John Milton's PARADISE LOST
PARADISE LOST
 |
| John Milton's Paradise Lost |
PARADISE LOST: THE CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
God has three aspects, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. As creator, God the Father sets everything going, like a clock, so that he knows what is to happen but does not interfere with the running of it. In Heaven he is surrounded by angels ("angel" comes from a Greek word meaning "messenger"). When he decides to announce the equal status with himself of his Son, one-third of the angels rebel under the leadership of Lucifer, who becomes Satan, the Prince of Hell. A terrible three-day War in
Heaven ends in the defeat of Satan by the Son, who drives all the rebel angels down to Hell, which God has created for them out of primal Chaos.
To replace the missing angels, God through his Son creates the World, and he puts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. Like the angels, they have free will. They live in pleasure, with frequent visits
from the angels, but they must not touch two trees in the garden, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.
Satan wants revenge on God for his defeat, so he tempts Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. She in turn tempts her husband, Adam. This is the original sin from which all mankind's troubles flow. The life of pleasure is over: man must work and woman must suffer childbirth pains. The two are driven from Paradise to make their home in the rest of the World, comforted by the knowledge that the Son will become man in a later generation and will die for their sins.
Now we turn to the plot as Milton relates it in Paradise Lost.
PARADISE LOST: THE NARRATIVE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Satan has been in Hell for nine days, lying on a burning lake where he and his companions have been thrown by God and his angels. He moans to his companion Beelzebub about their terrible fate, but he resolves to continue his fight against God through other means.
He and Beelzebub raise themselves painfully from the lake and gather the fallen angels on the shore, where they build a great hall called Pandemonium. In it they hold a great council meeting about their next move.
One of the leaders counsels open war. Two others oppose the idea, saying they've had enough of God's fury and will make the best of it in Hell. Satan tells them of a rumor he had heard in Heaven that
another kind of being was to be created. In order to find out how this creature could be corrupted for their purposes, he volunteers to go on a spying mission.
As he leaves, he meets Sin, who is his lover and daughter, and Death, his son and grandson, who guard the gate. They let him out into Chaos, the fundamental material of the universe from which God has fashioned Hell and the World.
Meanwhile in Heaven God foretells what is to happen and asks which of the angels will offer to die for man. The Son takes on the task and is praised for his sacrifice.
Satan alights on the top of the World (the universe, not the earth) and looks up into Heaven and down into the concentric spheres of the planets. He flies down to the sun, where he asks directions of Uriel, the angel who guards the sun.
As Satan watches Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise, Uriel flies down to warn the angel Gabriel that Satan has deceived them both and is on earth. Satan overhears Adam telling Eve that they are forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He conceals himself until night, when he becomes a toad and sits beside Eve's ear. Two guardian angels, Ithuriel and Zephon, find him and bring him to Gabriel. Gabriel threatens to drag Satan in chains to Hell if he's found in the garden again.
Eve tells Adam her terrible dream, induced by Satan. She dreamed that she ate the fruit and became a goddess flying above the earth. She is very frightened and needs Adam's comfort. When they go out to
their daily chores in the garden, they find that the archangel Raphael has come to visit them.
In a very long flashback, Raphael tells Adam (Eve is sometimes there and sometimes doing her housework) what happened before he was created. He tells the story for a reason: he wants to warn Adam against Satan, who, he feels sure, has some evil design in coming to earth.
Satan was originally called Lucifer and was one of the highest angels in the heavenly host. On the occasion of the Great Year, which comes every 36,000 years, God proclaims his Son equal to him. Lucifer's
pride is so hurt that he draws away one-third of the angels with him into the North, where they prepare to fight a war against God. One of the number, Abdiel, is appalled at Satan's rebellion and refuses
to be part of it. He runs back to the Mount of God, where he finds that the faithful angels already know about the rebellion and are preparing for war.
