Pós-Modernismo
The
Matter of Metamorphosis in The Satanic Verses and Paradise
Lost: finding a way into one’s fancy.
Carolina
Romano Fabrini.
Fiction reading demands from the reader immediate responses
for what is being inferred from the text. Far from being a
simple matter of interpretation, or standing for a fixed result,
the reading process would better function as a plural term
– processes - as it allows multiple views on the same
material and also repeated readings with different outcomes.
Thus, to perform this open reading, there is the need of taking
the book as text in itself, rather than a work closed to new
perspectives upon its lines. This is how our reading stands
for a writing act, as there is always a movement which gives
room to the reader’s own experiences and the capacity
of reading against the ‘power’ of a work. Then,
the awareness of an agenda behind the text walks side by side
with the disposition of the reader to go beyond the initial
contact; the demand made then by the reader is that of some
kind of reliability, making the reading a process engaged
with some kind of truth.
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge mentions, in his Biographia Literaria (1817)
the expression that very suitably describes the kind of detachment
performed by the reader concerning fictional texts and especially
by audiences before a theatre play. The Biographia brings
Coleridge’s considerations based on his studies with
Wordsworth; the notion, intimately related to what in theatrical
terms is called scenic faith, is presented as it follows
my
endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural,
or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward
nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient
to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing ‘
suspension of disbelief’ for the moment, which
constitutes poetic faith.
And
he goes on with Wordsworth’s own opinion on the subject.
Mr.
Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as
his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every
day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural,
by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom,
and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the
world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which
in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude
we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts
that neither feel nor understand [1]
What
is then asked by the audience is not exactly a bit of reality,
but some kind of textual coherence which may guide the reader
along the thread of the narrative, working on his/her capacity
of ‘making believe’; the poetic faith is required
so that the author can reach the reader.
The
first Book in John Milton’s Paradise Lost introduces
the purpose of the text, saying “That to the heighth
of this great argument/ [He] may assert Eternal Providence/and
justify the ways of God to men” (I. 24-26). The justification
of the divine ways to man is what leads the poem in its duration,
and the imagery used by Milton is full of meaning, for it
figures as a carefully traced path leading to the major purpose
of the book. If Milton’s intention is “to justify
the ways of God to men”, how did he manage to do it?
Based
on the existence of a ‘poetic faith’, and on the
power of the Christian mythology, which unarguably supports
the poem, it is possible to see a way drawn by Milton along
the twelve books using rich imagery and religious background
to access his audience. Among the images used by Milton, and
strongly present in the poem as a way to reach his purpose,
figures the metamorphoses of Satan.
The
metamorphoses concerning the Fallen Angel in his search for
Adam and Eve draw a descending line, as he starts his intended
entry transformed into “a stripling Cherub” (III:
636) and eventually manages his way towards Eve’s thoughts
and desires in the shape of a serpent. In more than one moment
it is possible to notice how the devil ponders his condition,
feeling somehow regretful as he thinks upon his current fallen
status. By the end of the third Book in Paradise Lost, Satan
“casts to change his proper shape/ Which else might
work him danger or delay”, and finds his way to Eden:
And
now a stripling Cherub he appears/ not of the prime, yet such
as in his face/ Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb/
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feigned. (III: 636)
This
is the way Satan first enters Paradise in order to reach his
main objective, fooling angel Uriel’s own eyes, who
points down to where the couple lives.
Heading
to Eden, Satan is distracted by unexpected uneasiness, as
he realises that his devilish condition is passive of doubt.
(…)
Horror and doubt distracted his troubled thoughts, and from
the bottom stir/the Hell within him, for within him hell/he
brings (…)/Now conscience wakes despair/That slumbered,
wakes the bitter memory/Of what he was, what is, and what
must be/Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
(IV: 18-26)
Thinking
upon it, the idea of an inner hell is approached: Satan is
understood as carrying “Hell within him”(IV: 20)
in the same way he once was Lucifer, the ‘light bearer’.
Then he confirms a mea culpa:
Me miserable!
Which way shall I fly/ Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
/Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;/And in the lowest
deep a lower deep/Still threat’ning to devour me opens
wide/To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n/O then
at least relent: is there no place/Left for repentance, none
for pardon left? (IV: 73-80)
Satan’s
unexpected repentance ends up spoiling his angelic disguise,
making him choose another shape to manage his stay in the
Garden.
Drawing
his way down to the ground, Satan now seats bird-shaped on
the Tree of Life, “devising death to those who lived”
(IV: 197-98).
Thence
up he flew, and on the Tree of Life/ The middle tree and highest
that there grew/ Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life/
Thereby regained. (IV: 194)
He
observes the ‘gentle pair’ and figures out how
strongly he longed to live with them, that is, to take them
to Hell; the realization of a hell brought by himself wherever
he goes now is put side by side with the idea that the Hell
he now imagines to offer was made by the same God whose
(…)League
with you I seek/ And mutual amity so strait, so close/ That
I with you must dwell, or you with me/ Henceforth; my dwelling
haply may not please/ Like this fair Paradise, your sence,
yet such/ accept your Maker’s work; he gave it me/ which
I as freely give(…)/If no better place/ Thank him who
puts me loath to his revenge/ On you who wrong me not for
him who wronged.(IV:375-387).
The
next step taken, although described as concrete transformation,
is pretty much symbolic, as Satan stalks his ‘preys’,
Adam and Eve, in the shape of a lion and then as a tiger.
Satan is observed by the Archangel Gabriel; the same Archangel
who warns Uriel and the other angels about the intruder.
Then
from his lofty stand on that high tree/ Down he alights among
the sportful herd/ Of those four-footed kinds, himself now
one/ Now other, as their shape served best his end/ Nearer
to view his prey, and unespied/ To mark what of their state
he more might learn. (IV: 395)
Notes
[1]
http://icg.harvard.edu/~hsci278/Readings_on_Imagination/Biographia_Literaria-ch_14_(Coleridge).htm
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