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Paradise Lost
John Milton (1608-1674) New York: Macmillan 1957
OVERVIEW
Author: John Milton
John Milton was born into a family with a history of religious controversy. His father, John Milton, Sr., had been kicked out of his own father's house after converting to Protestantism, and John, Jr. would, in his turn, support civil and religious reform in England. The senior Milton was a scrivener, a combination of notary public and moneylender. He was also a musician, and he instilled his love of the arts in his son. Young Milton received his early education at St. Paul's School in London, and was privately tutored by Thomas Young, a radical clergyman who became an important friend and mentor. Among his academic achievements, Milton mastered several languages, including Latin, Greek, Italian, and Hebrew. Milton attended Christ's Church College at Cambridge University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in
- In that same year, he wrote his first major poem, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." Milton remained at Cambridge until 1632, eventually receiving a Master of Arts degree. He then spent six years at Horton, a country house owned by his father, continuing his studies and accruing the fund of knowledge that served him well in his later political and poetic careers. Touring Europe in 1638, Milton traveled through France, Italy, and other continental locations. He cut his tour short, as he says in his 1654 tractThe Second Defense of the English People, because of "the melancholy intelligence which [he] received of the civil commotions in England," which made him think it "base to be traveling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home." The commotion referred to here was the early manifestation of what would become the English Civil War. By the time Milton had returned to England in 1638, it had already begun. Working as a tutor, Milton eventually entered the contemporary debate over the proper form of church government. His tractsOf Reformation,The Reason of Church Government, andAn Apology Against a Pamphlet launched Milton's public career. In them, he argued against a church government based on bishops, and, generally, for a less Catholic form of church organization. Milton's personal life had its ups and downs. He married three times. His first wife, Mary Powell, was the daughter of a staunch Royalist whose politics were in direct opposition to Milton's own. The young Mrs. Milton was only about half her husband's age and used to a boisterous, active household, whereas Milton's home was a quiet place devoted to the kind of study he had made a lifetime's habit. Very soon after her marriage in 1643, Mrs. Milton left her new husband to see her family; she refused to return from her visit. In response to his young wife's recalcitrance, Milton wrote four tracts arguing for the right of divorce, a position so radical in his day that he was vilified by the very clergymen whose side he had so energetically supported in earlier church government debates. These pamphlets earned Milton the reputation of a libertine.
Finally reconciled in 1645, the Miltons had four children, one of whom, the only son, died in infancy. Mrs. Milton died in 1652 while giving birth to their third daughter. In 1656, Milton married Katherine Woodcock, who, fifteen months later, also died in childbirth. His third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, whom Milton married in 1663, remained with and cared for Milton until his death eleven years later.
Milton's first book of poetry was published in 1645. The volume included "A Masque... Presented at Ludlow Castle" (often referred to as "Comus"), "Lycidas," and the companion pieces "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso." During the next fifteen years, however, Milton wrote very little poetry, as his time was consumed by political matters. He served as Latin Secretary to the Council of State in the government of Oliver Cromwell, who had replaced the deposed (and beheaded) King Charles I. In this position, Milton undertook all foreign correspondence and a good deal of international propaganda for the Cromwell regime. Milton's eloquent defense of the Commonwealth against Royalist accusations earned him international fame. He was so essential to the government that an effort to resign, due to increasing blindness, was refused; Milton continued to serve the Commonwealth until it was dissolved.
The monarchy was reinstated with the return of Charles II in 1660. Some weeks before the Restoration began, Milton had publishedThe Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, a move that put him in jeopardy. He went into hiding and, after intervention from powerful friends, and perhaps due to the desire of the new monarch to avoid making a martyr of an author now internationally famous, Milton was pardoned. He spent the remainder of his life writing the poetry for which he is remembered.
Bibliography
Poetry Poems (1645) Poems (1673-added material) Paradise Lost (ten-book edition, 1667; twelve-book edition, 1674) Paradise Regained (1671) Samson Agonistes (1671) Prose Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England (1641) Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641) Animadversions Upon the Remonstrants Defense (1641) The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelaty (1641) An Apology for Smectymnuus (1641) The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1st ed. 1643; 2nd ed. 1644) The Judgment of Martin Bucer, Touching Divorce (1644) Tetrachordon (1645) Colasterion (1645) Of Education (1st ed. 1644; 2nd ed. 1673) Areopagitica (1644) The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) Eikonoklastes (1649) The First Defense of the English People (1651) The Second Defense of the English People (1654) Defense of Himself (1655) History of Britain (1666; first published in 1670) Christian Doctrine (1640-1673?) A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes (1659)
Adam and Eve are told that they are now subject to death and must leave the garden. Eve proposes that they commit suicide. Adam rejects this option, and the two resolve instead to seek forgiveness. Adam listens to Michael spin out the bleak future of Mankind, a future to be eventually redeemed by the sacrifice of the Son.
