{"id":8249,"date":"2010-02-16T09:37:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T13:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?page_id=8249"},"modified":"2010-02-16T09:37:02","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T13:37:02","slug":"peter-j-a-evanss-class-notes-for-fryes-course-in-milton-english-3j-1953-54-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/peter-j-a-evanss-class-notes-for-fryes-course-in-milton-english-3j-1953-54-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter J. A. Evans\u2019s Class Notes for Frye\u2019s Course in Milton, English 3j, 1953\u201354"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily English 3j was devoted to both Spenser and Milton, but for this year Frye lectured only on <\/em>Milton<\/em>.\u00a0 The daily notes are undated (except in two instances), but there appear to have been twenty\u2011nine class sessions.\u00a0 Whether the lectures on <\/em>Paradise Lost that come at the end (27\u201329) are out of sequence is uncertain: I have followed Evans\u2019s numbering of the pages of his lecture notes, the major topics of which are:<\/em><\/p>\n

1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nativity Ode<\/em><\/p>\n

2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Civil War background and Cambridge years<\/p>\n

3 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Elegies<\/p>\n

4\u20136 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 L\u2019Allegro<\/em>, Il Penseroso<\/em>, Comus<\/em><\/p>\n

7 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lycidas<\/em><\/p>\n

8\u201316 \u00a0\u00a0 Prose pamphlets<\/p>\n

17\u201322 Paradise<\/em> Lost<\/em><\/p>\n

23\u201324\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paradise<\/em> Regained<\/em><\/p>\n

25\u201326\u00a0 Samson Agonistes<\/em><\/p>\n

27\u201329\u00a0 Paradise<\/em> Lost<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Peter Evans sent me these notes in 1994.\u00a0 He occasionally recorded a word in Greek, apparently practicing what he had learned in the language course he had taken as a Religious Knowledge option the previous year.\u00a0 \u2013\u2013Robert Denham<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/strong> Revolutionary & analytical genius, entering the Renaissance conventions & bolstering them up from the inside.\u00a0 Fills the old conventional forms with so much explosive material that it simply blows apart<\/p>\n

Nativity Ode<\/em>\u2013\u2013a technical miracle.\u00a0 Each stanza is a triumph of its own.\u00a0 Milton\u2019s early imagination is largely influenced by the calendar\u2013\u2013conscious of the suggestion given by the passing of the seasons.\u00a0 His early elegies contain the imagery of the passing of the seasons\u2013\u2013death & resurrection (winter sleep just before spring begins to stir it).\u00a0 This especially fascinates Milton\u2019s early imagination.\u00a0 This symbolism informs not only literature but religion.\u00a0 Christ was a latecomer to Christmas.\u00a0 No one knows when he was born, but Christmas placed at the winter solstice.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s birth is set at the winter solstice.\u00a0 John the Baptist\u2019s birth is arbitrarily set at the summer solstice on his remarks \u201cChrist must increase, & I must decrease\u201d [John 3:30].<\/p>\n

Infant son of God\u2013\u2013light shining in darkness\u2013\u2013lengthening of days; shortening of periods of darkness.\u00a0 Rebirth of the sun.<\/p>\n

Milton cannot detach paganism\u2019s beauty from its darker side.\u00a0 He takes his own view of paganism on all levels.\u00a0 Note passing of great Greek & Roman gods\u2013\u2013a nostalgia.\u00a0 Beauty in their passing.\u00a0 But hideousness & terror of Moloch too cannot be separated from the beautiful side, so both pass together.<\/p>\n

Nativity Ode<\/em> is based on the passing of the god Pan, as told in Plutarch.\u00a0 Christians seized on this story as a tribute of the pagans themselves to the coming of the true Word.<\/p>\n

At opening of Nativity Ode<\/em> an absolute antithesis between light & darkness set up.\u00a0 We get the idea that God is wholly different from what we see in nature.\u00a0 Antithesis between mystery & truth, between nature and true knowledge, between infant \u201csun\u201d and darkness.<\/p>\n

All things move toward the consummation\u2013\u2013the marriage between the bride & the groom.\u00a0 The final apocalypse, the burning or consummation of all darkness by full light.<\/p>\n

Stanza 3 of \u201cThe Hymn\u201d\u2013\u2013a technical miracle.\u00a0 The sense exactly fits the rhythm of the stanza.\u00a0 Milton here draws out the tradition that at the birth of Christ the world had an instant of perfect peace.<\/p>\n

Spirit brooding on the waters.\u00a0 Picks up a bit of old legend & fits it into a great biblical context.\u00a0 Tradition that all that occurs in Old Testament recurs in life of Christ.<\/p>\n

A single intelligible structure of symbolism embodies this poem<\/p>\n

The figure (XXV) of Christ absorbing all th4ese traditions.<\/p>\n

A time of waiting watchfulness at end of poem\u2013\u2013common to Milton<\/p>\n

[2] <\/strong>Behind Milton\u2013\u2013Civil War struggle.\u00a0 1. Political\u00a0 2. Economic\u00a0 3. Religious<\/p>\n

Economic struggle between what were later Tories & Whigs.\u00a0 Tories\u2013\u2013laded aristocracy since War of Roses.\u00a0 In Milton\u2019s day this class was being threatened by the merchant class\u2013\u2013built in cities from overseas trade, etc.\u00a0 Landed aristocracy strong in north & west.\u00a0 Merchants strongest in south & east<\/p>\n

Political background along much the same lines.\u00a0 Two civil wars in regard to Milton\u2019s background.\u00a0 (1) war between king and Parliament (1642\u20135, when Charles surrendered)\u00a0 (2) Second war between two classes in Parliament\u2013\u2013two classes which had fought each other in first civil war joined in the second civil war.<\/p>\n

Milton thought entirely opposite.\u00a0 He though what was going on was an apocalyptic struggle between the forces of light & darkness.\u00a0 In reality all that had occurred was that one class had gained enough power to overthrow the other.\u00a0 He missed the real point, but discovered deeper & richer values.<\/p>\n

Religious struggle.\u00a0 In Tudor times both Anglicans and Puritans were in the same Church, although Puritans were the strong left\u00adwing difference.\u00a0\u00a0 In 17th century they became embattled sects.\u00a0 The real issue was largely political.\u00a0 One side wanted bishops and the other side did not.\u00a0 Theologically there was very little difference.\u00a0 To enter Oxford or Cambridge they had to & could subscribe to the 39 Articles.<\/p>\n

Milton decided against holy orders because of episcopacy.\u00a0 He was opposed to England getting more and more high church.<\/p>\n

Oxford\u2013\u2013intellectually high church with strong leanings to old faith.\u00a0 Essentially royalist.<\/p>\n

Cambridge\u2013\u2013centre of the Protestant intellectuals. (When things got too hot, they went to U.S.\u2014Cambridge\u2013\u2013Harvard University\u2013\u2013in 1636.<\/p>\n

Milton didn\u2019t like university curriculum.\u00a0 General structure (although reformed on Protestant lines) had not changed since the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

Seven liberal arts: trivuim\u2013\u2013literary subjects: grammar, rhetoric, logic<\/p>\n

quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music<\/p>\n

University students taught to write oral speeches on a certain theme.\u00a0 Your audience was trained to watch your logic & grammar, etc. most carefully.\u00a0 The idea was to present a thesis & defend it oratorically.\u00a0 This training has been attacked, especially by Bacon.\u00a0 He said university training ended where it ought to begin, i.e., it began with large general ideas and ended with specific concrete ideas.<\/p>\n

A great trouble was that many major premises were silly.\u00a0 The accent was too much on form, not on content.<\/p>\n

Bacon says that the mind naturally moves from the concrete to the abstract.<\/p>\n

Some of Milton\u2019s early works were of the thesis\u2011defence type\u2013\u2013filled with arguments and quotations in support of these arguments.\u00a0 This training in rhetoric actually turned out into a great training in literature in many senses.\u00a0 This training was to train you in ingenuity & wit (\u201cwit\u201d & intelligence).\u00a0 The idea was that the more paradoxical the thesis you had to defend the better your wit.<\/p>\n

