joyce builds up to the moment of epiphany through a careful structure of events and emotions that leads both protagonists to a redefining moment of self-discovery.

In the poems “The Wanderer” and “The Dream of the Rood,” anonymous authors give way to the idea that an Almighty God will solve every problem a person has by doing two things: 1) drawing upon the memories of a warrior who has lost everything near and dear to him due to war, and 2) entering the dream of a man who has been exiled and isolated. Each piece takes its reader through the trials and tribulations that one may not relate to in this era, yet the reader is still there alongside the character wanting them to find peace with their world and themselves. Initially, it is believed that the characters will overcome their hardships and achieve the happiness they seek. However, as the reader delves deeper into the character’s story, there is an overwhelming sense of incompleteness. What actually happens at the end of each piece is not written in stone - telling us the story is not whole - nor has a conclusion been reached. The intrapersonal thoughts being shared with the reader reveal the obstacles that keep an overall wholeness from occurring.

Paradise Lost is a story of Genesis told as it normally would be, but with a protagonist focus on Satan. The story is told largely with Satan being favorably portrayed and God having little presence other than cursing things, which convinces the audience that Satan’s view of God as a tyrant may not be too far off. Still, Satan is portrayed as the villain of the story. However, he has characteristics of a classical hero; including flaws that make the audience relate to and feel sympathy for him. By using part of the black-and-white Genesis story which paints Satan as evil and juxtaposing a narrative which paints Satan as a sympathetic hero, Milton raises a question about morality that largely define the audience’s reaction to the story:

In this essay, I will be comparing the importance of knowledge in terms of power in The Tempest and Paradise Lost. Adam and Eve are the main characters I will focus on in Paradise Lost, and the main character in The Tempest will be Prospero. During the English Renaissance, knowledge was becoming easier to obtain, and the literature became concerned with telling people about the possible unforeseen dangers of certain types of knowledge. In The Tempest and Paradise Lost, knowledge becomes more important than anything else to the main characters of each story. Also, these two literary works help reinforce the idea that the pursuit of knowledge can have devastating effects. Consequently, both stories end with Adam and Eve of Paradise Lost and Prospero of The Tempest being left to deal with the consequences of their actions.

The theme of the 'heroic' in John Milton's Paradise Lost is one that has often been the focus of critical debate, namely in the debate surrounding which character is the 'true' hero of the poem. Most critics of the subject have, however, noted that the difficultly in defining the 'hero' of Milton's work is mainly due to our “vague understanding of what constitutes heroism”1 and the fact that “the term itself is equivocal”2. The 'vague' terming of what heroism can be defined as it what draws critics to disagree with one another over the nature of heroism, as Charles Martindale points out that there are 'different models of heroic', many of which Milton employs in his epic poem. To incorporate these different 'models' of the heroic into his

In both texts, moments of rediscovery catalysed by personal encounters allow for the reassessment of initial discoveries, whereupon they are understood more profoundly.