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Milton's Paradise Lost
John Milton (1608-1674)
From: http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/nto/17thC/paradise/paradisetopfrm.htm
"Milton's great epic (1667) is built upon the stories and myths, in the Bible and in the classical tradition, through which Western men and women have sought to understand the meaning of their experience of life"
How Milton reworks the ancient materials he draws on:
- Translations abounded; each put its own interpretive spin on the Genesis story: " Milton, in undertaking an imaginative, poetic re-creation of that story, had necessarily to accept, revise, or counter the views offered by such influential commentators as Saint Augustine and the Reformation theologian John Calvin."
- "During his tour of Italy in 1638-39, Milton probably saw some of the numerous representations of aspects of the Genesis story in Renaissance paintings and tapestries. We do not know which ones he saw, but certain remarkable images may have stimulated his imagination. A representative sample is included here: Veronese's Creation of Eve, Cranach's Adam and Eve, Dürer's The Fall, two of the Medici tapestries presenting The Fall and The Judgement of Adam and Eve, and Masaccio's The Expulsion. "
- Milton's poem also draws on such repositories of classical myth as Ovid's Metamorphoses (NAEL 1.601) and other literary analogues. Ovid's narrative of the myth of Narcissus resonates throughout the story told by Milton's Eve about her first coming to consciousness (NAEL 1.1883-84).
- The epic tradition itself was a major literary resource for Milton: it is sampled here through the opening passages--propositions and invocations--of four epics central to Milton's idea of that genre: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Milton's epic proposition and invocation (NAEL 1.1818-19) may be compared to these, and also Milton's defense of his better kind of tragic epic (NAEL 1.1961-62). Between Virgil's writing and Milton's, the epic structure had changed; Milton returned to that original form. Paradise Lost has the orderly structure found in the Aeneid, which is, more than any other, the epic that has the recognizable structure outlined below.
Book I
Epic
- Begins in Medias Res
- Versified:
· English Heroic verse is without rhyme; 5 stressed lines, now called 'Blank Verse'.
· Contains closed couplets: some major mark or break at the end of every second line.
3. Invocation to the Muse. See "Epic Themes and Invocations": http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/nto/17thC/paradise/iliadfrm.htm
4. Naming of the subject: "Of man's first disobediance" in PL; "Achilles anger" in the Iliad
5. Reference to the Hero: Iliad: Achilles; Odyssey: "the man of many turns"
6. The Question and Answer: in PL: 'who seduced man?'; Iliad, 'Who brought the quarrel on?"
7. The prayer [l. 22-26]
8. Enumeratio of the Host PL: [l. 392]
9. Recoursing of things (immediately) forepast - disobediance of man in PL; Odyssey: recklessness/disobedience
10. Description of a long process: Odyssey, building of the raft; Iliad: Haephestus designing Achilles' shield; PL: [l. 670] building of the palace of Hell (Pandemonium)
Characters:
· Angels are intellect and will: both can go wrong
- Can changes form and sex [l. 423]
· Satan: speaks in aphorisms
- Sees God as a tryrant, possibly vulnerable, 'angry victor' [l. 169]
- Will not repent/change; 'fixt mind' [l. 96] Prideful
- He is deceived; believes he has a chance to win the battle he has provoked [l. 245-7]
- Not interested in serving at all [l. 263]
Theology
· It is by the will and permission of Heaven that Satan was left at large [l. 210]
· Consequences of the Fall
- Sin/Redemption
- Death/Salvation
Book II
- Epic is always an aristocratic form: everything about it can be described as large or 'great.' It covers the history of a great people; Satan is 'great' in that he is able to persuade 1/3 of the angels to follow him; more than just an 'annoyance,' he had great power to achieve humankind's fall.
- One way to analyze Satan's character, who may or may not mirror humanity, is to watch his transformation
- physical and spiritual
- his use of Reason: he continually misinterprets and underestimates God's power while overrating his own abilities.
- His power over others derives largely from his understanding of the energy of rhetoric. Satan's arguments test the analytical powers of both Adam and Eve. He uses formal deliberative oratory to persuade.
- Moloch is for open War
- Belial says it is not so bad here; besides, the towers of Heaven are impregnable; he argues to wait and see [l. 226] Milton loathes this kind of attitude.