Early writings: (1) Whether Day Is Better Than Night (2) On the Music of the Spheres. \u00a0Other theses are concerned with biology, etc.\u00a0 The weakness of the subject was shown here.\u00a0 This rhetoric is carried on independent of scientific study.<\/p>\n

Even in these theses Milton shows some indication that he is bored & in disagreement to some extent with this method.<\/p>\n

N.B. Influence of humanism & positivism<\/p>\n

Philosophy\u2013\u2013a special discipline with a technical vocabulary except between 1450\u20131750.\u00a0 Then since Kant it has returned to the former.\u00a0 From 1459 to 1750 we have amateur philosophers working outside the schools.\u00a0 Non\u2011technical, speculative, no fixed philosophical vocabulary, no systemization.<\/p>\n

Technical discipline\u2013\u2013a product only of medieval philosophy & modern philosophy since Kant.<\/p>\n

Protestant theology was less philosophical than Catholic.\u00a0 N.B. Aquinas vs, Luther & Calvin.\u00a0 Protestant theology is only a commentary on scripture.<\/p>\n

There had been a great revolt against medieval philosophy\u2013\u2013see what happened to the great Duns Scotus.<\/p>\n

Philosophy was turned into (1) a dead language, or (2) amateur speculation.\u00a0 Either you go through academic mill, or you speculate like Locke, Bacon, etc.<\/p>\n

Milton\u2013\u2013Protestant humanist\u2013\u2013his philosophy largely literary.<\/p>\n

Earlier poems\u2013\u2013Nativity Ode\u2013\u2013Later poems, etc.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/strong> Milton\u2019s favorite poem was the funeral elegy.\u00a0 It sprang from the Renaissance convention.\u00a0 A huge number of his early poems were elegies written in either English or Latin.\u00a0 Lycidas<\/em> is the last and perhaps greatest elegy which closes out this early period.\u00a0 Personal feelings have no place in the elegies which follow this convention.\u00a0 The earlier groups of these elegies are not great poetry, but they show him learning.<\/p>\n

Milton is a poet of very deep reserve.\u00a0 He believed he had a definite political & social function.\u00a0 Must catch the beat, the metre of history.\u00a0 \u201cThe keeper of the poetic utterance.\u201d\u00a0 Very rarely do we find any passages of personal revelation in Milton.\u00a0 He never pours out his feelings or biography.<\/p>\n

In his foreign language poems we learn more of Milton than we do in his English poetry.\u00a0 He uses the language barrier to hide behind.<\/p>\n

The classical elegy is a hexameter followed by a pentameter\u2013\u2013very difficult skill to master\u2013\u2013carrying over a beat from one line to the next.<\/p>\n

His Latin poems divided into two groups\u2013\u2013one of seven elegies, the other a miscellaneous group.<\/p>\n

Of the seven elegies, the first and sixth were written to Diodati, his friend.\u00a0 N.B.\u00a0 Epitaphium Damonis<\/em>\u2013\u2013triumph of his Latin poetry.<\/p>\n

A poet of London\u2013\u2013loved the theatre & to walk the streets & see crowds.<\/p>\n

Elegy VI<\/em> to Diodati\u2013\u2013written at the time of the Nativity Ode<\/em>.\u00a0 The Nativity Ode<\/em> is in a class by itself in his early poetry.\u00a0 The rest of the early stuff is more easily predictable.\u00a0 It was good poetry, but he was no infant prodigy.\u00a0 But the Nativity Ode<\/em> burst right out of him\u2013\u2013great poetry.<\/p>\n

In Elegy VI<\/em> he sees classes of poetry.\u00a0 Convivial poets can drink, make love, etc., but the great poets have the responsibility to keep themselves in tune\u2013\u2013the themes of epic & tragedy in the classics; of prophecy in religion.<\/p>\n

The major poet must be a transparent being who cannot be muddied up.\u00a0 Nature speaks through him.\u00a0 Milton spends his life waiting & listening, building up & preparing to speak.\u00a0 Finally the time came in Paradise Lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Speaks now of ceremonial purification of these \u201cprophets\u201d or seers.\u00a0 Like the blindness of Tiresias.\u00a0 \u201cNow he can see\u201d idea.\u00a0 An eerie note here of things to come.<\/p>\n

The figure of Orpheus.\u00a0 L\u2019Allegro<\/em> and Il Penseroso<\/em> are almost built around this magic pre\u2011Homeric poet of nature.<\/p>\n

Elegy VII<\/em> is one of his very rare love poems.\u00a0 It is written almost mechanically in the courtly love convention.\u00a0 It is plain in Milton\u2019s poetry that he distrusts the convention.\u00a0 Milton dislikes the centring of all attention on the lady.<\/p>\n

Elegy IV<\/em> is a formal epistle\u2013\u2013a favorite form of Renaissance humanism.<\/p>\n

Elegy V<\/em> is poetically the most interesting of the seven.<\/p>\n

Milton is not particularly a rhapsodic poet\u2013\u2013not a poetry of enthusiasm.\u00a0 This fifth elegy is the only real rhapsody in Milton\u2019s poetry; but he manages to catch the rhythm very well.<\/p>\n

The Miscellany.\u00a0 On the 5th of November<\/em>\u2013\u2013bad because it gets out of hand.\u00a0 Milton gets to deep into its gunpowder, sulphur smoke, hell.\u00a0 Now he is launched into his favorite theme, which is much too vast for this dimension.\u00a0 It is bad poetry but we can see something coming.<\/p>\n

The rest of the poems in the Miscellany deal with academic subjects.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/strong> Milton\u2019s Cambridge Latin poems\u2013\u2013a period of experiment in all directions.\u00a0 Deciding which were his best types.\u00a0 Abandons the stanzaic poem almost altogether.\u00a0 His rhythms tended to extension and he tried (Elegy VII<\/em>) courtly love as a convention, but dropped it too.\u00a0 Has only a slight relation to the Elizabethans as a poet.\u00a0 An admirer of Shakespeare & Ben Jonson but not interested in Elizabethan lyric, or in metaphysical poetry.\u00a0 Too much of an architectonic mind for that.\u00a0 Set feet solidly in English Protestant humanism.\u00a0 Not technically at all like Spenser.\u00a0 Neither in any strict sense of the word allegorical.\u00a0 Yet Comus<\/em> and Paradise Lost<\/em> in their epic character are a descent from The Faerie Queene<\/em>.\u00a0 A few poetic exercises on academic subjects\u2013\u2013a poem on whether or not the world was running down (battle of ancients and moderns).\u00a0 Milton takes bright modern point of view.\u00a0 Also a poem concerning Aristotle\u2013\u2013we see Milton\u2019s Platonic view showing through here.\u00a0 More idealistic, less literal during the Cambridge period<\/p>\n

L\u2019Allegro<\/em> & Il Penseroso<\/em> latest of his Cambridge work.\u00a0 Milton had the feeling (1) he was to be a major poet (2) he had to wait until his creative fulfillment\u2013\u2013must wait until things came.\u00a0 We see both will power (as a Christian) and driving (inspirational) power.\u00a0 The latter cannot be forced.\u00a0 He must wait.\u00a0 We are not in his period of strained, disciplined writing.<\/p>\n

His valedictory [At a Vacation Exercise<\/em>] breaks his tradition as he gives part of it in English (\u201cHail native language\u201d).\u00a0 An ingenuousness\u2013\u2013the assumption that everyone is interested in what he will be doing.<\/p>\n

A sonnet on being 23\u2013\u2013in response to a note from a friend who felt he now ought to start working for a living.\u00a0 Milton had a private income, & this made it possible for him to live the way he did.<\/p>\n

L\u2019Allegro<\/em> & Il Penseroso<\/em>\u2013\u2013etudes\u2013\u2013studies in moods.\u00a0 Not much to say about them\u2013\u2013they speak for themselves<\/p>\n

L\u2019Allegro<\/em> settles on & establishes the mood of pleasure, cheerfulness<\/p>\n