Style
Paradise Lost is an epic poem. A long narrative poem, the epic is an orally based literary form originating, among other works, in the Creation epic, the Gilgamesh narrative, the works of Homer and Virgil, and the Anglo-Saxon epicBeowulf. Traditional features of the epic poem include: a subject, a protagonist, and a universal setting; a battle as the main action, in which the protagonist fights with incredible strength; other supernatural or divine characters who take part in the activities; and the use of elevated speech in delivering the tale.
In addition to these aspects, there are certain devices common to epic poems;Paradise Lost, a quintessential epic poem, follows these conventions. Standard epic devices are: the starting of the poem in medias res (in the middle of things), the stating of the theme and an invocation to the Muse, the use of extended simile (poetic comparison of one thing to another) and narrative digression, and the introduction of troops and descriptions of athletic contests and extended scenes of combat.
Each of the above elements can be seen at work inParadise Lost. The poem begins, in Book 1, just after the fall of Satan from heaven. Three separate invocations to the Muse appear inParadise Lost, in Book 1, Book 3, and Book 7. A famous example of Milton's use of epic simile can be found in Book 1 from lines 292 to 295: in these lines, Satan's spear is described as being so large that the tallest pine tree would be only a wand by comparison. Book 1 includes a rather lengthy introduction to a number of fallen angels, which now make up Satan's troops. In Book 2, after Satan leaves on his mission to find the new planet Earth, some of the fallen angels engage in athletic contests with one another. Book 6, of course, describes the War in Heaven.
Themes and Motifs
The major themes ofParadise Lost include questions concerning God's justice, human free will, the relation of Woman to Man, the nature of obedience, and rebellion.
"Justify the ways of God to men" can be seen as an intention to declare the justice of God. Alexander Pope, in his Essay on Man, altered Milton's phrase to "vindicate the ways of God to man," thus assuming that "justify" means "explain the justice of." Most contemporary editors do not footnote Milton's phrase, taking its meaning to be self-evident. The question of why Milton felt God's methods needed to be justified is an important consideration to keep in mind while reading Paradise Lost. In Book 3, the Father insists that Adam and Eve are "sufficient to have stood, though free to fall." Think about how the Father's declaration of Adam and Eve's freedom works with the narrator's contention that the Father "past, present, future [... ] beholds" (78). In a nutshell, the question of free will here is: If the Father sees the future, and sees that Adam and Eve will choose to eat from the forbidden tree, in what sense are Adam and Eve free not to eat from the forbidden tree? There are two creation stories in Genesis, one that emphasizes that Male and Female were created together in the image of God, and another that tells the story of Eve's creation from Adam's rib. Milton chooses the second creation account. Think about how that choice influences Milton's presentation of Eve. Think also about the issue of Eve's free will when reading her account of her own creation (4.449- 491). Eve's initial choice to stay by her reflection at the pool is overridden. Her next choice-to retreat
from Adam-is also overridden. The manipulation of Eve here is similar to the manipulation of Eve by Satan in the temptation scenes in Book 9. Obedience is a constant theme. The fallen angels refuse obedience to the Son when the Father exalts. The faithful angels continue their obedience to the Father. Alone among Satan's troops, Abdiel refuses obedience to Satan, preferring to remain obedient to the Father. Adam and Eve disobey the "one restraint" (1.32) placed on them when they eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Raphael even hints to Adam that the newly created pair might ascend to heaven itself if they "be found obedient" (5.501). In Book 2, the rebel Satan demands obedience, appealing to the very system of "Orders and Degrees" that "Jar not with liberty" (5.792, 793) that he had rebelled against in Heaven, when he tells his fellow fallen angels that the "just right and the fixt Laws of Heav'n / Did first create [me] your Leader" (2. 18, 19). Rebellion and confrontation: Some critics-such as William Empson-claim that the Father deliberately provoked Satan's rebellion through his elevation of the Son (See 5.600-615). Certainly, the Father's rhetoric sounds like a challenge. The Son, while he does not rebel against the Father, does confront the Father in Book 3 over the issue of mercy for Adam and Eve. It is especially interesting to note that the Son paraphrases Abraham's confrontation with Yahweh at Genesis 18:25. In each instance, the confrontation is a matter-quite literally-of life and death.