The War in Heaven lasts three days. On the first day, the rebel angels don't do well. They experience pain for the first time, although their wounds are never fatal because they are immortal. On the second day, they bring out cannons which they have built overnight and introduce gunpowder into Heaven. At first the heavenly host is bowled over, but they recover and throw hills and mountains as if they were snowballs.
On the third day God sends out his Son in his war chariot. It is soon over: the angels are driven over the edge of Heaven into Hell. That brings us back to the point where the poem began.
Raphael continues the story, telling Adam about God's creation of the earth. Adam reciprocates by telling Raphael about the making of Eve from his own rib and his great love for her. Raphael cautions him
against worshipping her excessively and then leaves them in Paradise.
The next morning Eve suggests that they should work separately in order to get more gardening done. Adam reluctantly allows this, despite his misgivings. In the form of a serpent, Satan tempts Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, using the argument that he, a beast, received the gift of speech after eating it and God hasn't killed him. She finally eats the fruit and then persuades Adam to eat some as well. Because he loves her so much and does not want to be parted from her, he eats it.
The Fall has happened. Adam and Eve copulate like beasts and fall asleep like drunkards. When they awaken they realize for the first time that they are naked, and they begin to quarrel, furiously reproaching each other.
The universe reacts with groans to the dreadful event. God sends down the Son to judge Adam and Eve. Their happiness and immortality are taken from them. Adam must work and Eve must suffer the pain of
childbirth, and both must die. The serpent will be punished by always being the enemy of man.
Satan begins his return journey in what he thinks is triumph. At the top of the World he meets Sin and Death, who have built a road leading from the gate of Hell to the World. Satan joyfully shows them their prey, waiting for them down on earth. He returns to Pandemonium, where the fallen angels are waiting for him in council. He announces his triumph, but they all immediately become snakes and the entire hall is filled with hissing. Although they eventually regain their shape, they must each year become snakes for a time to
remind them that Satan became a snake to deceive man.
As Sin and Death move into their new quarters, drooling at the thought of feasts to come, God causes the angels to make the World as it is now--with extremes of weather, seasons, and bad planetary influences. Surveying the wreck of the beautiful World they have known, Adam and Eve throw themselves on God's mercy.
He responds to their prayers and the Son's pleas for them by agreeing that Death shall not strike them immediately, but they must leave the Garden of Paradise. Michael, the warrior archangel, is sent down to
escort them out of Paradise into Eden and to leave a guard on the gate so that no one can enter.
But Michael gives them some comfort. He shows Adam what is to happen in the generations following, including Noah's flood, the descent into Egypt, the coming into the Promised Land, and the incarnation of
God as Jesus Christ. Adam is greatly encouraged when he realizes that the great blessing of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit are possible for man only because of what he did. His sin is a "happy fault," since ultimately it will bring so much good to man.
Calmer but apprehensive, Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Paradise. As they walk away, they look back to see the fiery weapons of the angels guarding the gate. They look forward to their new life.
PARADISE LOST: THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF PARADISE LOST
The following schematic plan of the narrative structure of the poem makes it easy for you to see the distribution of the events. Note that the poem is divided into 12 books.
I. Hell. Satan rallies the fallen angels
II. Hell. The council in Pandemonium
III. Heaven. The council in Heaven
Limbo and the Sun. Satan's journey
IV. Paradise. Satan spies on Adam and Eve
V. Paradise. Raphael arrives
Flashback: War in Heaven
VI. Flashback: War in Heaven
VII. Flashback: Creation of the world
VIII. Flashback: Creation of Adam and formation of Eve
IX. Paradise. The Fall
X. Heaven. Judgment
Chaos. Sin and Death build bridge
Hell. Fallen angels turn into snakes
Paradise. Adam and Eve quarrel
XI. Paradise. Sentence on Adam and Eve
Flash-forward: The World until Noah's flood
XII. Flash-forward: The World to the second coming
Paradise. Adam and Eve leave for Eden
The characterization of Paradise Lost is peculiar. Only two characters, Adam and Eve, are people. Even they are different from us because they have not been born in the conventional way and neither is a member of a family. We don't see them in relation to other people because there aren't any.
