ABSTRACT
Sociologists studying our society may regard Defoe’s depiction of a continuous struggle between Satan and God as an irrelevant, archaic allegory; over-cautious historians, faced with Freudian claims that Eros and Thanatos are determinants never to be ignored in their theses, dismiss such attributions as baseless eschatology. Eros and Thanatos are not to be regarded as mere simplistic symbols of goodness and badness; nor should they be depreciated as poetic polyvalent symbols embracing sex and death; rather, they are active, purposive forces possessed of a defined teleology. By boldly writing The Political History of the Devil, Defoe acknowledged, not denied, the vitality and the necessary existence of a devil, for Satan’s existence was a prerequisite to his own creativity; but he knew too he would have to be ever wary of the destructive disposition of his galvaniser. He lives on as a giant in our literary canon, and as one of the significant architects of the unwritten British constitution protecting liberties.