HIGHLIGHTS
Take home point
Take Home Point: draws attention to key images, word choices, and events in the text
Exploration point
Exploration Point: has the potential for an essay or paper, or for further research
Theme alert
Theme Alert: provides insight on the theme's emergence at a particular point in the narrative
Quotable
Quotable: identifies passages that merit close stylistic or narrative analysis
Book 1
As in the epics of Homer (theIliad, theOdyssey) and Virgil (theAeneid), Milton's epic poem begins with a statement of his theme-man's first disobedience-and a call to the Muse.
Theme alert
Satan's determination to resist God, whom he refers to as holding the "Tyranny of Heaven" (124), is often considered a textbook example of Satan's perversity. The confrontation between the Son and the Father in Book 3, however, complicates such a view. It is not necessarily resistance per se but the kind of resistance that is the problem. Just as many readers are too quick to identify Satan as an uncomplicated hero, others are too quick to seize upon everything that Satan does or says and simplistically turn it into an example of evil.
Satan rallies his troops, asking them if they have chosen to maintain an "abject posture" (322) in order to "adore the Conqueror" (323). At this, the fallen angels spring immediately to their feet. A presentation of a procession of fallen angels follows (392-543).
Take home point
This procession follows another epic convention, that of Homer's catalog of the Greek ships and warriors in the second book of the Iliad. The names are taken from the Bible, and from Greek and Egyptian mythology. The explanation given in the poem is that the pagan gods were, in fact, nothing more than fallen angels trying to seduce mankind away from the true God.
After the procession, Satan addresses his gathered troops (622-662). His speech reinforces the glory of the rebels' failed attempt and introduces the idea that the "Monarch in Heaven" (638) "tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall" (642). Finally, in a flourish of bravado, Satan delivers the quintessential line expressing the sentiments of anyone who has been defeated by overwhelming force: "he no less / At length from us may find, who overcomes / By force, hath overcome but half his foe" (647-649). Satan then declares that "War / Open, or understood" (661, 662) is the path he and his troops must follow. This determination made, the "great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim" (704) retire to further debate the course of action they must soon follow.
Book 2
The debate in Hell begins with a description of Satan "High on a throne of royal state." With this image of Satan as Hell's king, the debate begins over just exactlyhow to pursue "War / Open, or understood."
Suggested by four remarkably different personalities, the debate shapes up as a choice among four options:
Moloch-a desperately brave warrior who simply cannot comprehend the fact that he has been defeated in battle. "Rather than be less / [he] Cared not to be at all; with that care lost / Went all his fear" (47-49). Moloch counsels open war. "What can be worse," he asks, "Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned / In this abhorred deep to utter woe?" (85-87). Moloch advises war even if-and perhaps especially if-war is simply suicide.
Belial-a smooth-tongued orator who can "make the worse appear / The better reason" (113, 114). Belial assures the gathered throng that he is "not behind in hate" (120), but immediately gets to the heart of Moloch's suicidal bravery. "He who most excels in fact of arms, / In what he counsels and in what excels / Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair / And utter dissolution" (124-126). Belial prefers not to make a bad situation worse: "What if the breath that kindled those grim fires / Awaked should blow them into sevenfold rage / And plunge us in the flames? [... ] this would be worse" (170-172, 186). Belial argues against war either open or understood, suggesting that they just might get used to their new environment "If we procure not to ourselves more woe" (225).
Mammon-a centrist who suggests a middle course between Moloch's desperate suicide mission and Belial's "ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth" (227). Mammon synthesizes Moloch's determination and Belial's practicality with a suggestion that the fallen angels give up war and set about constructing an alternate empire in Hell. This advice is met with a chorus of approval from the other angels.
Beelzebub-a consummate orator and politician who delivers a rousing speech that was "first devised / By Satan" (379, 380), Beelzebub dismisses Mammon's suggestion as impractical: "the king of heaven hath doomed / This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat / Beyond his potent arm" (316-318). He then refers to "the happy seat / Of some new race called Man" (347, 348), and suggests that one of their number try to "Seduce them to our party" (368).
No one volunteers. Satan declares: "this enterprise / None shall partake with me" (465, 466). He then rises, and thus "prevented all reply" (467).