All the other characters are immortal and have powers beyond our human understanding. But to describe them Milton must use human terms. That works to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others.
PARADISE LOST: SATAN
Is Satan the hero or the villain of Paradise Lost? That's the question that has intrigued readers since the poem first appeared. It's too easy to say that Milton intended him for a villain but he turned out a hero. More probably Satan gets the benefit of the fact that Milton has to use human terms to describe him. It is
easier--sad to say--to make absolute evil understandable than to do the same for absolute good.
Satan is an endlessly intriguing character. You will not be able to make up your mind about him even after you've read the poem and written essays on him. You will find yourself using him to characterize people you know about: "He's a bit like Satan in Paradise Lost--unbelievably talented but throwing it all away because
he won't accept authority." Such people are fascinating and attractive, but they're infuriating when they waste it all for what they think is freedom.
All the main characters in Paradise Lost are concerned with freedom. Those who understand true freedom know that it consists of obeying God's will without question. (Abdiel is the best example--look at the discussion of his character further on.) Those who do not understand it think freedom means being free from someone else's will and following your own. Satan is chief among them. He is so offended by God's announcement of the Son's equality with him that he wants to be free of what he calls "tyranny."
Satan's essential characteristic is deception. He deceives himself, he deceives others. To trick the angel of the sun, Uriel, he changes shape to become a polite young cherub eager to see God's creation. When he approaches Adam and Eve, he changes into whatever animal will get him close to them. He becomes a toad to squat by Eve's ear and give her a nightmare. And of course he deceives Eve in the shape of
a serpent.
His seduction of Eve is a masterpiece of persuasion. He knows exactly which buttons to push--her vulnerability to flattery, her desire for power, her susceptibility to a logical argument. Milton tells us that he summons up all the orator's art for this final push: his speech is certainly a textbook model. To his talents as leader and inventor, we can add the deception and polish of a Madison Avenue advertising man.
When we last see Satan he has become the serpent whose shape he borrowed to seduce Eve. There is little sense that he understands the punishment he will eventually receive. He thinks he has won.
I am to bruise his heel;
His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head:
A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain?
(X, 498-501)
Has Satan won his fight against God? Or is it just not in his character to understand his defeat?
PARADISE LOST: BEELZEBUB
Beelzebub, whose name during the Middle Ages meant simply "devil," is Satan's second-in-command. He behaves like a foil for Satan, allowing his leader to demonstrate his best qualities. Beelzebub is quite content with his reflected glory.
PARADISE LOST: BELIAL
Belial appears twice in Paradise Lost, once when he advises the angels not to fight again and a second time during the War in Heaven when he makes bad puns with Satan about the cannon.
PARADISE LOST: MOLOCH
Moloch is the archetype of mindless force. He fought against Gabriel and was split in two, but since he is immortal he soon recovered. In the debate in Pandemonium he quite unreasonably counsels open war, without much sense of how victory can be attained in view of the recent devastating defeat. Where Belial is all charm and acquiescence, Moloch is blind and pointless defiance.
PARADISE LOST: MAMMON
Mammon is the engineer of Pandemonium, the miner who finds the ore for the golden budding. He is "the least erected spirit that fell" (I, 679), because his mind is on money.
PARADISE LOST: OTHER DEVILS
Nisroc has a single speech, urging the rebel angels on the first night of the War in Heaven to do something quickly because he can't stand pain. Mulciber has no speeches. He is the architect of Pandemonium: Many other devils are named as they slowly move from the bunting lake to the shore for the military parade. They are all false gods, those who seduced the Israelites away from God in the Old Testament, or the classical gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
PARADISE LOST: THE TRINITY
Christianity is based on a mystic trinity, a three-in-one, one-in-three godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. All three have existed since the beginning of time, but the Son is only revealed at the celebration of the Great Year, and the Holy Spirit does not appear in Paradise Lost at all
except in a flash-forward to the time after the Ascension of Christ when the Spirit is sent as a comforter to man. When speaking of Paradise Lost, by "God" we generally mean God the Father, and "the
Son" means God the Son.
