"Ad Ferrum ... Ab Auro": Degenerative and Regenerative Patterning in the Final Books of Paradise Lost

Green, Mandy

Abstract

In the final books of Paradise Lost Milton exploits the rhetorical possibilities of typology to organize his survey of human history and propel his narrative forward through time to eternity. This typological framework may prove to extend further than previously recognized once the prefigurative value attached to Deucalion and Pyrrha, from the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, is fully acknowledged. Milton's pivotal positioning of this Ovidian myth, in the opening lines of Book XI, looks backwards as well as forwards: it gathers Adam and Eve into the same pattern of typological fulfilment—moving from death to new life, from destruction to recreation—in which the faithful few are set against the faithless herd.

Citation

Green, M. (2007). "Ad Ferrum ... Ab Auro": Degenerative and Regenerative Patterning in the Final Books of Paradise Lost. Modern Language Review, 102(3), 654-671. https://doi.org/10.2307/20467426

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: May 30, 2008
• Publicly Available Date: May 30, 2008
• Journal: Modern Language Review
• Print ISSN: 0026-7937
• Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 102
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 654-671
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/20467426
• Keywords: Paradise Lost, Milton, Typology, Deucalion, Pyrrha, Ovid, Metamorphoses, Adam, Eve.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1551904
• Publisher URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mhra/mlr/2007/00000102/00000003/art00003