Il Penseroso<\/em> settles on and establishes pensiveness<\/p>\n

Antithesis between the world of pleasure, nitwits of experience & literature.\u00a0 Milton points out that literature is itself experience.\u00a0 No antithesis between world of mind and world of body.\u00a0 Poems filled with fresh and unspoiled natural imagery.<\/p>\n

L\u2019Allegro<\/em>\u2013\u2013fresh, cool, crisp day.\u00a0 Bright English countryside.\u00a0 All one with the total experience of a cultivated man.\u00a0 Then after such a walk, a man goes home to read Jonson\u2019s comedies, etc.\u2014keep with material in much the same mood.<\/p>\n

Il Penseroso<\/em>\u2013\u2013the moon, night, pensiveness now appreciated & reading of works appropriate to such an experience.\u00a0 He shows us just about everything that can be done with the octosyllabic couplet in the English language.<\/p>\n

In L\u2019Allegro <\/em>a great many \u201cbeheaded\u201d lines\u2013\u2013with only seven syllables.\u00a0 Quickens the pace<\/p>\n

Il Penseroso<\/em> more eight\u2011beat lines\u2013\u2013softer liquid consonants, slower, resonant vowels sounds<\/p>\n

See p. 25 (Madrigals now hopelessly out of date in Milton\u2019s time.\u00a0 Poets liked the single melodic line with musical accompaniment so that their poetry was not lost in the elaborate counterpoint.\u00a0 This 17th century development made opera possible later.)<\/p>\n

L\u2019Allegro<\/em>\u2013\u2013popular tales of local superstition<\/p>\n

Il Penseroso<\/em>\u2013\u2013contains occult qualities.\u00a0 Philosophy is studied in the occult tradition.<\/p>\n

In both poems reference to mystic Orpheus.<\/p>\n

[5] <\/strong>Two kinds of melancholy.\u00a0 (1) Hamlet\u2019s type\u2013\u2013a disease (2) Introversion\u2013\u2013a pleasing type of melancholy.\u00a0 Solitary type of studies.\u00a0 A somber aesthetic sensitivity.\u00a0 The complete triumph of the life of contemplation.\u00a0 It is this latter which appears in Il Penseroso<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While at Cambridge the last thing Milton did was to write a masque Arcades<\/em> for a noble family.\u00a0 It went over big & so he was asked to write another\u2013\u2013Comus<\/em>, which put an end to the masques popularity<\/p>\n

Samuel Daniel & Ben Jonson had written masques.\u00a0 Milton was a great admirer of Jonson and probably took the name Comus<\/em> from him.\u00a0 Masques were written for certain occasions and always had as a focal point the praising or welcoming of the person in whose honour the party was being given.\u00a0 The masque was connected with the court, always indoors.\u00a0 Relation between actors and audience very close.\u00a0 Actors were members of the court themselves.\u00a0 Much more elaborate in scenery and costumes than were drams.\u00a0 Enormous amount of money squandered on these.<\/p>\n

Usually a chorus, all dressed in one type of costume.\u00a0 As compared with the ordinary play, there was a great emphasis on aspects of the play other than acting\u2013\u2013i.e., the scenery and the music.\u00a0 Stage devices of all kinds were employed.\u00a0 The more elaborate the better.<\/p>\n

The masque often took the form of a dance & ended with a dance.\u00a0 The Tempest<\/em>\u2013\u2013a very masque\u2011like play.\u00a0 A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em>\u2013\u2013extremely masque\u2011like, like a ballet.<\/p>\n

Masques often played under very crowded, heated conditions.\u00a0 Danger of fire.\u00a0 Too much food & liquor.\u00a0 Milton\u2019s masque was meant for outdoors, in the cool of the evening.\u00a0 Milton as a guest rather than a court employee could be freer too in his writing.<\/p>\n

The structure under Ben Jonson made the main thee high\u2014brow.\u00a0 A great deal of classical reference.\u00a0 A polite and cultivated form.\u00a0 This was at the beginning & end.\u00a0 The middle was the antimasque, which was entirely opposite to the rest.\u00a0 Crowd often dressed as animals.\u00a0 Atmosphere changes to the ribald, noisy.\u00a0 Welford, The Court Masque<\/em> traces the masque back to pagan ceremonies.<\/p>\n

Milton incorporates this antimasque into an allegorical scheme.\u00a0 In the play the people essentially acted their own parts in real life.\u00a0 They moved through the centre of action in which all other characters were elemental spirits (earth, air, water, fire).\u00a0 The whole action carried on by these spirits included a guardian angel, Comus and his demons (fire spirits), etc.<\/p>\n

Comus <\/em>begins with a long conventional presentation\u2013\u2013a guardian angel.\u00a0 Then the regular antimasque entry.\u00a0 Noisy, unruly, like animals.\u00a0 Comus = a reveler (in Greek)<\/p>\n

For Milton this becomes a symbol of the upsetting of the order of things.\u00a0 Comus is the son of an evil being.\u00a0 A rebellion against the order of God\u2019s nature is his revel.\u00a0 A successful rebellion.\u00a0 Now man is born into a kind of bacchanalia.<\/p>\n

Comus tempts Chastity.\u00a0 Nature is fertile, licentious, creative.\u00a0 Chastity is a denial of Nature.\u00a0 When the lady resists Comus\u2019s temptations she is really fulfilling the Nature God intended\u2013\u2013the Nature of order in which Comus has no place.\u00a0 Action is paradoxical.\u00a0 Comus gets our dramatic sympathy\u2013\u2013stands for tolerance\u2013\u2013a more relaxed and spontaneous morality.\u00a0 Lady does nothing but say \u201cno.\u201d\u00a0 Hence, we do not sympathize.\u00a0 She appears a wet blanket.<\/p>\n

But Comus is the blinder of man by passions: he really binds man to his passions.\u00a0 The Lady is in reality captive to Comus.\u00a0 In her lies real freedom.<\/p>\n

Forest\u2013\u2013symbol of lost direction, bewilderment.\u00a0 A place of enchantment.\u00a0 Her Comus and his retainers appear as fireflies.<\/p>\n

Chastity\u2013\u2013discipline which unites body & mind.\u00a0 Thus, you can live in the world of Comus but still be untouched by it. (Chastity does not equal Virginity).\u00a0 The chaste person has achieved what God wants in nature.\u00a0 In tune with the spheres, structure of the universe.<\/p>\n

She is still enough under Comus\u2019s power to be frozen by him\u2013\u2013but here the brothers rush in and overturn his glass.\u00a0 Still, they have not broken his spell.\u00a0 The Lady is still held in prison.<\/p>\n

Guardian Spirit says that help will be needed from spirit of nearby river (in the case of this masque, the Severn).\u00a0 Thus, Lady is released.<\/p>\n

Setting of Comus<\/em> is not a Christian setting\u2013\u2013a kind of pagan atmosphere.\u00a0 Greek gods are talked about.\u00a0 Chastity here is the highest point of natural virtue.\u00a0 But by itself a prison.\u00a0 Still can\u2019t move.<\/p>\n

Comus<\/em>\u2013\u2013pagan and only implicitly ending with a sort of baptism.<\/p>\n

Paradise<\/em> Regained<\/em>\u2013\u2013Christian\u2013\u2013begins with Christ\u2019s baptism<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

[6]<\/strong> A lot of variety in Comus<\/em>.\u00a0 Plenty of songs, dances, and music to break it up.\u00a0 Still, a very erudite piece of work.<\/p>\n

Comus<\/em> is the spirit of revelry\u2013\u2013a fallen world, a world of darkness in which the pilgrims become separated.\u00a0 In this fallen order of Nature Comus is able to plan his seducing of Chastity.<\/p>\n

A great degree of occultism in Comus<\/em>.\u00a0 An enormous amount of classical mythology, all based on the idea that the Christian reader can see dimly in the myths Christian truths & symbolism (e.g., Circe\u2013\u2013the temptress who converts men through their sensuality to a lower order of being).<\/p>\n