PARADISE LOST: GOD
Like Satan, God is a problem for readers of Paradise Lost. We like Satan too much and God not enough. People have suggested that in each case their characters are already given: we know God is good
and we know Satan is bad, so neither has to be shown in action doing what is expected of him. But the truth remains that we'd rather have Satan's company than God's.
He elevates the Son without preparing the angels for the news, and indeed without any obvious reason, but that's his privilege. The rest of the universe must adapt to him, not he to it.
He loses more than one-third of the angels to Satan. One critic has said a loss of that size would make one question God's management style. And there is a certain teasing quality to his actions: if he could so easily order the fallen angels to be pushed out of Heaven, why did he let the war go on for three days? It seems capricious.
But he has virtues: he is a just and merciful judge. He listens to the Son's prayers for Adam and Eve and does not kill them, even though that was the punishment for eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. He does everything he can to warn Adam and Eve, sending them Gabriel to guard them and Raphael to explain their danger to them. And he is deeply proud of the Son and what he represents, love of man.
PARADISE LOST: THE SON
As a character, the Son has an important function in Paradise Lost as the exact opposite of Satan. He is put into parallel situations to demonstrate right behavior when Satan demonstrates what is wrong. In Book III, when we first meet the Son, he willingly takes on the job of dying for mankind:
Behold me then, me for him, life for life,
I offer, on me let thine anger fall;
Account me man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom...
(III, 236-239)
Satan too has willingly taken on a courageous task, but he did it to destroy mankind, to complete his revenge on God. The Son always obeys God immediately, with a grace that shows his perfect freedom. He is the executive branch and God the legislative branch of the heavenly government. He can use the power of God, for example when he rides out in his chariot and pushes the rebel angels out of Heaven, but he doesn't abuse it.
His great characteristic is his special love for man. From the moment that he accepts his position as the future redeemer, he represents man's interests before God. When he judges Adam and Eve after the Fall, he does so as "both judge and savior sent," and immediately after pronouncing judgment he begins to look after them. He gives them clothes made of the skins of beasts and shields them from God's sight.
In the flash-forward in Book XII, we see the culmination of the Son's devotion to man, when he is born, lives, and dies for man. To him God gives the privilege of cleaning out Hell on the day of judgment,
when a new Heaven and a new earth are created.
The Son is not blandly acquiescent. He knows that the sacrifice he will make for man is going to be painful beyond belief. He is quite capable of reminding God that the force of man's fall will be felt by him--"worst on me must light." The Son has dignity without coldness and obedience without fawning. It is a great deal easier to like him than God, for his function in the Trinity is to be man's side of God.
PARADISE LOST: RAPHAEL
Raphael is the archangel who spends the most time with Adam and Eve and therefore with us. He comes down in Book V and doesn't return to Heaven until the end of Book VII. He is a magnificent figure with
six pairs of wings which drape around him like a many-colored robe. He walks in great dignity to meet Adam and then acts as a gracious guest, obviously enjoying the food and complimenting Eve on it.
Raphael is a great teacher and storyteller. He explains everything that Adam wants to know--sometimes a little more than we want to know. Through his eyes we see the War in Heaven and the creation.
PARADISE LOST: MICHAEL
Michael is the warrior archangel. He leads the heavenly forces in the War in Heaven, with Gabriel as his second-in-command. It is Michael who engages in single combat with Satan, challenging him first in a speech where he threatens to send him to Hell. In their battle, which is like a conflict between two planets in its enormous scope, Michael wounds Satan with his great two-handed sword. It brings the fight to an end, but Satan soon recovers.