Theme alert
Free Will: Is the free debate in Hell really free? Is Satan's prevention of "all reply" a sign that the debate's outcome was determined in advance? The fallen angels vote unanimously for Beelzebub's proposal ("with full assent / They vote" [388, 389]), but is that vote manipulated in such a way that the debate is rigged? Sharon Achinstein describes this scene in just such a manner: "In Paradise Lost, Satan's tyranny consists partly in not allowing free debate. For the debate in hell is not really a free exchange of ideas; Satan wrote a script in which Beelzebub would propose his plan, and then Satan himself 'prevented all reply'" (203). William Empson takes the opposite view, gently ridiculing the view of critics who insist that this debate in hell was rigged by Satan and Beelzebub as "the modern duty of catching Satan out wherever possible" (74). Decide for yourself.
After the debate ends, the gathered angels disperse to pursue separate activities. Some engage in athletic contests, while others sing, philosophize, and explore.
Take home point
Athletic contests are also a conventional part of the epic. They appear in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid.
The narrative follows Satan as he describes his meeting with Sin and Death at the firmly closed gates of Hell (629-870). Sin turns out to be Satan's daughter, born from his head (like Athena from the head of Zeus). Death is the son of Satan and Sin. After Satan and Death exchange threats, Sin explains to each who the other is. Satan tempts Sin by explaining that once Satan corrupts Man, Sin and Death will have plenty of happy hunting. Sin then opens the gates of Hell-though she is unable to shut them again-and Satan continues his journey.
Satan passes through the realm of Chaos, a king whose kingdom is a rival to God's own (890-1009). As Book 2 closes, Satan catches his first glimpse of "This pendant world" (1052).
Take home point
Though perhaps intended as a mere personification of the "uncreated," Chaos stands in direct opposition to the king of Heaven: "Havoc and spoil and ruin are my gain" (1009). Chaos aids and abets Satan in his mission to corrupt Man and the newly created Earth on which he lives. Satan is
asks, "[S]hall the Adversary thus obtain / His end, and frustrate thine, shall he fulfill / His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught [... ] and to Hell / Draw after him the whole Race of mankind, / By him corrupted?" (156-159, 162).
The Son's monologue (3.144-166) echoes Abraham's confrontation with God at Genesis 18:25. The Son tells the Father "that be from the far, / That far be from thee, father, who art judge / Of all things made, and judgest only right" (153-155).
Take home point
In the King James Bible, Abraham argues with God over the eventual destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked [.
.. ]. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Placing Abraham's words in the Son's mouth suggests that this means life and death for mankind. Taking the position of Abraham before God, the Son attempts to turn aside the Father's wrath to prevent that wrath from being inflicted upon his own creation. This scene may be interpreted as intercession by the Son before a Father who already intends mercy for mankind, or it may be interpreted as a genuine attempt by the Son to ensure that the Father does not lose his temper and act rashly and destructively toward mankind, in the way that Satan has already acted.
The narrative now returns to Satan. When last seen, Satan had just glimpsed the newly created Earth. Now, as Satan alights "upon the firm opacuous globe / Of this round world" (418, 419) (by round world, what is meant is the physical, created universe, not planet Earth), the reader is reminded of the life-and- death danger to the first human pair. Disguising himself as a low-ranking cherub, Satan approaches Uriel (650), stationed as guard over the Earth. Satan wants information: "tell / In which of all these shining orbs hath man / His fixed seat" (667-669). Because Uriel has no experience with "Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks / Invisible, except to God alone" (683, 684), Uriel unwittingly directs Satan straight to Adam and Eve. Book 3 ends with Satan alighting on "Niphates top" (742).
Take home point
Another feature of the epic is the epic journey. The classical epic hero encounters various obstacles or "guardians of the gate." The hero must somehow either trick, overpower, or enlist the aid of such guardians. Gilgamesh, for example, on the way to the island where he will find the secret to immortality, encounters creatures that are half-human and half-scorpion that guard the gate to a mountain passage through which Gilgamesh must pass; he does so without fear. Next, he encounters Shamash, the sun god, who tells him that he will never find immortality. Gilgamesh presses on anyway. Gilgamesh then meets Siduri, the ale-wife. She also tells him that he will never find what he is looking for, and tempts him to give up his quest, to eat, drink, and be merry and forget about immortality. But Gilgamesh will not be dissuaded, so Siduri tells him the secret of how to reach the island he is looking for. Satan follows a similar pattern in the opening books of Paradise Lost. Both the scene with Sin and Death near the end of Book 2, and the scene with Uriel at the end of Book 3, are such "guardian of the gate" scenes. Satan passes through the gate in each instance.