N.B.\u00a0 Woodhouse, University<\/em> of <\/em>Toronto<\/em> Quarterly<\/em> 1942 on Order of Nature in Comus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The attendant spirit represents a higher world, a higher form of law.\u00a0 He is equated by Milton with the Paradise Garden and the Garden of Adonis (Faerie Queene<\/em>, Bk. III).<\/p>\n

Versification\u2013\u2013triumph of Milton\u2019s early period.\u00a0 A peak of harmonic performance.\u00a0 Unrhymed iambic pentameter as a base, but this could be converted to just about anything.\u00a0 (The general masque was more a spectacle than a great work of art.\u00a0 Difficult to take in both oral & visual impressions).\u00a0 In Comus<\/em> scenery is reduced to a minimum, as in Shakespeare.\u00a0 The beauty lies in the ears in Milton\u2019s poem.\u00a0 Mysterious rustlings & whisperings are hidden throughout the verse.\u00a0 One must listen carefully.<\/p>\n

Lycidas<\/em>\u2013\u2013one of the greatest poems of its length in English.<\/p>\n

A pastoral elegy.\u00a0 (Theocritus & Virgil began this).\u00a0 In the pastoral convention.\u00a0 All Mediterranean countries with any agricultural growth had gods of fertility\u2013\u2013died in fall, rose again in spring (Adonis, Hyacynthus, Osiris, Balder).<\/p>\n

Women every fall sang a lament for Adonis.\u00a0 Spenser and Milton knew all about these sources.\u00a0 See Frazer\u2019s Golden Bough\u2013<\/em>fertility rites.<\/p>\n

Ceremonial lament for dying god, with at same time a feeling for his eventual revival.<\/p>\n

A pastoral conventional elegy on the death of Edward King.\u00a0 Builds his imagery on the dying god.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/strong> Lycidas<\/em>\u2013\u2013a pastoral poem informed with birth& death in spring & fall.<\/p>\n

<\/em>Takes the two figures about King\u2019s life\u2013\u2013poet & priest\u2013\u2013and works them into the symbolism of the poem.<\/p>\n

Lycidas<\/em> is built on a rondo form (ABACA).\u00a0 There is a main theme for Lycidas (an Adonis figure).\u00a0 The two episodes deal with him as poet and as priest.\u00a0 The main theme deals with the role which King has assimilated in the poem: the man cut off in early life (Adonis) who does not accomplish the supreme work of the poet.\u00a0 Lycidas is lamented for he doesn\u2019t live out his life.\u00a0 In the \u201cpoet\u201d section Milton uses Orpheus, and in the \u201cpriest\u201d section he uses Peter.\u00a0 Peter is a man who failed to accomplish his mission as priest (denies Christ could walk on water).\u00a0 Milton sees that a man never fully completes his work\u2013\u2013it is completed by God.<\/p>\n

King was drowned in the Irish Sea.\u00a0 When Orpheus was killed his head floated away, singing, to the Isle of Lesbos.\u00a0 Peter was (1) a fisherman (2) could not walk on the water.<\/p>\n

In poem (1) premature death as man (2) a section discussing premature death as a poet.\u00a0 All poets die too soon.\u00a0 But all poets as regards their long social influence do have a long life.\u00a0 But a failure to complete is a theme here.\u00a0 Dies too soon.<\/p>\n

[8] <\/strong>Following this early period Milton took a trip to Italy.\u00a0 A period of tying together some of his early experimental work.\u00a0 Also his first and only real contact with Catholicism.\u00a0 Milton in Italy found himself already well known due to his Latin poetry.\u00a0 Scarcely anyone could read English poetry.\u00a0 Around this 1640 period he wrote some of his best poems. Epitaphium<\/em> Damonis<\/em>, <\/em>etc.\u00a0 The period of the die\u2011hard humanists who felt that only in Latin could great poetry be written.\u00a0 But still in the 17th century it was easy to gain a quick reputation by writing in Latin.<\/p>\n

On Milton\u2019s return to England he turned his back to baroque continental Europe.\u00a0 He began work at once on his great epic.\u00a0 First sketches of Paradise Lost found around 1640.<\/p>\n

He accepts the Renaissance view that the epic & tragedy are the only great poetic forms.\u00a0 But he makes a distinction between the diffuse epic\u2013\u2013the long (12 or x12) epic (Homer & Virgil) and the brief epic (Book of Job, Paradise regained, Endymion).\u00a0 His model of tragedy was Greek drama.<\/p>\n

We can se Milton\u2019s consistency of thought, for his three great works after 1640 were Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.<\/p>\n

Paradise Lost first appeared to him as a good subject for tragedy..\u00a0 He even got so far as to write the first speech (now incorporated in Book IV).\u00a0 He intended to write a diffuse epic about Prince of King Arthur.<\/p>\n

His switch in subject matter was because of (1) his disappointment in the Revolution now plunging toward the Restoration, (2) a growing realization that romantic poetry should not be the footing for a great poet, (3) his desire to write true poetry rather than that based on legend.<\/p>\n

Ceases to glorify the rise of the British nation, as he became politically disillusioned.\u00a0 (Except where it gets out in Areopagitica, etc.)<\/p>\n

Prose Pamphlets<\/p>\n

Liberty, he said, was the guiding spirit of all these works<\/p>\n

Liberty<\/p>\n

Religious\u2013\u2013Church (of England)<\/p>\n

Domestic\u2013\u2013education, marriage & divorce, freedom of press<\/p>\n

Civil\u2013\u2013organization of country\u2019s government<\/p>\n

First thing Milton did between return from Italy until Civil War (1640\u20132) was to write five anti\u2011episcopal tracts<\/p>\n

Domestic period 1643\u20135\u2013\u2013Of Education, four divorce tracts, Areopagitca<\/p>\n

Civil period 1649\u201360\u2013\u2013four Regicide Pamphlets, three tracts issued on eve of Restoration (anti\u2011Restorations tracts)<\/p>\n

1640\u2013\u2013The early Stuarts had supported the Elizabethan settlement\u2013\u2013the episcopacy.\u00a0 The Puritans were originally a group within the Church who did not believe in such Church organization.\u00a0 James I felt that the episcopacy was needed to safeguard the king & he was a devout believer in the divine right of kings.<\/p>\n

He in a way set up a political & religious conflict.\u00a0 He was opposed by Parliament representing the South & East mercantile interests & supported by the land\u2011owning lords of the North & West.\u00a0 A tricky situation when he died which Charles was incapable of handling.\u00a0 Within three years Parliament had passed the Petition of Right, so he dissolved Parliament & ruled without it.\u00a0 He believed that Parliament should only vote money to him.\u00a0 For eleven years he managed to run the country through his own revenues, using a few questionable practices.<\/p>\n

At the same time Laud (& company) had been making the episcopacy more & more high church.\u00a0 In Charles\u2019s reign, then, the Puritans really broke away.\u00a0 The English Puritans were Congregationalists & Scottish Puritans were Presbyterian.<\/p>\n

But Charles had to call another Parliament\u2013\u2013the Long Parliament, which lasted longer than he did.<\/p>\n

Grand Remonstrance\u2013\u2013Charles chief minister was impeached & Charles was powerless to save him.<\/p>\n

In 1642 Parliament passed a law by which they had control of army & navy.\u00a0 Charles tried to swoop on Parliament, but that failed.\u00a0 He tested his own military strength.\u00a0 When not permitted to enter Hull, he set up the royal standard at Nottingham on Aug. 6, 1642.\u00a0 Charles has every psychological advantage.\u00a0 Parliament was frightened over what it had done.\u00a0 .\u00a0 Insurrection against the king was unthought of since the time of the Old Testament.\u00a0 Charles had a better army but failed to capture London, although the first year was one of Royalist success.\u00a0 A year of extremely confused & divided loyalties.\u00a0 The question over which army had the right to conscript..\u00a0 Many of the Parliamentary leaders were killed\u2013\u2013moderate men.\u00a0 Then Cromwell arose, a real revolutionary with an Ironside Army.\u00a0 Made it a real war.\u00a0 Also the Scotch joined in to help the Puritans.\u00a0 In 1645 war came to an end with the king as prisoner.\u00a0 .\u00a0 King now sent a message to the Scotch for help.\u00a0 So in 1648 Civil War began.\u00a0 Cromwell against the Royalists, the Scotch, the Irish, and later the Dutch.\u00a0 Cromwell realized the only way to really end the war was to kill the king.\u00a0 Cromwell purged the Parliament, leaving only the Rump, which supported the king\u2019s death.\u00a0 The king\u2019s death started some anti\u2011Cromwellian rebellion which Cromwell [?]<\/p>\n

