Abstract
Milton’s Satan and Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep share two metaphysical propensities concerning the duality and subterfuge of evil. For Milton, the devil is both a regal principality who insists upon his own inherent dignity, as seen in Paradise Lost, as well as a seething chaos monster, the Beast of the Apocalypse. In this respect, Lovecraft takes his cue from Milton with Nyarlathotep, the most Miltonic of Lovecraft’s pantheon of maniacal gods from Azathoth to Cthulhu. By looking closely at Milton’s two epics, as well as Lovecraft’s three most Luciferean tales, this chapter traces the parallel course of development of both these diabolical forces and explores Milton’s and Lovecraft’s complementary understanding of the Medieval and Renaissance devil—horror conjoined with seduction.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Blackwood, Algernon. The Willows. Classic Horror Stories. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2015.
Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Complete Writings. London: Oxford, 1972.
Bradbury, Ray. Something Wicked This Way Comes. New York: Avon, Reprint ed. 2006.
Douay-Rheims. The Holy Bible. New Hampshire: Loreto, 2004.
Forsyth, Neil. The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. New Jersey: Princeton, 1989.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” Tales and Sketches. New York: Library of America, 1982.
Joshi, S.T. Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue. New York: Hippocampus, 2002.
King, Stephen. Needful Things: The Last Castle Rock Story. New York: Viking, 1991.
Lovecraft, H.P. “Fungi from Yuggoth: ‘Nyarlathotep.’” The Ancient Track. New York: Hippocampus, 2013.
---. The Complete Fiction. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2008.
---. Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
Maddox, Brenda. Yeats’ Ghost: The Secret Life of W.B. Yeats. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
McMahon, Robert. The Two Poets of Paradise Lost. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed, Merritt Hughes. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1957.
O’Connor, Flannery. The Violent Bear It Away. Collected Works. New York: Library of America, 1988.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. New York: Penguin, 1978.
Vergil. The Aeneid. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1983.
Yeats, William Butler. “The Second Coming.” The Poems. New York: Macmillan, 1983.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ricciardi, M. (2017). “He Haunts One for Hours Afterwards”: Demonic Dissonance in Milton’s Satan and Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep. In: Thuswaldner, G., Russ, D. (eds) The Hermeneutics of Hell. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52198-5_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52198-5_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52197-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52198-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)