Book 4
Book 4 begins with Satan's monologue. Torn with passion and regret, he both wishes he had never rebelled and realizes the futility of such a wish. Ultimately, he hardens his determination to never turn back or seek forgiveness. Satan's famous "Evil be thou my good" (110) signals his final and irreversible break with Heaven.
Take home point
Interestingly, it is Satan's emotional response during this monologue that finally convinces Uriel that he has been deceived. Uriel sees Satan "disfigured, more than could befall / Spirit of happy sort" (127, 128).
Satan explores the garden.
Take home point
Adam and Eve have not yet appeared. In a poem whose subject is "man's first disobedience," this may seem odd. But this is an important part of the structure of a poem ultimate aimed at justifying God's ways, not man's. Adam and Eve are not the central characters of the universal drama played out in Paradise Lost.
Take home point
Note that we first glimpse the garden through Satan's eyes, not God's or the Son's or Adam and Eve's. The fact that this first glimpse belongs to Satan has led some critics to suggest that we should distrust our first sight of Eden, but such an interpretation may perhaps be an example of what Empson refers to "the modern duty of catching Satan out wherever possible" (74). Though Satan may be the father of lies, nowhere does the poem imply that Satan's perceptions of Paradise are dishonest or unreliable.
A human voice is heard for the first time at line 411. In a monologue that describes "the power / That made us" (412, 413) as "infinitely good" (414), Adam refers to Eve as "Sole partner and sole part of all these joys." The pair live under only one prohibition: "This one, this easy charge, of all the trees / in Paradise that bear delicious fruit / So various, not to taste that only tree / Of knowledge" (421-424). Adam tells Eve, "God hath pronounced it death to taste that tree" (427).
Take home point
A monologue is an epic feature, first appearing in Gilgamesh, in which the hero expresses his joy or despair in a lengthy formal speech that does not serve to advance the plot in any immediate way. The monologue later became an established feature of Greek drama and much European drama thereafter.
Theme alert
Free will: Do Adam and Eve know enough to have truly free choice in the matter of the forbidden tree? Or does the fact that God has already said that man shall fall (Book 3) render Adam and Eve unable to choose to not eat from the tree?
A secret onlooker as Adam and Eve converse, Satan now returns to center stage. Satan has an idea. He will use the "easy charge" against the human pair: "Hence I will excite their minds / With more desire to know, and to reject / Envious commands" (522-524). Humanity's fall and "man's first disobedience" have now been set into motion.
The remainder of Book 4 exalts "connubial love" (741), condemning those who "Defam[e] as impure what God declares / Pure" (746, 747).
Take home point
Note that the narrator and the characters do not always understand events in the same way.
At the end of Book 4, Satan is discovered in the garden by an angelic patrol. Satan and Gabriel seem willing to engage in combat, but such a battle is prevented by the appearance of a scale in which "two weights / The sequel each of parting and of fight" (1002, 1003). The scales balance in favor of parting, though Gabriel and Satan seem to misread the signal. Each appears to believe that if he fights, he will emerge the victor. However, the eternal intervenes "to prevent such horrid fray" (996). The scales predict victory for neither side.
Book 5
Satan now makes his first attempt to sabotage the innocents. He approaches Eve while she is sleeping and influences her dreams. We find this out only later, however, when Eve relates her dream to Adam. She thinks she hears a "gentle voice," and that the voice is Adam's own. The seductive dream voice appeals to Eve's vanity and tells her that "heaven wakes with all his eyes, / Whom to behold but thee, nature's desire, / In whose sight all things joy" (44-46). After this praise, Eve "passed through ways / That brought me on a sudden to the tree" (50, 51), from which she then watched "One shaped and winged like one of those from heaven" (55) eat from the tree. Eve is not clear about whether or not she then tasted from the tree, saying "I, methought, / Could not but taste" (85, 86), but she then flies "up to the clouds" with the winged figure who tasted the fruit. Eve expresses her relief that this was "but a dream" (93).
Adam tries to reassure Eve that she has done nothing wrong by dreaming. According to Adam, the problem is not what we think, but what we will: "Evil into the mind of god or man / May come and go, so unapproved, and leave / No spot or blame behind" (117-119). As long as Eve does notapprove of the dream tasting of the forbidden fruit, she remains innocent.
After they've shared their dreams, they begin the day's work, starting with a prayer (144-208). The Father sends the angel Raphael to warn Adam "friend with friend" (229) of "His danger, and from whom [... ]. Lest willfully transgressing he pretend / Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned" (239, 244, 245).