God chooses Michael to carry out the judgment that Adam and Eve must leave the Garden of Paradise. Adam understands the significance of the choice as soon as he sees him: Michael is armed, dressed in
military splendor. He has come to carry out a sentence, although with grace and mercy.
PARADISE LOST: GABRIEL
Gabriel has the somewhat thankless job of guarding Paradise. It is thankless because Satan slips by Gabriel and the guards twice. After the first occasion, when Gabriel, Ithuriel, and Zephon confront Satan, Gabriel is willing to fight him, but God forbids with a sign in the sky.
PARADISE LOST: URIEL
Uriel is the angel who guards the sun. Satan deceives him in the form of a little cherub asking his way to the new creation, earth. Despite the fact that Uriel is one of the seven angels closest to the throne of God and is known to have sharper sight than any other angel, he cannot perceive the deception. This is not a defect of
character but a theological condition. Only God can see through hypocrisy--neither men nor angels have that power. Uriel speaks with warm encouragement to the young apprentice angel.
PARADISE LOST: ABDIEL
This is the character Milton identified with. Abdiel is a rebel against rebels, the one angel who realizes before it is too late that Satan's cause is wrong. His name means "servant of God," and that he proves himself to be.
He stands in the middle of the rebel angels and tells Satan he is wrong. Satan does not understand true freedom--the service of God who made him--but calls it tyranny. Abdiel will not hear God blasphemed (a religious term meaning "insulted"). His impassioned speech shows a clear understanding of a correct relationship to God. It makes us wonder why he came to be among the one-third of the angels who followed Satan to his headquarters in the North.
He receives the praise he deserves from God:
Well done, thou hast fought
The better fight, who single has maintained
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms
(VI, 29-32)
The praise from God and his own conviction of right make Abdiel bold enough to challenge Satan on the first day of the war. He steps out from the army and addresses Satan as a "fool." Satan attempts to mock him and the others by calling them lazy: they'd rather take the easier path of serving God with "feast and song" instead of seeking their freedom.
Abdiel's last speech is the best exposition of "true freedom" in the poem: it is freedom to serve the highest, as God and nature both command. It is not freedom to seek to exercise your own will, but servitude to yourself. Satan is welcome to reign in Hell; Abdiel will serve "in Heaven God ever blest." And with that he strikes the first blow of the War in Heaven. It is his privilege as the champion of truth.
PARADISE LOST: OTHER ANGELS
Ithuriel finds Satan squatting next to Eve's ear while she sleeps. As he touches the toad with his spear, it immediately becomes Satan. A slanging match follows. Zephon accompanies Ithuriel on the mission, and together they bring back Satan to Gabriel. Zophiel is the cherub who sees the approach of the rebel army on the second day of the War in Heaven and warns the heavenly host.
PARADISE LOST: ADAM
The clue to Adam's character is his relationship to Eve. It ought to be his relationship to God, but it isn't--and that fact causes Adam's fall. Adam has to argue with God to get Eve (although it is only a mate he seeks at that point). When he sees her he falls so deeply in love with her that everything good seems embodied in her. He knows that Eve is not as close to God as he is, and he realizes that it is her beauty that he worships. Love is supreme and love "leads up to Heaven."
It is for love and for Eve that Adam eats the apple. As soon as he sees her with a branch from the Tree of Knowledge in her hand, he knows what has happened--as she does not. In his soliloquy, he makes his decision:
for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die;
How can I live without thee?
(IX, 906-908)
So his fall is different from Eve's. He does not directly fall to temptation, but to his desire to be with her, no matter what happens. God the Son puts his finger on the matter right away: "Was she thy God, that thou didst obey / Before his voice?" (X, 145-146). Adam has upset the proper order of things. Nothing must come before God.
He certainly learns from experience, although too late. Before the Fall, he allows Eve to persuade him that it is all right for her to work in the Garden separately from him--the fatal decision. But afterward he accepts neither of her suggestions--that they not have children and that they commit suicide.
