[Milton-L] Re: Satan's rhetoric

[Carol Barton]

I think the wordings Sara and I have given reflect different aspects of the
same duality, Carl. But as to your question, "How does God's motivation
(7.712 ff) to have himself a good laugh at man's expense read across that
duality?"--it doesn't. God is not laughing at Man's (humankind's) attempt to
learn and understand what is proper and right and useful for them to know:
he's laughing at scholars who sit around trying to "calculate the Starrs,"
which even D'Expury's Little Prince understood was sophistry . . . likewise
scholarly attempts to calculate the number of angels who can dance on the
head of a pin, or to pursue . . .

almost any of the topics listed for conference panels in the forthcoming
MLA.

Saucy best to all,

Carol Barton