Cain is a dramatic work by Lord Byron published in 1821. In Cain, Byron dramatizes the story of Cain and Abel from Cain's point of view. Cain is an example of the literary genre known as closet drama.
Cain is a dramatic work by Lord Byron published in 1821. In Cain, Byron dramatizes the story of Cain and Abel from Cain's point of view. Cain is an example of the literary genre known as closet drama.
The play commences with Cain refusing to participate in his family's prayer of thanksgiving to God. Cain tells his father he has nothing to thank God for because he is fated to die. As Cain explains in an early soliloquy, he regards his mortality as an unjust punishment for Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden, an event detailed in the Book of Genesis. Cain's anxiety over his mortality is heightened by the fact that he does not know what death is. At one point in Act I, he recalls keeping watch at night for the arrival of death, which he imagines to be an anthropomorphic entity. The character who supplies Cain with knowledge of death is Lucifer. In Act II, Lucifer leads Cain on a voyage to the "Abyss of Space" and shows him a catastrophic vision of the Earth's natural history, complete with spirits of extinct life forms like the mammoth. Cain returns to Earth in Act III, depressed by this vision of universal death. At the climax of the play, Cain murders Abel. The play concludes with Cain's banishment.
Perhaps the most important literary influence on Cain was John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost , which tells of the creation and fall of mankind. For Byron as for many Romantic poets, the hero of Paradise Lost was Satan, and Cain is modelled in part on Milton's defiant protagonist. Furthermore, Cain's vision of the Earth's natural history in Act II is a parody of Adam's consolatory vision of the history of man (culminating in the coming and sacrifice of Christ) presented by the Archangel Michael in Books XI and XII of Milton's epic. In the preface to Cain, Byron attempts to downplay the influence of poems "upon similar topics", but the way he refers to Paradise Lost suggests its formative influence: "Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference." [1]
Another influence was medieval mystery plays, "the ancient title annexed to dramas upon similar subjects," though it is unclear the extent to which he would have read these.
As Byron himself notes in the preface to Cain, Cain's vision in Act II was inspired by the theory of catastrophism. In an attempt to explain large gaps in the fossil record, catastrophists posited that the history of the Earth was punctuated with violent upheavals that had destroyed its flora and fauna. Byron read about catastrophism in an 1813 English translation of some early work by French natural historian Georges Cuvier. Other influences include The Divine Legation of Moses by William Warburton and A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke.
Abel is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He was a younger brother of Cain, and the second son of Adam and Eve, the first couple in Biblical history. He was a shepherd who offered his firstborn flock up to God as an offering. God accepted his offering but not his brother's. Cain then killed Abel out of jealousy.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Cain is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the elder brother of Abel, and the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Bible. He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God. However, God was not pleased and favored Abel's offering over Cain's. Out of jealousy, Cain killed his brother, for which he was punished by God with the curse and mark of Cain. He had several children, starting with Enoch and including Lamech.
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God regarded Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Cain killed Abel and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.
Lucifer Samael Morningstar is a character who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. He is an adaptation of Lucifer—the Biblical fallen angel and devil of Christianity—and is one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe. Though various versions of the Devil have been presented by DC Comics, this interpretation by Neil Gaiman debuted in The Sandman #4 in 1989. Lucifer appears primarily as a supporting character in The Sandman and as the protagonist of the spin-off Lucifer.
Cain and Abel are a pair of characters from DC Comics based on the biblical Cain and Abel. They are key figures in DC's "Mystery" line of the late 1960s and 1970s, which became the mature-readers imprint Vertigo in 1993.
The Life of Adam and Eve, also known in its Greek version as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish apocryphal group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including Eve's version of the story. Satan explains that he rebelled when God commanded him to bow down to Adam. After Adam dies, he and all his descendants are promised a resurrection.
The Creation of the World and Other Business is a play by Arthur Miller first performed in 1972.
Christian literature is the literary aspect of Christian media, and it constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing.
Adam, in Islamic theology, is believed to have been the first human being on Earth and the first prophet of Islam. Adam's role as the father of the human race is looked upon by Muslims with reverence. Muslims also refer to his wife, Ḥawwāʾ, as the "mother of mankind". Muslims see Adam as the first Muslim, as the Quran states that all the Prophets preached the same faith of Islam.
A Preface to Paradise Lost is one of C. S. Lewis's most famous scholarly works. The book had its genesis in Lewis's Ballard Matthews Lectures, which he delivered at the University College of North Wales in 1941. It discusses the epic poem Paradise Lost, by John Milton.
Paradise Lost has had a profound impact on writers, artists and illustrators, and, in the twentieth century, filmmakers.
The Tragedy of Man is a play written by the Hungarian author Imre Madách. It was first published in 1861. The play is considered to be one of the major works of Hungarian literature and is one of the most often staged Hungarian plays today. Many lines have become common quotations in Hungary. The 1984 film The Annunciation was based on the play, as was the 2011 animated film The Tragedy of Man.
Up from Paradise is a musical with a book and lyrics by Arthur Miller and music by Stanley Silverman.
The War in Heaven was a mythical conflict between two groups of angels in traditional Christian cosmology, attested in the Book of Revelation alongside proposed parallels in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is described as the result of the Archangel Satan rebelling against God and leading to a war between his followers and those still loyal to God, led by the Archangel Michael. Within the New Testament, the War in Heaven provides basis for the concept of the fallen angels and for Satan's banishment to Christian Hell. The War is frequently featured in works of Christian art, such as John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, which describes it as occurring over the course of three days as a result of God the Father announcing Jesus Christ as His Son.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.
Our Lady of Endor Coven, also known as Ophite Cultus Sathanas, was an American Satanic cult founded by Herbert Arthur Sloane in Cleveland, Ohio, with a claimed origin in 1948 though definitive documentation of the group does not appear until the 1960s. Heavily influenced by gnosticism, the group equated Sathanas with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden as revealer of true knowledge.
Le Dernier Homme is a French science fantasy novel in the form of a prose poem. Written by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville and published in 1805, it was the first story of modern speculative fiction to depict the end of the world. Considered a seminal early work of science fantasy, specifically of the Dying Earth genre, it has been described by Gary K. Wolfe as "A crucial document in the early history... of what became science fiction".
La mort d'Abel is an opera by the French composer Rodolphe Kreutzer. The libretto, by François-Benoît Hoffman, deals with the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. It was first performed in a three-act version at the Salle Montansier by the Académie Impériale de Musique on 23 March 1810 under the title Abel. A revival at the Salle Le Peletier in 1823, in which the second act was cut, impressed the young Hector Berlioz.
The play Lucifer is a 1654 tragedy set in Heaven, written by the Dutch playwright and poet Joost van den Vondel, and premiered on 2 February in the city theater of Amsterdam. When God decides to elevate Man above the Angels, the high-ranked angel Lucifer initiates a revolt which ends when archangel Michael ejects the revolters from Heaven with a bolt of lightning. Lucifer then avenges himself on earth by seducing Adam and Eve to commit original sin, causing their banishment from the Garden of Eden. After the second performance on February 5 the burgomasters of Amsterdam, pressed by the clergy, banned further performances. Lucifer is widely regarded as Vondel's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Dutch literature. It has been said that Lucifer is "one of the rare products of Dutch literature that occupies a steady place in the Western canon."
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