Following his initial despair after the Fall, Adam's character improves. He forgives Eve with the sensible idea that they must now be each other's comfort in a world changed from the Paradise to the kingdom of Sin and Death. It is Adam who suggests that they should plead for God's mercy. He asserts his leadership by insisting that Eve leave him alone to speak with Michael. And it is to Adam alone--Eve sleeps under a benign drug--Michael reveals the future.
Adam's relationship to the angels who visit him from Heaven is always courteous and correct, for he knows that he is inferior to them in the hierarchy established by God. He has no difficulty with that position. It seems as if Adam was made to be a follower rather than a leader until the Fall brought him face to face with his responsibility.
Finally he has learned. His last speech, as Michael points out, is "The sum / Of wisdom." In it Adam says that it is best to love and fear God; to depend on him; to work against evil, content with small victories; to stand up for the sake of truth, no matter what it costs; and to die understanding Death is the gate to life.
This is very hard won wisdom. But Adam is the first man, and like all of us after him, he can only learn through bitter experience.
PARADISE LOST: EVE
Looking at Eve through twentieth-century eyes, we find it difficult to separate her character from our feelings of indignation about the role she is given. Certainly Milton was sexist; he could not be otherwise given his times and his religion. He has to tell a story that was itself sexist, because it is a myth with a social purpose.
Poor Eve suffers from Milton's time and place. She is the "weaker," she was made not directly in God's image but from part of Adam's body, she must worship God through Adam, not in her own right. She is beautiful, yet her beauty is her downfall when the serpent flatters her, and it is downgraded in value by both Adam and Michael.
When left to herself she acts in no way that could be faulted. But it is Eve's ear, not Adam's, into which Satan pours the bad dream. And the effects of it cause her to argue with Adam that she should go
separately to work in the garden. (There is no evidence that she had ever suggested this before the dream.) And of course it is Eve who is tempted by the serpent.
Her behavior during the first exchange with the serpent can't be blamed. This is the first time she has ever heard another creature speak except for Adam and those angelic but long-winded visitors. She listens with natural curiosity, but when they get to the tree, she says they might have spared themselves the walk. There is no thought in her mind of doing anything forbidden.
What convinces her are Satan's arguments. They are based on reason, and reason is a deceiver in Milton's theology. Right reason is the following of God's law absolutely. False reason is man's own logic.To trust to logic is to put your powers ahead of God's--the fundamental error. We have to sympathize with Eve in trusting her own reason. She's only human.
Her reactions after the Fall make that very clear. She wants Adam to eat the fruit not for his own benefit but for a self-serving reason: if she dies, Adam will get another Eve. But she never says that to him. And she puts the blame squarely on him for allowing her to suffer temptation:
Being as I am, why didst not thou the head
Command me absolutely not to go?
(IX, 1156-1157)
The quarrel is only too true to life.
Yet it is Eve who knows how to get out of the quarrel and on with the rest of their lives. She falls at Adam's feet, even though he has repulsed her first effort at reconciliation. Her submission wins him over. Like Adam, she has become sadder, wiser, and more mature after the Fall. She is very unhappy at being forced to leave Paradise. It's a bit like a corporate wife being told that she has to leave her home when her husband is transferred. But just like the wife, Eve realizes the truth of Michael's remark that her home is wherever her
husband is.
When Michael prepares to tell Adam the future history of mankind, his descendants, he puts Eve to sleep with a drug. Yet when she wakes she knows all that has been said and is comforted by the thought that
her "promised seed," the son of the Virgin Mary, the "second Eve," will redeem mankind. This symbolizes a different way of knowing--woman's intuition, direct instinctive knowledge rather than explanation and reasoning. It is another sign that "women are different."
Eve's last words refer to her consciousness of guilt for "my wilful crime." You might think Eve gets a bum rap. At least reflect that we no longer think that she represents the truth about women.