When Cromwell died, Rump Parliament summoned but army surrendered to the king.\u00a0 Army\u2013\u2013a real political faction in England.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/strong> Pope, cardinal, archbishop, bishop, priest, congregation.\u00a0 Early church had congregation & priest, and one of the apostles had supervisory power.\u00a0 Following the first generation, bishops (<\/em>\u03b5\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9) overran the Church, and gradually in cities one bishop overlooked a number of churches\u2013\u2013hence archbishop.\u00a0 Pope and cardinal were added later, & were not carried over into the Church of England.<\/p>\n

But the left\u2011wing Puritans felt that bishops had been given no place in the New Testament hierarchy, & wanted to get back to Scripture.\u00a0 Anglicans (Episcopalians) carried on the apostolic succession through their bishops.\u00a0 The Scottish people adopted a Presbyterian system (priest in charge along with elders).\u00a0 English Puritans were Congregationalists.<\/p>\n

Episcopalian\u2013\u2013Bishop\u2013\u2013centre of authority<\/p>\n

Presbyterian\u2013\u2013Priest\u2013\u2013centre of authority<\/p>\n

Congregationalist\u2013\u2013Congregation\u2013\u2013centre of authority, which delegated this authority<\/p>\n

Anglicans formed a united front against these two puritan systems.<\/p>\n

Milton throws himself into the argument on the side of the Puritans.\u00a0 He calls the bishop the first perversion of the Church, a corruption, putting temporal authority in a spiritual institution.\u00a0 Anglicans felt you could not abolish tradition.\u00a0 They accepted the authority of the Church tradition, as far as the point where the Bishop of Rome declared himself the head of the Church.<\/p>\n

The principle of Milton\u2019s argument is the separation of spiritual from temporal authority in the Church.\u00a0 The first corruption of the Church was the putting of temporal authority into it, making it a department of state.<\/p>\n

His design is to show that the Reformation led by Henry VIII was only half\u2011finished.\u00a0 He did not adopt a clear\u2011cut reformed view of the Church.\u00a0 During the persecutions under Queen Mary the bishops achieved much prestige, so in the Elizabethan succession the bishops saw to it that the constitution was drawn up in their favor.\u00a0 The bishops held that the Puritans were politically subversive, as they implied that the bishops were parasites on the authority of the state. (Of the Reformation Concerning Church Discipline<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The Puritans held that the retaining of bishops was just a bastardized Catholicism.\u00a0 This objection became quite violent.\u00a0 \u201cBishops are not the pillars but the caterpillars of the Church.\u201d\u00a0 The main body of Puritans in this warfare were a group of pamphleteers who signed themselves Smectymmus (consisting of the initials of five of these pamphleteers.<\/p>\n

Milton in On Prelatical Episcopacy<\/em> puts forth his reasonable argument.\u2014shows bishopry to be supported not by reason but emotion.\u00a0 A clear break should be made with tradition and custom.<\/p>\n

Milton says that the repetition of liturgy is not the religion of the Gospel, but of the law of Judaism.\u00a0 He demands Christian liberty on this matter.\u00a0 The Puritan view on this matter was that every church service should be a re\u2011creation of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Against prepared sermons & prayers.\u00a0 There should be a direct re\u2011descent of the Spirit of God into each service.\u00a0 Against \u201cvain repetition.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Catholics the centre of the service is the Eucharist.\u00a0 The general tendency of Puritanism is to say that the centre of the service is the distribution of the Word of God, rather than the presentation of the body & blood.\u00a0 The sermon replaces the Eucharist as the central act.\u00a0 A shift of emphasis here also led to a change in the meaning of the Eucharist.\u00a0 The Puritans said that the concept of the Eucharist as sacrifice is Jewish & pagan.\u00a0 There should be no altar in a Christian Church as this is pagan, Jewish.\u00a0 Therefore, centre in Puritan Church is the communion table.<\/p>\n

The repudiation of the Mass was the repudiation of sacrificial pagan rite.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/strong> Liberty is not what man does.\u00a0 It does not start with man, but with God.\u00a0 It consists of what God will do for man.\u00a0 Man can do nothing to achieve liberty directly, but he can demonstrate willingness to be set free.\u00a0 A negative preparation\u2013\u2013stop obstructing the will of God.\u00a0 Man does not want freedom because of its responsibilities.\u00a0 Man naturally inclines toward servitude.\u00a0 Man does not realize he is in bondage.\u00a0 He likes to do what he wants, but what he wants to do is horrible.\u00a0 He accepts slavery as liberty.\u00a0 He wants a neurotic individualism\u2013\u2013a sort of isolation (either in mastery or slavery).<\/p>\n

Man\u2019s approach to liberty is bound to be a fully negative one.\u00a0 He can express a desire to be set free by knocking down the idols of his own servitude.\u00a0 So the person who really desires liberty is one who is regenerated.\u00a0 He is a prophet, a subversive, an iconoclast in our society.\u00a0 Milton still sees the function of the prophet in biblical times in smashing idols\u2013\u2013physical illusion rather that spiritual reality.\u00a0 We have therefore the natural man standing for bondage, leading to idolatry, and the regenerate man standing for liberty, leading to God.\u00a0 This latter is a mirror of the love of God; He is a reflection of spiritual reality.\u00a0 Natural man is reality in physical terms, and idols turn out to be mirrors of his own fallen nature.\u00a0 Thus the ultimate essential idol is the mirror which reflects back the life of bondage & servitude\u2013\u2013custom, convention, tradition.\u00a0 That is why it is said that the one is the world of revelation, the other of physical law (reflecting servitude).\u00a0 God\u2019s world is a world of love, the other a world of force.\u00a0 The relation between these two worlds is one of antagonism, hatred\u2013\u2013man naturally hates God (they killed Christ).\u00a0 Since God is incapable of hatred, He feels wrath.<\/p>\n

Man in regard to the Church is a Pharisee.\u00a0 He wants to see all the law there\u2013\u2013automatic repetitions of prescribed acts.\u00a0 He wants to see the principles of physical force, compulsion.\u00a0 Heaven for regenerate man is a cube, the celestial city, four squares.\u00a0 In natural man we find a love for the pyramid\u2013\u2013a hierarchy.<\/p>\n

faith \u2013\u2013 0<\/p>\n

nature \u2013\u2013 r<\/p>\n

To apply that to other spheres than church structure.\u00a0 In the Bible we find the essential instrument to set man free.\u00a0 Regenerate man sees there the manifesto of human freedom.\u00a0 It is then that the Holy Spirit in him reads the Bible.\u00a0 But if natural man reads the Bible it will be a manifesto of the law, of authority.\u00a0 To love liberty is to have simultaneously all the other virtues.\u00a0 These few are right.\u00a0 The Bible must be read by the rule of \u03b1\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7 (charity)\u2013\u2013faith in action.<\/p>\n

The Bible must be read as the exposition of God\u2019s will to make us free.\u00a0 There are always two senses of \u201claw.\u201d\u00a0 In one sense it is that which Christianity abolished.\u00a0 In another sense the law is emancipated, fulfilled, redeemed.<\/p>\n

Milton attacks the simple mind which opposes freedom to necessity.\u00a0 Certainly it is opposed to outer necessity, but not to inner necessity.\u00a0 The man in complete bondage & the man in complete freedom have striking similarities.\u00a0 The latter is bound by inner necessity to act a certain way\u2013\u2013almost unconsciously.<\/p>\n

