John Milton's Paradise lost in Germany : reception and German-language criticism

This survey focuses on German-language studies of John Milton's Paradise Lost, based on a bibliography of more than 140 German-language publications dating from 1651 to the present. Its purpose is to describe and evaluate these studies and to make their arguments accessible to readers who have difficulties locating, obtaining, and/or reading these texts.Chapters 1-4 give an account of Milton's reception in Germany and Switzerland. Topics discussed include the evaluation of Milton as poet and man, the influence of Milton's Paradise Lost on the development of German literature (Klopstock's Messias), early Milton studies, German translations of Milton's Paradise Lost, the teaching of Milton's works in Germany, and the evaluation of the poem for the present generation. Chapters 5 to 10 survey twentieth-century German-language criticism of Paradise Lost. Topics include the literary tradition; the drama plans; structure and style; cosmology and theology; and interpretations of the fall.Outstanding twentieth-century German studies include Hiibener's analysis of stylistic tension (1913); Bastian's analysis of the problem of temptation (1930); Wickert's examination of Milton's drama plans (1955); Grun's interpretation of the fall (1956); MoritzSiebeck's structural and aesthetic justification of the last two books of Paradise Lost (1963); Spevack-Husmann's examination of the relevance of the medieval tradition of allegorical and typological myth interpretation for Milton's mythological comparisons (1963); Markus's study of the parenthesis as rhetorical means of psychological influence (1965); Hagenbuchle's analysis of the fall(1969); Maier's examination of contrast and parallel as structural elements (1974); Slogsnat's exploration of the dramatical structure and tragic nature (1978); Schrey's account of Milton's reception in Germany (1980); and Klein's study of astronomy and anthropocentric in Milton's attitude towards science (1986). These studies deserve to be better known by the English-speaking scholarly community for their different points of view and their good understanding of Milton's art.Milton's Paradise Lost is still appreciated in Germany and continues to have many readers.Department of EnglishThesis (Ph. D.