Romantic Satanism
ISBN: 9780230513303
Platform/Publisher: SpringerLink / Palgrave Macmillan UK
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: unlimited; Download: unlimited
Subjects: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection;

Criticism has largely emphasised the private meaning of 'Romantic Satanism', treating it as the celebration of subjectivity through allusions to Paradise Lost that voice Satan's solitary defiance. The first full-length treatment of its subject, Romantic Satanism explores this literary phenomenon as a socially produced myth exhibiting the response of writers to their milieu. Through contextualized readings of the major works of Blake, Shelley, and Byron, this book demonstrates that Satanism enabled Romantic writers to interpret their tempestuous age: it provided them a mythic medium for articulating the hopes and fears their age aroused, for prophesying and inducing change.

PETER A. SCHOCK received his A.B. in English at California State University at Humboldt and his Ph.D at the University of Iowa. He has taught Romantic Literature at the University of New Orleans since 1989; he is now Professor. Previous publications include essays in ELH and Keats-Shelley Journal.

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