Theme alert
Free will and Foreknowledge: Again, how do Adam and Eve's free choice of whether to stand or fall work with the Father's foreknowledge? Is the Father sending Raphael knowing that Raphael's warning will do no good? How is the reason for sending the angel expressed in lines 244 and 245? Note also Raphael's affirmation of free will (519-543).
The most significant remaining episodes here are the raising of the Son to preeminence (600-615); the subsequent rebellion of the angel who becomes Satan (657-907); and the refusal of the minor angel Abdiel to obey his angelic lord (Satan), preferring to break that obedience in favor of the higher obedience due the Father (805-907).
Theme alert
Obedience and rebellion: Satan's initial objection does not seem to be obedience to the Father, but "[n]ew laws from him who reigns," (680) and "knee-tribute [... ], prostration vile" (782). What kind of obedience does Satan assume is being demanded? What kind of obedience does the Father demand when he declares that to the Son "shall bow / All knees in heaven" (607, 608)? Does Satan misunderstand? If so, does he do so deliberately?
Book 6
Raphael recounts the War in Heaven. He adjusts the story to compensate for Adam's inability to perceive events in Heaven as anything but analogies to Adam's own experience on Earth.
Abdiel is congratulated for his faithfulness in lines 29-43, after which the battle begins in earnest. Michael is sent with his angels to do battle with Satan and his angels. Significantly, this is an instance in which Paradise Lost differs from its biblical background. In Revelation 12:7-9, Michael wins his battle. Here, in Book 6, Michael is unable to defeat Satan's forces. Finally, after single combat, and the invention-by Satan- of gunpowder and cannon fire, the Son rides forth in "[t]he chariot of paternal deity" (750), and casts Satan and his angels down into the newly created Hell.
Take home point
This book is often considered one of the least successful and/or interesting of the entire poem. Samuel Johnson-the famous eighteenth-century writer and critic-thought that the "confusion of spirit and matter which pervades the whole narrative of the war in Heaven fills it with incongruity." Examine how the war is depicted, remembering what Raphael told Adam about the relationship between events in Heaven and Earth. Could Raphael have related the story in a different manner? The battle scenes are very much like similar scenes from the Iliad and the Aeneid, in which supernatural warriors engage in titanic struggles. Does the Christian background make the battle scenes in Paradise Lost more or less effective than battle scenes from the classical world?
Book 7
This book also begins with an invocation (1-39), The narrator bemoans having "fallen on evil days" (25), and speaks of being "with dangers compassed round" (27).
Take home point
The invocation can be seen to possibly allude to Milton's own position after the Restoration in
After the invocation, Raphael describes the creation. Raphael warns Adam that knowledge must not be sought for its own sake but "[t]o glorify the maker" (116). The creation of Earth and its life cameafter the rebellion in Heaven, Raphael says, as if to fill a void left by the revolt: "But lest his heart exalt him in the
This dream is in contrast to Eve's dream in Book 5.
Take home point
What is the significance of dreams in this epic poem? God and Satan favor the same form of communication. Adam is in his first moments of life, and asleep at that, when he receives the prohibition he will eventually transgress. Without knowing what it is, he is warned of death. He apparently still does not know what death is when he is repeating the prohibition to Eve in Book 4. Does Adam understand what the dream-figure is telling him?
Adam expresses to the dream-God a desire for companionship. God responds by asking Adam why solitude is unsatisfactory, since God himself has no companion or equal. He relents, however, telling Adam he is merely testing him.
Adam confesses to Raphael that his weakness is that he is powerless before Eve's beauty: "when I approach her loveliness, so absolute she seems / And in her self complete, [... ] / All higher knowledge in her presence falls" (546-548, 551). Raphael warns Adam that he must maintain mastery over his passion (561-594).
Book 8 ends with an exchange about angelic sex. Adam asks Raphael how the angels do it: "Love not the heavenly spirits, and how their love / Express they [... ]?" (615, 616). Raphael blushes as he answers, telling Adam that angels "obstacle find none / Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars; / easier than air with air, if spirits embrace, / Total they mix, union of pure with pure / Desiring" (624-628).
Book 9
Book 9 begins with mourning. The poem has now turned from epic subjects to tragic events. Urania, the muse addressed in Book 7, is the nightly visitor who has inspired the writing of this poem since its beginning. To finish this tale, one "more heroic than the wrath / Of stern Achilles" (14, 15) the narrator asks the help of she "who brings it nightly to my ear" (47).