Conduct.\u00a0 If you say that a man is free\u2013\u2013free to choose between right & wr0ong\u2013\u2013you are insulting him.\u00a0 A man truly free acts in a certain way by inner necessity.\u00a0 If we have to struggle between having or stealing we are not in as high a state as one into whose mind the thought of stealing would never enter.\u00a0 Freedom does not equal external necessity.\u00a0 Freedom equals inner necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cX cannot steal\u201d\u2013\u2013all sense of choice between stealing and not stealing is abolished.\u00a0 You are free, you have no choice, but you are bound by inner necessity.<\/p>\n

He who says he is entirely free from all compulsion is the one who will be affected by whatever comes along\u2013\u2013a stoic or existentialist.<\/p>\n

The Gospel obliterates the law, and yet transcends or fulfills it.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/strong> Essay for Nov. 17.\u00a0 Milton\u2019s Treatment of Religious, Domestic, or Civil Liberty in His Prose, Plus a General Treatment of Liberty<\/p>\n

What would Milton as an individual add to the concept of Christian liberty?<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013Wrote on education, divorce, Areopagitica<\/em> (freedom of press)<\/p>\n

Divorce Tracts\u2013\u2013Christian law is of the internal kind.\u00a0 The law as been fulfilled in the Gospels.\u00a0 All heathens are bound by external law.\u00a0 Freedom is bound up in the choice of means\u2013\u2013once chosen you are bound to them.\u00a0 The free man is disciplined internally by himself.\u00a0 He is not free.\u00a0 The free man is free because his reason is the unquestioned ruler\u2013\u2013his will a strong thought\u2011police.\u00a0 Plato\u2019s Republic\u2013\u2013the analogy between the perfect state constitution and the perfect individual constitution.\u00a0 The state must be discarded, but as Socrates says (end of book IX) the wise man will take this constitution as a pattern laid up in heave.<\/p>\n

There is no moral difference between wishing a person to die and actually murdering him.\u00a0 If you tried to make the Sermon on the Mount into laws, things would be impossible\u2013\u2013an awful police state.\u00a0 All this must be interpreted as internal laws which give true freedom.<\/p>\n

Milton feels Christian religion should not consist in ceremony.\u00a0 Why replace circumcision & first fruit ceremonies with baptism and the Eucharist.\u00a0 The Christian religion should be internal, not external show.<\/p>\n

Christ\u2019s attitude to divorce resulted in a very nasty situation.\u00a0 In Milton\u2019s day both church & state had adopted\u00a0 a totally negative attitude to divorce.\u00a0 Here we find one of our New Testament laws (internal\u2013\u2013bound to make you free) has been made into an external law.\u00a0 This is in conflict with Milton\u2019s concept of the Bible.\u00a0 Christ here appears more intolerant, bigoted\u00a0 & stupid than Moses.<\/p>\n

It has been said that Milton wrote on divorce trying to rationalize it from the point of view that he wanted a divorce\u2013\u2013this is utter bunk.\u00a0 He would have had to write on divorce anyway, regardless of domestic problems.<\/p>\n

Milton says law in the Old Testament remains law on its own level\u2013\u2013external, social, i.e., law of bondage & servitude, which is desired by all men who do not wish to be truly free.\u00a0 Consequently, such a law remains in society because such a vast majority require external law rather than internal discipline.\u00a0 What applies to murder & rape applies also to marriage & divorce.\u00a0 Marriage in the social sense is a civil contract.\u00a0 (In the Catholic Church marriage is a sacramental union; therefore, indissoluble.\u00a0 But in the Protestant Church only two sacraments left\u2013\u2013hence marriage no longer a sacrament but a civil contract blessed by the Church.)\u00a0 In Cromwell\u2019s reign, law passed that all marriages must take place before the Justice of the Peace.<\/p>\n

According to Milton, two concepts of marriage:<\/p>\n

(1) Social\u2013\u2013a contract\u2013\u2013idea of companionship, rearing of kids, etc.<\/p>\n

(2) \u2013\u2013one of the attributes of a perfect life\u2013\u2013union of two souls into one<\/p>\n

When Jesus speaks of marriage he speaks of the latter \u201cgospel\u201d type.\u00a0 Every time a ceremony is performed, it does not mean that two souls have been united, merely the social side of the contract is fulfilled.\u00a0 No person, Justice of the Peace, or external law can decide whether such a contract is indissoluble or not.<\/p>\n

Milton says that if a man divorces his wife he is not breaking the union that Jesus said was insoluble; he is only breaking the social contract.\u00a0 They were never really married in the gospel sense.\u00a0 Divorce should therefore be permitted for those who do not have the right partners.\u00a0 It is Milton\u2019s respect for marriage in the gospel sense that gives him the outlook on divorce.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/strong> Milton attacks a certain application of censorship\u2013\u2013censorship before publication.\u00a0 Parliamentarily there was no legal basis for censorship until Parliament\u2019s triumph, when it was made legal.\u00a0 The method of licensing was to give all printing to the twenty printing houses in London.\u00a0 This gave them the right to break into houses and find presses.\u00a0 But it is virtually impossible to stop the flow of small pamphlets.<\/p>\n

Areopagus\u2013\u2013court of judges in Athens, elected.\u00a0 To this court the great Athenian orators, such as Isocrates, often gave addresses (Logos Areopagitikos\u2013\u2013a speech to the assembly)<\/p>\n

The larger application of the Areopagitica is that in this revolution they are trying somehow to form the kingdom of God on earth.\u00a0 All through this runs the theory that Britain is the second Israel. England is leading the way in striking down power, superstition, idolatry. England has consistently been the pioneer in the fight for Christian liberty.<\/p>\n

In writing on censorship, Milton is not thinking of pornographia.\u00a0 He is thinking that the things that will be suppressed are political & religious Jews.\u00a0 He says that the idea of censorship rose out of the Council of Trent and the Counter Reformation.\u00a0 He says that this is quite in keeping with the Catholics, but not in keeping with Protestant liberty.<\/p>\n

The censor is going to be always the voice of society.\u00a0 He will speak the voice of the majority, & the majority represents inertia, authority.\u00a0 They don\u2019t want liberty.\u00a0 The crucial distinction for Milton is that the censor will not be able to tell what is above the norm & what below.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/strong> Areopagitica<\/p>\n

Paradise of freedom\u2013\u2013unfallen world\u2013\u2013Gospel\u2013\u2013Tree of Life.<\/p>\n

Wilderness of nature\u2013\u2013fallen world\u2013\u2013Law\u2013\u2013Tree of Knowledge (good and evil)<\/p>\n

God will feel that this world is not the world he made.\u00a0 This is the fault of man, & God tries to give us back the good world.\u00a0 Man attempts to rescue a moral good from his fall.\u00a0 The characteristic of moral good is that it assumes the supremacy of evil. Good is what he rescues from it by contrast.\u00a0 Man knows good only through his knowledge of evil.<\/p>\n

We cannot handle pure good or pure liberty in this world.\u00a0 There has never been a mass desire for liberty or peace that has stuck.\u00a0 Therefore, moral good since the fall has been inseparably a part of evil.<\/p>\n

In the Areopagitica Milton is attacking the view that you can get to be good by separating moral good from moral evil. Milton says you cannot run away from evil; you bring good or evil with you, inside you.\u00a0 \u201cTo the pure all things are pure.\u201d\u00a0 The idea that good is something that retreats from evil is abolished.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI cannot praise a good cloistered away from experience.\u201d\u00a0 Evil is already there in people.\u00a0 You cannot get rid of it.\u00a0 Moral good & evil are inseparably bound up.\u00a0 The only distinctions made are those which society poses as a matter of convenience.\u00a0 (Murder is wrong, war can be right, etc.)\u00a0 This, no one can ever be saved by the law.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a morally good act\u2013\u2013it is a mixture of interpenetrating good & evil.\u00a0 This moral goodness is achieved in negation\u2013\u2013it is a series of don\u2019ts\u2013\u2013don\u2019t drink, don\u2019t smoke, don\u2019t dance, etc. etc.\u00a0 The end man gives for himself is death.\u00a0 It is the only logical end for the negation of activity.<\/p>\n

