Behemoth - Literary References

Literary References

Classicist philosopher Thomas Hobbes named Long Parliament as Behemoth in his book Behemoth. It accompanies his book of political theory that draws on the lessons of that civil war, the rather more famous Leviathan. It is also the name of a character in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, The Master and Margarita.

He also appears in John Milton’s Paradise Lost (Book VII 470-472): "Scarce from his mould / Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved / His vastness: Fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,"

The Behemoth is mentioned in The Seasons by James Thomson: " behold ! in plaited mail / Behemoth rears his head." (Summer). The German émigré Franz Leopold Neumann entitled his 1941 book about National Socialism, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism.

The Behemoth is also mentioned in the opera, Nixon in China, composed by John Adams, and written by Alice Goodman. At the beginning of the first act, the chorus sings "The people are the heroes now, Behemoth pulls the peasants' plow" several times.

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