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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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