Skepticism and Poetry in Milton's Infernal Conclave

Abstract

This essay challenges Stanley Fish's influential reading of the conclave in hell. While Fish's devils are mere rhetoricians, the essay argues that the devils' speeches eloquently express Milton's wrestling with questions of being. Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Moloch and Belial ask fundamental questions about being and nothingness. A believing Christian, Milton can express these questions only by putting them into the mouths of devils. Their speeches reveal aporiae that call into question the ontological perspective Milton develops in Christian Doctrine. Mammon's speech responds to this impasse by rejecting speculative reason—in the manner of Enlightenment thought. What remains unshaken is the poetry of book 2.

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