- Mammon is envious: he begrudges the good someone else has and he wishes for others' loss; he looks for peaceful counsels, dismisses war to make a "Heaven" out of Hell
- Beelzebub is second only to Satan. It is he who counsels that they seek out the new creature of earth, seduce the inhabitants, get God to 'abolish his own works,' and enjoy God's sorrow [l. 344]
Sin and Death
- Like Spenser's Error in Faerie Queen, and Virgil's Schylla
- [l.50 ff] description of Death and Sin
- [l. 760 ff] Satan gave birth to Sin from out of his forehead, with 'familiarity' grew pleasing
- [l. 820 Satan's intent is to set Sin and Death free to roam the earth
- [l. 865 ff. Milton's dialog in the mouth of Sin parodies the Scriptural relationship between God and his Son, Jesus Christ.
Book IV - this book and Book IX are at the heart of PL. This one described Eve and Adam before the Fall; Bk IX speaks of the temptation and the Fall
· Satan's 1st soliloquy [l. 32]
· Satan changes [l. 114]
· Degrading images [l. 180 ff] describe Satan's behavior. He is likened to a wolf, thief, cormorant - bird of prey, symbol of greed and greedy men
· Man and woman first described [l. 285 ff] Adam and Eve are not equal
· Satan's 2nd soliloquy [l. 359]
· Satan change [l. 395]
· Satan's 3rd soliloquy [l. 505 ff]
Book VI - Recoursing to things past - War in HeavenBook VII - Recoursing to things past - the CreationBook VII - Adam asks about the heavens and Raphael advises, suggests it is good to be 'lowly wise,' not to seek after knowledge that is not right form him to know. Book VIII - Adam suggests God made a mistake and imbued him with a flaw--desire to know--Raphael tells him he is presumptuous!Book IX
· Beginning - Invocation - parallels that in Book III
· Tone changes to tragic [l. 5]
· Disobedience in the keystone, the pivotal concept around which the poem revolves.
Satan returns 'bent on 'fraud and malice,' caught at Eve's ear, thrown out of paradise
· Satan never understood God--sees him in his own terms--he thinks of God as continually spiting others
· Everything good, then, becomes painful to him
· He regularly casts doubt--undermines faith--a key characteristic
Eve feels defeated by the garden--she's thinking of efficiency and is annoyed by Adam's distrust; says if we are subject to onslaught, there is imperfection in God's work.
· Milton 'ravishes the reader'; Satan 'ravishes Eve'
· He is beautiful and surprises her, catching her off guard
· He defers to her, is humble, flatters her
· She knew, to that point, only two things: food and sex
· Eve, after the apples, is in constant error/indebted to experience; she is changing [l 800 ff] she doesn't tell Adam all when she confesses
Adam wants to avoid temptation, not seek it
· Adam, contemplating Eve's act, is wrong in all this thoughts not, too. [l. 945]
What they have lost: confidence, native righteousness, innocence, faith, purity, and honor
What they have gained: shame, foul concupiscence, passions: hate, anger, suspicion, mistrust, discord
Book X - Return of Satan after the temptation in Garden
· Changes: sun, heavens, moon, fixt stars, winds, thunder, seasons change
· Lifeless thing [l. 678 before, always spring, now stormy; desert blasts, vapors, mists, ice, snow, hail, stormy gusts.
· Beasts fight each other, devour each others, fled humans.
· [l. 720] Adam reflects and submits to his fate [. 122ff]; speculates on death, its nature, when it will come
· Night has changed, now full of black air/dreadful gloom; not peaceful
· Eve suggests:
1. stay childless
2. seek death or attend to it ourselves--suicide
· Adam rejects these options
Book XI - Inspiration comes from 6th book of the Aeneid
· Scene in l.21 shifts to heaven
· Prevenient Grace - that which went before Adam knew he needed it.
· Prayer - more than songs of praise; includes grief, supplication, confession in meek humiliation (of Adam and Eve)
· Michael shows Adam the future
Book XII
· Michael insists Adam listen while he speaks, seeing the vision is too much for Adam.
· [l. 24-63] Nimrod, the proud and ambitious; after Noah peace reigns, until one arises rebellious; building of the tower of Babel, until then only one tongue spoken
· [l. 293 ff.] New Covenant
· [l. 410 ff] Sacrifice of the Just for the Unjust
· [l. 552] Evaluates the lesson "greatly instructed": to obey is best.
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