Following Raphael's departure, and eight days after being confronted by Gabriel at the end of Book 4, Satan returns. He enters the Garden by diving into the Tigris river, rising from it as a mist into Eden. He finds "The serpent subtlest beast of all the field" (86), and chooses the snake to be his guise. Before he enters the serpent, Satan delivers another monologue about what he perceives to be the superiority of Earth to Heaven.
Realizing that he is excluded from this new world just as he is now excluded from Heaven, Satan stiffens his resolve to wreak destruction upon Adam and Eve. His triumph will be glorious: "To me shall be the glory sole among / The infernal powers, in one day to have marred / What he almighty styled, six nights and days / Continued making" (135-138). After complaining of the indignity of being "constrained / Into a beast" (164, 165) Satan enters the serpent and waits until morning.
As Adam and Eve begin their day's work, Eve proposes they work separately. The gardening is too much to keep up, Eve reasons, unless they double their efforts by working in separate areas (205-225). Recalling Raphael's warning, Adam opposes Eve's wish (226-269). Eve wins (270-384) and they part.
Satan sees his opportunity. In his serpent guise, he approaches Eve. Her "celestial beauty" (540), he says, should "be seen / A goddess among gods, adored and served / By angels numberless, thy daily train" (546-548). After marveling that the serpent can speak, Eve initially resists the suggestion to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree: "[... ] of this tree we may not taste nor touch" (651); but soon she is won over.
Called a "Goddess humane" (732) by the serpent, Eve "Forth reaching to the fruit" (781) plucked and ate. Instantly "Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat / Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, / That all was lost" (782-784).
Eve debates whether to share with Adam. At first, she considers keeping the fruit from him to "render me more equal" (823). The she recalls the penalty of death and that she "shall be no more, / And Adam wedded to another Eve" (827, 828). When Eve carries the fruit to Adam (856-885), he is horrified. "How art thou lost" (900), he wails. However, his attachment to Eve proves stronger than his determination to obey God's command. Telling Eve "with thee / Certain my resolution is to die" (906, 907), Adam eats.
For the first time, the couple knows lust. They enjoy "their fill of love [... ] / The solace of their sin" (1042, 1044). Then, overcome with shame, they argue (1067-1189). Adam bemoans that Eve failed to heed his warning not to work apart. He blames her for the evil that has now embraced them both. As if to hide "Their guilt and dreaded shame" (1114), they create clothing. Eve protests that something "might as ill have happened thou being by, / Or to thy self perhaps: hadst thou been there" (1147, 1148). The two continue to bicker, "And of their vain contest appeared no end" (1189).
Theme alert
Several themes introduced in earlier books culminate in the Fall. Eve's vanity appears beside the pool in Book 4. In Book 8, we learn that Adam is helpless in the face of Eve's beauty. How do these weaknesses set us up for of the Fall? As the Father insists in Book 3 (99), are Adam and Eve "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall"?
Book 10
The guardian angels desert the human pair and return to God, who tells them they could not have prevented Satan from succeeding (34-47). He reminds them that the Son has volunteered (in Book 3) to redeem fallen mankind (56-62).
The Son "descended straight" (90) to Eden. As found in Genesis 3, he delivers Judgment on Adam and Eve (97-208).
Now Satan heads toward Hell to tell the assembled hosts of his successful mission. Death and Sin leave the gate of Hell to meet him. Satan delegates them to be his vice-rulers on the now-fallen planet (325- 409).
Satan 's entrance to Hell is as subtle as mist. "At last as from a cloud his fulgent head / And shape star- bright appeared [... ]" (449, 450). Yet when he announces his success "beyond hope" (463), rather than the cheers he expects he is greeted with "A dismal universal hiss, the sound / Of public scorn" (508, 509). He and his compatriots are turned (temporarily) into serpents. Trees "like that / Which grew in Paradise" (530, 531) appear before the transformed angels of Hell, but instead of fruit, they "Chewed biter ashes [..
. ] / Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed" (566, 574).
Sin and Death then celebrate the end of their "eternal famine" (597), as they "betook them several ways / Both to destroy, or unimmortal make / All kinds" (610-612) and prepare to feast on now-fallen plant and animal life while waiting for their human banquet to mature. Sin tells her son Death to feed first on "these herbs, and fruits, and flowers" then to move on to "each beast [... ] and fish, and fowl" (603, 604). With the fall of Adam and Eve, the earth and all its creatures are doomed.
Book 11 opens with more divine dialogue between the Father and the Son (1-125). Michael is then dispatched to drive Adam and Eve from Eden.
