Lupiverse(es)

Craig Brewer · 15 Mar 2012, 18:47 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:47:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
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You're right that God the character in PL doesn't seem very Wolfean...(but note also how different "the Son" and "God" are as characters in the poem.) But I'm thinking more of Milton's weird theological writings in _Christian Doctrine_ that often got him accused of "heresy." Where it comes out in PL is more in the narratives of the creation and when Rafael describes the cosmos:

From Book 5 (quickly stolen from a random site):

O Adam, one Almightie is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,[ 470 ]
If not deprav'd from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Indu'd with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
But more refin'd, more spiritous, and pure,[ 475 ]
As neerer to him plac't or neerer tending
Each in thir several active Sphears assignd,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportiond to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves[ 480 ]
More aerie, last the bright consummate floure
Spirits odorous breathes: flours and thir fruit
Mans nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd
To vital Spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual, give both life and sense,[ 485 ]
Fansie and understanding, whence the Soule
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or Intuitive; discourse
Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, of kind the same.[ 490 ]
Wonder not then, what God for you saw good
If I refuse not, but convert, as you,
To proper substance; time may come when men
With Angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient Diet, nor too light Fare:[ 495 ]
And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to Spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wingd ascend
Ethereal, as wee, or may at choice
Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell;[ 500 ]
If ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire
Whose progenie you are. Mean while enjoy
Your fill what happiness this happie state
Can comprehend, incapable of more.[ 505 ]

________________________________
 From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
To: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>; The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> 
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)

Well, let me just say that having recently re-read Milton's Paradise Lost (my all-time favourite poem by my all-time favourite poet), I cannot imagine two more opposed doctrines of God than those evinced respectively in PL and Wolfe's Solar Cycle (particularly the Outsider): ?where Milton professes profusely that the God of his epic is good, just, fair, and perhaps above all loving - yet one finds the actual portrayal of that God to be very unconvincing in all these areas - Wolfe only rather quietly and rarely overtly claims this for the God of the Solar Cycle, yet demonstrates just such attributes very, very convincingly in the palpable pathos of (for example) the Outsider's interactions with Silk and, through Silk as a leader, his interactions with an oppressed people.

The God of the Long and Short Sun, at least, looks far too implicitly and impressively Trinitarian to be saddled with Milton's monism. ?IMHO.

-DOJP

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com> wrote:

David: >>On second glance the story seems based in some form of Platonism in which all material things strive to reunite with the Ideal.
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>I said it before, but I like to repeat myself lately. David's idea about Platonism here is almost identical to Milton's "monistic" theology. One day, I need to 
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>write up the similarities I see. Besides, it'd be fun to suggest that a Catholic writer and a violently anti-Catholic writer both had similar theologies...at least in their more imaginative writings.
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