PARADISE LOST: SIN AND DEATH
Sin and Death are not characters but allegorical figures. That means they do what their names say they do. Whenever you see them, try to translate what they are doing into its meaning. Sin was born from Lucifer's head at the moment of his rebellion; this means that Sin begins with rebellion against just authority. Death was born as a result of an incestuous relationship between Sin and Satan; the meaning of this should be obvious.
Sin and Death keep the gates of Hell. When Sin opens the gate, it can never be shut again (another moral for us all). The mother and son together build the road from Hell to earth, so that while they are causing trouble with all the creatures there, the devils from Hell can easily travel to earth--and the condemned souls from earth will easily slide down to Hell. One of the horrible figures who keep running in and out of Sin's womb, Discord, begins to make food for her incestuous father Death as soon as they all get to earth.
We still use allegorical figures today. Our best-known one is Liberty, the statue in New York harbor. All her features, especially the lamp she carries, are meant to symbolize the freedom offered by this country.
PARADISE LOST: SETTING
There is a built-in problem in talking about the setting of Paradise Lost: words we normally use, like "world," "universe," and "earth," have different meanings in the poem. Let's take a tour of the cosmos
so that you can see the differences.
The largest frame of action is what we would call the universe--everything imaginable. Looking at it schematically, Heaven is at the top and Hell at the bottom. Both extend infinitely, Heaven upwards and Hell downwards. Between the two, filling all available space, is Chaos, which, like its name, is shapeless and confused. Chaos must have been the original stuff from which the other places were formed because Chaos (the name for the ruler as well as the place) complains that he has lost territory when God made Hell, and
then lost more when God made a home for man.
Hanging in the center of the cosmos is what Milton calls "the World." We loosely understand by that word the earth on which we live, but Milton means what we call the universe. Milton's World is a sphere made up of ten concentric circles. The earth is at the center. Some of the circles revolving round it contain the planets (including the sun), the heavens, and a watery firmament.
The World (our universe) hangs from Heaven by a golden chain. At the top there is an opening, where three directions converge: standing at the opening (as Satan does in Book III), you can look up the golden stairway to Heaven, down through the concentric circles to earth, and out into Chaos. When Sin and Death build their bridge across Chaos, they begin it at the Gate of Hell and end it at the opening to the World.
The earth for most of the poem does not look like anything we see now. The features that characterize it--seasons, weather, mountains, and valleys--are all brought into the world after the Fall. Angels are sent by God to turn the axis of the earth off dead center, thus introducing changes in climate and length of day. In Paradise, all kinds of animals and plants live together, without distinction of habitat. Flowers bloom constantly, and roses have no thorns.
Paradise is the name for the garden where Adam and Eve live. In the Bible, their home is called the Garden of Eden. Milton has interpreted this strictly. Paradise is the garden part of Eden. Eden is a land usually identified with Mesopotamia, the region between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. But there is a tradition
that Paradise was an island in the South seas, so Milton has it moved there during the flood.
The garden, Paradise, is watered by rivers that run under the boundaries (guarded by the angels) and come up as fountains. It is a real garden to the extent that it needs pruning and its fruits must be harvested, but there doesn't seem to be any weeding to be done and there is no mention of snails.
The important point to remember is that the entire setting is imaginary. The familiar terms should not mislead you. You are looking not at a landscape, but into Milton's mind.
PARADISE LOST: THEMES
Here is a list of the themes in Paradise Lost. They will all be studied more extensively in the discussion of the poem.
1. JUSTIFYING THE WAYS OF GOD TO MAN
The poem explains an entire theology. It is about the coming of sin into the world through the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan after his defeat in Heaven. If Milton has justified the ways of God to man, all our questions about our relationship to God should be answered by implication from the poem. The success of the explanation of course depends on whether you accept the Christian world view--even whether you accept Milton's special brand of Christian individualism. The task of explaining an entire physical and moral system is not one we attempt today. We divide our systems, believing that the world is too complex for a single theory to explain.
