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Criticism has largely emphasised the private meaning of 'Romantic Satanism', treating it as the celebration of subjectivity through allusions to Paradise Lost that voice Satan's solitary defiance. The first full-length treatment of its subject, Romantic Satanism explores this literary phenomenon as a socially produced myth exhibiting the response of writers to their milieu . Through contextualized readings of the major works of Blake, Shelley, and Byron, this book demonstrates that Satanism enabled Romantic writers to interpret their tempestuous age: it provided them a mythic medium for articulating the hopes and fears their age aroused, for prophesying and inducing change. Cover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 The Cultural Matrix of Romantic Satanism -- I. The death of the devil and the desacralized myth -- II. The first Jacobin: Satanic myth and political iconography -- III. The rise of Milton's Satan -- 2 Blake, the Son of Fire, and the God of this World -- I. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell -- II. America, Europe, and The Song Of Los -- III. The Book of Urizen and The Book of Ahania -- IV. The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem -- 3 Base and Aristocratic Artificers of Ruin: Plebeian Blasphemy and the Satanic School -- I. 'I annihilate God -- you destroy the Devil': Shelley and the Christian mythology -- II. 1819-21: Shelley, Byron, and the war against blasphemy -- 4 Savior and Avenger: Shelleyan Satanism and the Face of Change -- I. The Assassins, The Revolt of Islam, and the Luciferean 'better Genius' -- II. Prometheus Unbound, 'The Mask of Anarchy' and the shape of 'unimagined change' -- III. Hellas and Shelley's strategic accommodation with Christianity -- 5 Ironic Modes of Satanism in Byron and Shelley -- I. 'Julian and Maddalo' -- II. Peter Bell the Third -- III. The Vision of Judgment -- IV. The Deformed Transformed -- Epilogue The Ghost of Abel -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W.
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