Constructing Truth, the Self, and the Origin: Reading Milton's Areopagitica After Derrida

Abstract

<p>This thesis attempts to perform a deconstructive reading of Milton's<br />A reopagitica , and at the same time, to use the similarities and dissimilarities that<br />Milton's tract has with Derrida' s work in order to explore some fundamental<br />questions about Derrida's relationship with metaphysics, especially the metaphysical<br />or theological idea of origin. These questions are often approached through the<br />focus of the subject, or as Milton sees it, the individual, and his/her relationship to<br />and knowledge of God functioning as the ground for truth. The elusiveness,<br />instability, and fragmentation of truth as Milton describes it in Areopagitica, as well<br />as the unusual excesses in his figures and his logic, provoke a reading of the<br />pamphlet that views these instabilities and excesses as the signs of the radical and<br />originary "play" Derrida terms differance. However, Milton's continual attempt to<br />recuperate and make stable these dangerous marks of differance by grounding them<br />in both the self-presence of the individual and in the infinite presence of God leads<br />to the question of their origin. Perhaps the fundamental question which my thesis<br />examines is how Milton and Derrida construct interpretations, metaphysical and<br />deconstructive, for what Milton calls a fallen world and Derrida names writing, and<br />the fascinating way in which these interpretations are linked.</p>