If we find any good in Christ, it must be extremely different from moral good.\u00a0 He was an explosion of energy which works in this life.\u00a0 This is real good.\u00a0 It is generally consistent with a moral pattern of behaviour.\u00a0 The good & liberty transcend man\u2019s nature, but in the Civil War we have a great explosion of in the desire for liberty.\u00a0 This is in a sense an offering to God.\u00a0 Man cannot gain his own liberty\u2013\u2013all he can do is clear away idols, clear the way, & then let the Word of God circulate.<\/p>\n

Now this licensing of books is a movement back to law\u2013\u2013like Pharisees. Milton says that we must permit bad books to circulate in order that the words of the prophets may circulate.\u00a0 We are less likely to destroy bad books than the prophets\u2013\u2013we are more likely to approve the law\u2011breaker to him who transcends the law.<\/p>\n

Toleration follows as a necessary principle from this two\u2011level way of thinking.\u00a0 Man must always doubt his own action for fear he has misinterpreted God, for a finite mind can never exhaust the revelation of an infinite mind.<\/p>\n

Whenever we say that the revelation consists in such & such, we have stopped worshipping God & begun an adoration of our own faculty of mind for understanding.\u00a0 This is heretical.<\/p>\n

We can never be sure that anyone is totally wrong, so we must admit tolerance.\u00a0 All certainties are boomerangs, for we are putting a period to the revelation.\u00a0 The only certainty is that God\u2019s revelation is a great source of growth.\u00a0 We can never be sure if some new absurdity will arise as another growth from the Gospel.\u00a0 There must always be a doubt of one\u2019s own capacity for understanding.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/strong> The sharp distinction between the Church & the world is in Milton blurred, much more difficult to find.\u00a0 No longer an autonomous institution with Word of God at the centre.\u00a0 For the Bible is outside the Church\u2013\u2013outside & above.\u00a0 A prophet can be literally outside the church.\u00a0 Authority is spiritual & can come from outside the Church.\u00a0 The real Church is the total body of religious opinion & worship in society.\u00a0 Where there is a sincere desire to listen to the Word of God, there can be no heresy.\u00a0 The Church cannot define heresy.\u00a0 The real heresy is to believe what you have been told to believe without trying to understand your own belief.\u00a0 The only heresy in the Bible is in not trying to believe & understand.\u00a0 All quiet acceptance is hypocrisy, which Jesus condemns.\u00a0 Trying to get general acceptance in all society for a certain doctrine is actually worship of self\u2013\u2013trying to get everyone to come around to your viewpoint.\u00a0 Such a man is Antichrist, for he feels all others are heretics.<\/p>\n

With the second Civil War & the execution of Charles I, Milton found himself a politically important figure, for he was one of the few intellectuals on the Cromwellian side.<\/p>\n

In the Old Testament the Jews are in constant rebellion against their lawful rulers, right from Pharaoh on.\u00a0 This seems to be one of the chief characteristics of the people of God.\u00a0 But in the New Testament we hear no word of rebellion against Rome.\u00a0 Everything there counsels submission to temporal authority.\u00a0 So Milton tried to overcome this problem\u2013\u2013to reconcile this with his concept of New Testament thought.<\/p>\n

There is no hierarchy in the Christian Church.\u00a0 All is equal.\u00a0 While society is triangular, the City of God is always a square.\u00a0 When Caesar demanded that which is due to God (i.e., worship), this is where the Christians refused.\u00a0 Caesar hence has somehow or other to come to terms with this society.\u00a0 He must give up his claim to divine worship.\u00a0 Is Caesar going to get along on these terms?\u00a0 If not, he must be removed.\u00a0 And this must be effected only by a revolution of the people of god, for this is the only kind which has any hope of success. Milton has no theoretical view of an ideal society.\u00a0 He therefore has no objection to monarchy as such.\u00a0 There is no pattern of state government laid down by God, so although he joined the Regicides he continued to write panegyrics praising the rule of the Queen of Sweden.\u00a0 What he objected to was the use of the monarchy as a hideout for idolatry.\u00a0 The obedience of the new Testament never talks about compromise with the principles of their religion. Milton\u2019s social contract comes closer to Locke.\u00a0 If the king breaks the contract & becomes a tyrant the people have the right to remove him. Milton is still a little leery of Locke\u2019s contract theory; he talks rather of the contract between God and God\u2019s people.\u00a0 Caesar must in some way fit into this contract.\u00a0 (The tyrant is a projection of innumerable acts of self\u2011worship.\u00a0 A sort of Narcissus of the people.\u00a0 The tyrant is the mirror of the populace.)\u00a0 Cromwell\u2019s dictatorship is excused by Milton as a Judge (from the Book of Judges)\u2013\u2013a strong military leader to aid God\u2019s people in their first bid for liberty.\u00a0 But Milton accepts Cromwell with ill grace & never forgets his role as a prophet.\u00a0 He tells Cromwell & Parliament that the enslaver is actually the first to be enslaved.\u00a0 In such a society of master & slave no one is free.<\/p>\n

Milton seeks constantly to drive a wedge between spiritual & temporal authority.\u00a0 Spiritual authority rests with the people of God.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/strong> In Paradise Lost\u2013\u2013three levels of existence: (1) heaven\u2013\u2013order, which makes the characteristic act of God creation, making order out of chaos.\u00a0 (2) earth\u2013\u2013disorder (3) hell\u2013\u2013perverted order\u2013\u2013everything there is a perverted counterpart of heaven.<\/p>\n

In heaven God is king\u2013\u2013king as unity; but those who serve God do so.\u00a0 Satan\u2019s freedom lies in his being attached to the body of god; once he is severed, he is no longer free.\u00a0 He is impelled to set up his own state, which is based on perfect slavery.\u00a0 Man on earth is torn between these two states\u2013\u2013human societies are constructed on the demonic model.\u00a0 The words that we apply to God have a demonic sense (e.g., God is king\u201d\u2013\u2013but the determined king as dictator, arbitrary ruler\u2013\u2013never was there an earthly king whose passion it was to set all his people free).<\/p>\n

Milton has to meet the notion of the divine right of kings.\u00a0 In his civil liberty pamphlets, his opponents were in a panic, & Milton had to handle the most fatuous & silly arguments.\u00a0 There is a strong tone of irritability in Milton, & his hatred of a popular democracy is influenced by this & the fluid times.\u00a0 Talks of \u201cgolden yoke\u201d\u2013\u2013people like children fascinated by it.\u00a0 The people want Charles because he is bright & attractive superficially.\u00a0 They want their idol back.<\/p>\n

Although Cromwell dies in 1658, the Rump Parliament was the legal power, but the real power was the army.\u00a0 Army tried to carry on the succession by electing Richard Cromwell, but he resigned, so the army led by General Monk called on the king. Milton advises that the Rump Parliament reassert its power, & its rule of longevity.<\/p>\n

Milton suggests a general council or senate.\u00a0 Did not like elections\u2013\u2013chaotic.\u00a0 Also a local magistracy\u2013\u2013the counties should be as autonomous as possible.<\/p>\n

The English people had a desire to end the irksomeness of tyranny, but no great desire to enter the heritage of freedom.<\/p>\n

In Christianity there should only be spiritual authority, no physical force.\u00a0 A heretic should be corrected by the authority of truth against error, & that authority is powerful enough.<\/p>\n

Milton asserts a Protestant position in total opposition to Catholicism.\u00a0 Pope has temporal authority. Milton felt that evils in Christendom arise from temporal authority within the Church. Milton\u2019s principle is the complete separation of spiritual & temporal authority.\u00a0 The real bishop is one of only spiritual authority.\u00a0 He must play only an apostolic role. Milton does not appear to be any more against bishops theoretically than against monarchy theoretically.<\/p>\n

His Of Education theme runs through his Commonwealth.\u00a0 He feels the only way to set people free is through education.<\/p>\n

individual<\/p>\n

heaven<\/p>\n

earth<\/p>\n

hell<\/p>\n

social<\/p>\n

The higher type of society can be achieved only by the individual himself.\u00a0 The free individual has set up an absolute dictatorship in himself.\u00a0 We find this in Plato with the man of strong will who lets reason rule absolutely.\u00a0 This dictatorship cannot be applied to society, or a terrible tyranny would result.\u00a0 This is why education has such a vital role, & this is why the Republic is an educational & not a sociological treatise (See end of Book IX).<\/p>\n

