SOURCE: “Romantic Satanism: Blake, the Gothic Novel, Shelley and Byron,” in The Devil in English Literature, Francke Verlag, 1978, pp. 148-78.

In the following essay, Vatter surveys figures bearing qualities of the Miltonic Satan in the writings of English Romantic poets and Gothic novelists.

The first step towards a freer development of the devil figure had been made, as we have seen, with the abandonment of Biblical subject matter in the first Moralities. A next, and more decisive step could be taken when the dogmatical tenets of theology were no longer accepted as binding and unquestionable realities. The Age of Reason, itself hostile to Satanism—who would imagine Dr. Johnson dealing with the devil?—prepared the ground for a revaluation of the image of Satan not only by smothering old superstitions, but by questioning the authority of the Church as such. The wave of witchcraft had died away. Addison...