Better to Rule in Hell: A Comparison of Satan in Paradise Lost and the Old English Genesis

Why does Satan choose to rebel against God?  While Satan is not mentioned in the Book of Genesis, he is featured prominently in its Old English counterpart.  The story of Satan’s rebellion and fall provided by Old Testament Narratives (OTL) is remarkably similar to that which appears in Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Satan conspires to reign over Heaven, he and his angelic host are overthrown, their luminous forms are twisted into…

Material Proof of the Divine

Many of the stories in Visions of Hell must be mediated through physical objects, creating a sequence of confirmations that links the vision to the physical world. Often, the stories layer different forms of validation, forming a web that supports the vision’s version of truth and strengthens the consequences of the vision. In St. Paul’s story, a man receives a vision from an angel about a hidden box in his…

It’s Cold As Hell

The conception of hell as a frozen wasteland may seem surprising to people, as the general assumed temperature of hell is to be extremely hot. This basis is in fact proven in the Bible in several sections. In Revelations, hell is described as a “lake of fire.” There is also the geographical reasoning that states since Christianity originated from the Middle East and Africa, which are considered arid tropical climates,…

Water in Andreas

Andreas gives the ocean many names: the whale-road, the formidable waterways, the menace of the water,  the salt sea-streams, the cold waters. The ocean roars, jostles, surges, and encroaches. The epithets of the ocean mirror the epithets of God. In fact, one of God’s names is “the Sentinel of the Sea.” Andreas does not treat the ocean as a mere means of transport or geographical feature. The ocean becomes a…

Ironic Heroism in Andreas

In her article on “Beowulf and Andreas,” Irina Dumitrescu highlights the irony of Andrew’s heroic depiction.[1] His valor as a courageous warrior and leader of men is praised throughout the poem to an extent that seems deliberately exaggerated, and sometimes even down right sarcastic, in light of his actions. For instance, we are introduced to Andrew as “the man of bold free-will,” whom God has decided to task with rescuing…

The Obscenity of Seeing Pain: From Susan Sontag to Christ Crowned with Thorns

The modern era has forgotten the genealogy of the view on suffering. It defines suffering as pejorative, something mistaken and ought to be avoided and condemned. The negativity of suffering is falsely taken to be universal. Rather, the negativity of suffering is a social narrative specific to our age. In Regarding the Pain of Others, in Susan Sontag’s discussion of Bataillie’s obsession with contemplating the photograph capturing a prisoner undergoing…

The Beauty in Horror

“On his way up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, he noticed the bodies of some criminals lying on the ground, with the executioner standing by them. He wanted to go and look at them, but at the same time he was disgusted and tried to turn away. He struggled for some time and covered his eyes, but at last the desire was too much for him. Opening his…

Photographs and Events

        The War Photographer reading that was done for Thursday really put the previous Sontag reading into perspective for me. Especially when Sontag mentions the quote, “The photographs are a means of making ‘real’ (or ‘more real’) matters that the privileged and the merely safe might prefer to ignore” (Sontag 7). I believe that the same applies to the Guardian reading we did for this week. So…