The narration returns briefly to Adam and Eve. Adam now speaks the language of faith: "easily may faith admit, that all / The good which we enjoy, from heaven descends" (141, 142). Adam tells Eve that he thinks that their prayers have softened God's wrath, but also tells her "some further change awaits" (193).
Michael tells Adam and Eve they must leave Eden (251-262). Adam responds with despair, saying "from his face I shall be hid" (316). Michael assures Adam that "his omnipresence fills / Land, sea, and air" (336, 337); though Adam and Eve will no longer live in Eden, they will not be entirely forsaken.
Michael takes Adam to a hill (366, 367) where he relates the future of the world. The story begins with Cain and Abel, and continues through the Flood of Noah (370-901).
Take home point
This vision of the future that Michael gives Adam takes up the rest of Book 11 and most of Book
- Critics from Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century to C. S. Lewis in the twentieth century have considered this section vastly inferior to the rest of the poem. Lewis calls Books 11 and 12 an "untransmuted lump of futurity." This section can be seen as inferior to the rest of the poem, largely because it comes as an anticlimax after the Fall and Judgment.
What purposes are served by this vision of the future? In a classical drama, the climax is always followed by a denouement (the final outcome of the main dramatic action in story), rather than by a long-winded section about how the future is going to turn out. In theOdyssey, the killing of the suitors (the main dramatic action) is followed by the respective reunions of Odysseus with his wife, Penelope, and his father, Laertes. Athena tells Odysseus that he will have to make a journey inland to appease Neptune, the ocean-god whom he has offended, but this does not take hundreds, even thousands of lines. Why does Milton depart so dramatically from epic convention in order to present his "untransmuted lump of futurity?" The answer is in Book 12.
Book 12
The vision of the future continues. The narration picks up after the Flood through the life and death of Christ, the eventual corruption of the Church, and Christ's ultimate return.
Theme alert
The placement of Christ's ultimate redemption of fallen humankind-foretold when the Son volunteers to be punished in humanity's place in Book 3-into the story of the fall is the purpose for having gone through the history of the future. With this act, Milton claims for Christianity the Old Testament creation story, previously belonging to Judaism and adopted by Christianity.
Adam reacts. "O goodness infinite, goodness immense! / That all this good of evil shall produce, / And evil turn to good [... ] / [... ] full of doubt I stand, / Whether I should repent me now of the sin / By me done and occasioned, or rejoice / Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring" (469-471, 473-476).
Take home point
Adam's response here is an example of felix culpa, or "happy fault." This theological idea proposes that the Fall is good because it makes necessary the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus. Is Milton here summarizing his thesis-that good emerges from evil-or is this simply Adam's "fallen" reasoning?
After Michael finishes his story, Adam is at peace. "Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best" (561), says Adam. Michael responds, "This having learned, thou hast attained the sum / Of wisdom" (575, 576). Michael takes Adam back down the hill, and Adam returns to Eve, who has been sleeping. Together, they look once last time at Paradise, then "hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, / Through Eden took their solitary way" (648, 649).
Theme alert
Obedience: Obedience is the final thematic note sounded in the poem. Is this Milton's ultimate message? Has the poem justified God's treatment of man?
RESOURCES
Works Consulted
Achinstein, Sharon.Milton and the Revolutionary Reader. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994.
Crump, Galbraith M.The Mystical Design of Paradise Lost. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 1975.
Danielson, Dennis Richard.Milton's Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge UP, 1982.
Davies, Stevie.Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost: Milton's Politics and Christian Liberty. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1983.
Diekhoff, John Siemon.Milton's Paradise Lost, a Commentary on the Argument. 2nd ed. New York: Humanities, 1963.
Dole, Nathan Haskell. Biographical Sketch of John Milton.Paradise Lost. By John Milton. 1892 ed. New York: Crowell, 1892.
Empson, William.Milton's God. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1961.
Fiore, Amadeus P., ed.Th' upright heart and pure: Essays on John Milton Commemorating the Tercentenary of the Publication of Paradise Lost. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1967.
Fish, Stanley Eugene.Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. 2nd ed. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1997.
Fischer, John Martin, ed.God, Foreknowledge, and Freedom. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1989.
Fixler, Michael.Milton and the Kingdoms of God. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1964.
Frye, Roland Mushat.God, Man, and Satan: Patterns of Christian Thought and Life in Paradise Lost, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Great Theologians. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1960.
Hamlet, Desmond M.One Greater Man: Justice and Damnation in Paradise Lost. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 1976.
