Milton’s Paradise Lost

ENGL 203

Dr. Fike

Milton Handout

• Be sure to read this document.

Group Work on Your Question1. Invocation, 1-47:

– What is the tone here?  How is it different from the tone in Book 1's invocation?– What does Milton say about his blindness?  About his muse?

2. Adam and Eve's quarrel, 205-385:– Why does Eve want to "divide [their] labors" at line 214?  If you really want to be high tech, have a look

at Milton's Areopagitica, which Eve paraphrases in her argument.  The key statement is "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue."  See the point of work at 4.325ff.

– What words are ominous between 248 and 385?

3. Satan, 500ff.:  – What is up with Hermione and Cadmus? – What kind of imagery is Milton using to describe Satan?

4. Eve's fall, 385ff.; and Adam’s, 952-59: – What are the temptations in lines 567-68? – How does Satan get Eve to eat the apple? – Why does Adam eat the apple?

5. The Fall's results, 790-1131: – In a nutshell, what do Adam and Eve say to each other? – What happens to nature?

Invocation (1-47)

• Tone: Sad/tragic, befitting the coming fall• Muse: Urania (see line 47 for “Ear”): she is his

“Celestial Patroness” because she is the muse of astronomy. Milton does not invoke divine aid here as he had in earlier invocations; it is now always with him.

• Milton’s blindness:– Grace shines with an inward light.– He has lost his sight, but he has gained vision.– Parallel to Homer (another blind epic poet).

• What kind of heroism does Milton celebrate?

Adam and Eve's Quarrel (205-385)

• Eve has the wrong idea about work. What is its true purpose? Two things:– It should make work more enjoyable (4.325ff.).– It should manifest obedience to God.– This is the first time that Eve initiates a discussion with Adam.

• When Adam points out that they would be safer if they stay together, she paraphrases Areopagitica at line 335: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue.”

• Ominous words:– 248: “yield”– 318: “domestick Adam” (note what he has just said about virtue)– 343: “O Woman”– 385-86: “from her Husbands hand her hand / Soft she withdrew”– She becomes like Proserpina, whom Dis preyed upon in a garden.

• Feminine > masculine; passion > reason and will (see lines 350ff.). Eve assumes the dominant role, but she is not prepared (esp. separated from Adam/reason) to match wits with Satan.

Satan (500ff.) • Hermione and Cadmus:

– Hermione: Daughter of Menelaus and Helen, married to Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) after the Trojan War; later, Orestes killed her husband and carried her off. Result: a curse on the house of Atreus.

– Harmonia and Cadmus: “As a wedding present Cadmus gave Harmonia a beautiful necklace whose history is a bloody trail of misfortune, lust, and murder” (Miller 124). Beautiful, cursed treasure. Harmonia and Cadmus are destined to be turned into snakes.

– POINT: Mixing the stories together (not Harmonia and Cadmus but Hermione and Cadmus) invokes the twin curses.

• Imagery for Satan:– Compared to Alexander the Great and Scipio Africanus, both of whom are great

seducers of women.– These figures claimed to be gods because their mothers had slept with Zeus who

appeared in the form of a snake.– Note his language at 532ff.: sibilance (snake-like “s” sounds)– Satan leads Eve to the tree on a twisted path at 632.– “Labyrinth” at 183 suggests sensuality in the Renaissance.

More on Satan

• 129: “for onely in destoying I find ease / To my relentless thoughts”

• “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”: Christ forsook “Courts of everlasting Day” for “a darksome House of mortal clay”; Satan’s entrance into the serpent is a parody of this (165).

• 171ff: revenge, envy, spite

Description of Satan at 510-14

Scipio the highth of Rome. With tract oblique

At first, as one who sought access, but feard

To interrupt, side-long he works his way.

As when a Ship by skillful Stearsman wrought

Night Rivers mouth or Foreland, etc.

Description of Satan at 510-14

Scipio the highth of Rome. With tract oblique

At first, as one who sought access, but feard

To interrupt, side-long he works his way.

As when a Ship by skillful Stearsman wrought

Night Rivers mouth or Foreland, etc.

Acrostic

• H&H: “A composition, usually verse, arranged in such a way that it spells words, phrases, or sentences when certain letters are selected according to an orderly sequence.”

Another Acrostic

Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn,Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.Seest thou yon dreary Plain, forlorn and wilde,The seat of desolation, voyd of light, etc.

--Satan at 1.178-81

• See 9.900: “How are thou lost, how on a sudden lost”

Eve's Fall (385ff., esp. 679-781)

• What are the temptations in lines 567-68?– Power, vanity, and knowledge – See 4.490: Eve notes “How beauty is excelld by manly grace.”

Satan tempts her with a position about her beauty that she has already denied—and it works.