2. GOD'S OMNIPOTENCE, OMNISCIENCE, AND FREE WILL
The poem insists that all events are brought about by choice. Satan chooses to rebel, Adam and Eve choose to eat the apple, knowing the consequences. Every man and angel has free will. At the same time, God knows everything that is to happen. But his foreknowledge has no effect on choice--the universe is like a clock God winds up and sets going: each of its parts performs without interference from God.
You will keep puzzling over this explanation throughout the poem. It sometimes seems that God is callous about his creation because if he is omnipotent, why doesn't he stop evil from happening? On the other
hand, perhaps God does not have the power to stop the clock or alter it once it's got going. In that case, there must be something even more powerful than God which programs him. It's an endlessly fascinating question. The poem will give you lots of examples for a continuing argument.
3. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY
Everyone makes his or her own decisions. That means no one can blame anyone else for what happens. But there is a great deal of blaming in the story. Only when people accept responsibility for their own
choices do they find peace within themselves and forgiveness and mercy from God.
4. THE TRUE NATURE OF FREEDOM
True freedom is total submission to God's will and acceptance of what he wants in the world. It is freedom from self and self-will. Satan symbolizes the wrong kind of freedom, rebellion against just authority. You are free when you understand where you fit in relationship to God and in the hierarchy of nature.
5. REASON
The highest exercise of man's reason is to understand and love God--and to trust him. This means accepting what may seem illogical to human reason. It also means not trusting human reason. Human reason may deceive because it is limited and cannot necessarily penetrate God's purposes, which are beyond logic. It was perfectly reasonable for Eve to conclude that she would not die because the serpent had not died when he ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. But she was limiting fallible human reason. She ought to have gone
beyond the logical argument and trusted true reason--God's word.
6. THE HIERARCHICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE
Everything is arranged in an order, beginning with God at the highest point of all, going down through the angels to man, and from man down to beasts and plants. Each part of the hierarchy has its own order:
in Heaven, the angels are lower than God and must take their orders from him. On earth, Adam is closer to God than Eve, and she must take her orders from him. The poem is about the violation of the order, first by Satan, then by Eve, and then by Adam, who puts Eve ahead of God.
7. HISTORY HAS A PURPOSE AND AN END
Although devastating in its results, the Fall is only part of a historical process. Adam's fall leads through many generations to the incarnation of God the Son as Jesus Christ. His fall is therefore a "happy fault" ("felix culpa") because it leads to the fulfillment of God's purpose. When Christ dies for man, he begins
the process of redemption which eventually leads to the Last Judgment and the Second Coming. This will be the end of history, for then there will be a new Heaven and a new earth.
PARADISE LOST: STYLE: THE POETIC METER
The meter of Paradise Lost is iambic pentameter, the meter in which Shakespeare wrote his plays. It is often called "blank verse" because it doesn't rhyme. Each line consists of five heavy stresses and five minor stresses. In theory a line should read like this:
da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum
It happens to be the almost natural rhythm of the English language, which is why it is easy to read blank verse when you forget your fear of poetry.
Very few lines are strictly regular in the meter. Even the famous first line reverses the stress in at least two places, where da-dum is replaced by dum-da and dum-dum. It also has one more syllable than the ten prescribed by theory.
English poetic meter is not the simple matter of counting feet that is often taught. It is a very complex interaction of stress, length, and quality of sound. It is better to forget the complications and
read the poetry as naturally as possible. You will then be able to appreciate how Milton varies his rhythm and the musical quality of the words to fit what he wants to say. Read it out loud whenever you can, especially in the places where the speeches alternate like those in a play.
For Periods-of-Amercian-English-literature
For Periods-of-English-literature
For The-history-of-English video
For simile
For Robert Brownings Last-ride-together
For John-Milton's-Paradise-Lost
For Joseph-conrad's-heart-of-darkness Video
For John Milton
For Charles Dicken's A Tale-of-two-cities
For Thomas Hardy's Mayor-of-casterbridge
No comments:
Post a Comment