Page "Darkness" Paragraph 19

The use of darkness as a rhetorical device has a long standing tradition.

Shakespeare, working in the 16th and 17th centuries, made a character called the “ prince of darkness ” ( King Lear: III, iv ) and gave darkness jaws with which to devour love.

( A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream: I, i ) Chaucer, a 14th century Middle English writer, wrote that knights must cast away the “ workes of darkness .” Dante described hell as “ solid darkness stain ’ d .”