• Satan’s other wiles:– Courtly language– Paints her as a goddess at 547; see also 611– Tempts her to skip rungs in the Great Chain of Being (“ventring

higher then my Lot” at line 690)– Arouses her curiosity (550ff.)– See lines 684 & 687 for the essence of temptation: “doe not

believe”; “look on mee.”

How does Satan get Eve to eat the apple?

• He gets her to substitute false rationality for right reason: false premise (he ate the apple) false conclusion (it is okay for her to eat it too).

• He calls God “the Threatner” (687); cf. “Our great Forbidder” (815) and “threatning” (939).

• He LIES: says that he has eaten the apple and that nothing bad has happened to him (688) and that eating the apple will bring “happier life” (697).

• On the contrary, he says that “ye shall be as Gods, Knowing Good and Evil as they know” (708-09).

• Notice the appeal to the senses at 734ff. Eve is hungry and thirsty.

• She eats the apple at 781.

Adam’s Fall (952-1000)

• Why does Adam eat the apple?– 914: “The Link of Nature draw me” – 956: “The Bond of Nature” – Adam chooses Eve over God.– 999: he is “fondly overcome with Female charm”

• C. S. Lewis calls Eve a “murderer.”– 831: “Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe”

The Fall's Results (790-1131)• 791: gluttony, drunkenness, appetite• 800-01: breaking of the 1st commandment• 815: blasphemy• 820: avarice• 828: Eve wants to keep Adam for herself• 855: language falls (“bland words”)• 1001-03: nature falls• 1008-10: intoxication; they feel like gods• 1012 & 1123ff.: lust

– 1029: Zeus and Hera (Iliad 14.315, page 302: see next slide)• 1018: “Sapience”• 1053-65: innocence is gone; shame and nakedness• 1059: Adam:Eve::Samson:Dalilah• 1102: parallel to Native Americans• 1119-31: chaos has come within; see esp. 1123-31: appetite > reason• Adam and Eve blame each other:

– Adam at 1134-35: I told you so!– Eve at 1155-56: It’s not my fault! You should have stopped me!

Lust

• Zeus to Hera (who is wearing Aphrodite’s girdle):“For never before has love for any goddess or woman

so melted about the heart inside me, broken it to submission,

as now.”

--Homer, Iliad 14.315-17 (Lattimore, trans.)

POINT: Classical allusion signals extreme negativity as well as disobedience to God

Milton’s Misogyny

• Lines 1182-82:

Thus it shall befallHim who to worth in Women overtrustingLets her will rule, etc.

• Allegorically, this means simply that letting passion rule reason gets you in trouble.

Book 10

• Adam and Eve suffer DESPAIR.

• They consider their options:– 987ff.: have no children, let the race die out– 1000ff.: suicide– 1031ff.: get revenge on the serpent– 1040: suffer their punishment– 1053ff.: joy in children

Book 12: Felix Culpa

O goodness infinite, goodness immense!That all this good of evil shall produce,And evil turn to good; more wonderfulThen that which by creation first brought forthLight out of darkness! full of doubt I stand,Whether I should repent me now of sinBy mee done and occasiond, or rejoiceMuch more, that much more good thereof shall spring,To God more glory, more good will to MenFrom God, and over wrauth grace shall abound. 

(12.469-78)

“A paradise within”

• If Adam and Eve embrace obedience, fortitude, faith, patience, temperance, love, and charity, “then wilt thou not be loath / To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess / A paradise within thee, / happier farr” (12.583-87).

• POINT: Happiness depends on VIRTUE.

Expulsion from Eden

• Still, Adam and Eve must now leave the garden, and Milton describes this in the poem’s last five lines (next slide).

The Last Five Lines of PL

Some natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;The World was all before them, where to chooseThir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,Through Eden took thir solitarie way.  (12.645-69)

Key Words

Some natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.  (12.645-69)

Explication• “natural”: fallen and mortal; also understandable; cf. nature’s tears at line

1002• They may choose their place of rest, and Providence (God’s will) will be

their guide.• But they may also choose whether or not Providence will be their guide.

They have FREE WILL.• “wandring”: Latin errare, to wander; the root word of error (remember: they

are now fallen); cf. Dante’s Inferno: wandering in the woods at the opening.• “slow”: The word takes a long time to say; therefore, it suggests reluctance

and regret. The word acts out its meaning.• “hand in hand”: This is the good news, a sign of their reconciliation.• “solitarie”: They are no longer in direct communication with God or even

with nature, and each of them is an isolated soul in human flesh.• Thus the poem ends with a snapshot of the first marriage and reflects the

Puritan idea that WAYFARING (journeying) is a metaphor for the Christian life. Man and woman (husband and wife) are now making their way in the fallen world. (Note: The Puritans stressed two metaphors for the Christian life: wayfaring and warfaring. Thus the poem ends with something that is period-specific.) END