The Hero’s Journey: The Miltonian Satan of the British Epic in Opposition to the Kingian Roland of the American Fictional West
This article offers a comparative analysis of the hero’s journey paradigm through the figures of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and Stephen King’s Roland in The Dark Tower series. Drawing on myth criticism and intertextual analysis, the study examines how these two figures embody contrasting config...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad del País Vasco |
| Repositorio: | Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:addi________::1eb6587811e708aeba4c8de8d5149f7c |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10810/79613 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | hero’s journey epic literature John Milton Stephen King myth criticism American West |
| Sumario: | This article offers a comparative analysis of the hero’s journey paradigm through the figures of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and Stephen King’s Roland in The Dark Tower series. Drawing on myth criticism and intertextual analysis, the study examines how these two figures embody contrasting configurations of the epic hero within British and American literary traditions. Through close textual reading, the article argues that Milton’s Satan represents a subversive reinterpretation of the classical epic hero, characterised by rebellion, rhetorical power, and moral ambiguity, whereas King’s Roland reconfigures the heroic model within the framework of the American West, incorporating elements of individualism, decline, and existential quest. By establishing a transhistorical and transnational dialogue, the study highlights the transformation of the epic paradigm across literary periods and cultural contexts. The article contributes to literary and cultural studies by demonstrating how the hero’s journey can function as a flexible interpretive framework, capable of accommodating divergent ideological and narrative structures. In doing so, it foregrounds the persistence and adaptation of mythic archetypes in contemporary literature, situating both texts within broader debates in comparative literature and myth criticism. |
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