Chinese Citizen Milton

Although I was skeptical at first, I was unable to shake some of the connections between modern Chinese culture and ideas persistent in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Some of the similarities include his ideas about knowledge, heroism, power, and gender roles. Many of these topics seem contradictory when reading it from a modern American culture perspective. For example, the fact that Satan is so active and Christ is so passive seems at odds with our ideas of power. Milton has fallen under much gender role criticism because Eve seems inferior by our American standards, but after a little study I've found a few interesting things:

Paradise Lost Quotes and Ideas

I've been thinking about my final research topic, and part of that has been putting together a good number of quotes on different topics. I'm going to be sticking with my initial topic: the reader should see Milton's Satan figure not as the Biblical adversary but as a representation of one of the degrees of fallen-ness in mankind. Truly understanding the work requires that we disassociate Satan from Satan and look at him as a literary character or even as a human. I'll also be touching on Adam/God vs. Eve/Satan and what kinds of implications those associations might suggest in Milton's view of gender, etc. (though that's more of an ancillary point).

Anyway, I figured some of you might have topics that touched on some of the same ideas, so I wanted to post my quote blocks with the hope that others will find some use in them (and maybe throw some ideas back my way). This is something that I would have never done a year or two ago, but Dr. Burton is getting to me in terms of the whole collaboration mentality. There are a lot of quotes here in general, so they'll be posted under the jump break, but in any case, the topics are:

AMBITION, VANITY, REVENGE (Milton = Satan = Eve)
CAPACITY FOR PAIN, DOUBT, SORROW, FEAR
PARADISE INSIDE
COLLECTIVE FALL
MISCELLANEOUS
DESTINY / ANGER AT GOD
SATAN AND EVE
EVIL BY NATURE / REASON AS VICE
VIRTUE UNASSAYED
HUMANITY OF SATAN / STRUGGLES WITH SELF
SHAME / LIGHT