[16]<\/strong> Milton\u2019s Of Education serves to put him in line with all Renaissance humanism\u2013\u2013a new conception of education.\u00a0 In every good theory of education you have a whole body of theory that people ought to know.\u00a0 Cyclic, or encyclopedic education.\u00a0 In Renaissance humanism it was believed that the ancients had written authoritatively on every important subject.\u00a0 This idea of education was geared to the workings of society.\u00a0 Prince educated first, etc. on down<\/p>\n

Milton felt that the classics were authoritative, but the keystone lay in Scriptural revelation.\u00a0 In Scripture you find what Plato & Aristotle, etc. were driving at.<\/p>\n

In all proper education Milton feels that you cannot sever too much the education of the mind from that of the body.\u00a0 (Platonic).\u00a0 He feels it important that boys be educated both in peace & in war.\u00a0 His concept of education had an end in public service.\u2014potential magistrates.\u00a0 He believed in an intellectual balance & proportion\u2013\u2013not so much how much you read, but the balance in your writing. Milton stuffs his list of reading material with authors who wrote in the subject he mentioned but whose works had been lost. Milton is just trying to appear impressive.<\/p>\n

Milton has the same beef against present\u2011day education as had Bacon.\u00a0 The medieval process of knowledge was from large deductive intellectual propositions to the particular, ending where it ought to begin. Milton feels the process ought to be reversed & go from particulars (sensations) to universals (intellectual) following the contour of the young mind\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

N.B. Importance of training students in practical techniques.\u00a0 His potential young magistrates are to know how their country is run, the economic workings.<\/p>\n

The real trouble with Milton\u2019s curriculum is that it is typical of people who construct one after their own education has been finished.\u00a0 He unconsciously eliminates the organic difficulties in learning, distinguishing a rhythm that overlies education & growth as a whole.\u00a0 He assumes \u201cgrammar\u201d is Latin grammar.\u00a0 \u201cThey should have learned by this time at odd hours the Italian tongue\u201d\u2013\u2013unconsciously.\u00a0 He forgets the difficulties of the learning process.<\/p>\n

A great merit of his theme is that he is short on theory, long on the practice of it.\u00a0 (Unlike today with a lot of half\u2011baked psychology in education.\u00a0 Education today is a pseudo\u2011subject.)\u00a0 The Renaissance did not have a theory of education.\u00a0 They were practical.<\/p>\n

All through, Milton was aware of the insufficiencies of the kind of mental training that is not absorbed into personality.\u00a0 He does not make the mistake of saying that books do not tell us about life.\u00a0 Concrete for him not only precedes the abstract, it is also the coping stone for the abstract.<\/p>\n

The highest reaches of literary training are poetic rather than philosophical, for poetry is more concrete than philosophy.<\/p>\n

Poetry, as compared with philosophy is more \u201csimple,\u201d sensuous,* & passionate: Milton\u2019s closest definition of poetry<\/p>\n

* sensuous\u2013\u2013derived from sense experience.\u00a0 Milton himself coined the word to get away from \u201csensual,\u201d which had moral implications.\u00a0 This is the second time it is used.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/strong> Paradise Lost<\/p>\n

Opening speech of Satan in Book IV was written about 1640 for a proposed tragedy. Milton\u2019s political fortune from 1640 to 1660 made him turn this theme of the loss of liberty from a tragedy to a disuse epic\u2013\u2013a notable form.<\/p>\n

In his proposal to do Prince Arthur, Milton would only be copying Spenser, & he didn\u2019t want to do that.<\/p>\n

All the heroic epics up to then were classical\u2013\u2013brave men.\u00a0 So writing an English Christian epic was difficult.\u00a0 In the Renaissance attempts to write a Christian epic were often made simply by substituting\u00a0 a Christian hero for a classical one (e.g., Tasso\u2019s Jerusalem Delivered\u2013\u2013about the First Crusade.\u00a0 The worldly counterpart of the battle of light and darkness\u2013\u2013the new Jerusalem).<\/p>\n

But what is a hero?\u00a0 What is the significance of such a hero as Achilles as a Christian hero.\u00a0 You can perhaps baptize him a bit. Milton was thoroughly sick of the traditional hero; in Christian terms the real hero is one who endures suffering, misunderstanding, etc. to bear witness to his God.\u00a0 This is evident in the Gospels<\/p>\n

What is an act?\u00a0 How can the chopping of other people\u2019s skulls be an act?\u00a0 An act must be a conscious & directed action.\u00a0 Constructive and purposeful.\u00a0 Battles and wars are not.\u00a0 They are only a manifestation of energy.<\/p>\n

Three levels in Paradise Lost:<\/p>\n

(1) divine\u2013\u2013order\u2013\u2013Act of Creation (redemption).\u00a0 When this first world is spoiled, it must be recreated or redeemed<\/p>\n

(2) human\u2013\u2013chaos\u2013\u2013Act of Disobedience.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s chance of keeping his freedom to act or throwing it away.\u00a0 He throws it away<\/p>\n

(3) demonic\u2013\u2013perverted order\u2013\u2013Act of Rebellion.\u00a0 An attempt to rival God.\u00a0 Still negative but has more of an appearance of activity about it.<\/p>\n

This last is a paradox to many of Milton\u2019s great poems.\u00a0 By jumping over a cliff you lose your power of action.\u00a0 By staying where you are you retain your power to act.\u00a0 The Lady in Comus by remaining still at the centre of the action preserves her power to act.\u00a0 Christ in Paradise regained preserves his power by remaining motionless at the devil\u2019s temptations.<\/p>\n

In Paradise Lost Christ is the hero by default.\u00a0 He drives the devil out of heaven, creates the <\/em>\u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, confronts the devil.\u00a0 Reincarnation foretold in Book III<\/p>\n

Abdiel\u2013\u2013the faithful angel (Book VI)\u2013\u2013sets the pattern of heroic action in human life.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s man will find himself in a fallen society.\u00a0 As a result he will become prophetic & be reviled by those around him.\u00a0 This is the true prototype of the human Christian hero.<\/p>\n

What then becomes of the traditional theme of heroism?\u00a0 This is transferred to Satan, who becomes a mock\u2011heroic character.\u00a0 Satan is much like the brooding, ferocious Achilles.\u00a0 Studies revenge, hate.<\/p>\n

As Satan develops in the poem he gradually takes on the form of the dragon of the romance whom the knight was to go out & kill.\u00a0 The drama rests on the attempt at rivalry with God.\u00a0 Satan takes on the idea that God is only a<\/em> god. \u00a0He thus becomes a fatalist, for the God between them becomes Luck or Chance.<\/p>\n

Satan is the leader of the Achilles type.\u00a0 He is a dictator.\u00a0 He takes the qualities of God and applies them to the demonic world.\u00a0 Everything in hell is a perversion, mockery, or parody of heaven.\u00a0 Everything in hell has its counterpart in heaven.<\/p>\n

The figure of Nimrod is the setting up in society as a demonic act.\u00a0 Nimrod is the builder of the Tower of Babel.\u00a0 This is the essence of a rebellious act against God.<\/p>\n

There is in most works of fiction a complete action & the mode of telling.\u00a0 Most writers begin at an interesting point & stop when you get all you need.\u00a0 There is some conception of a total action, but no attempt in a good story to recount the whole action.\u00a0 It was traditional in the epic to begin in the middle of the action with the total action well advanced.\u00a0 In most stories we get a feeling of the total action as cyclic in nature (notably in the Odyssey<\/em>).\u00a0 The total action is from Ithaca back to Ithaca.\u00a0 But the Odyssey<\/em> begins in the middle of the total action.\u00a0 When it <\/em>begins Ulysses is at the farthest point from home.\u00a0 The story goes forward & backward, as Ulysses begins to return home, but also tells a story of how he got to where he is.\u00a0 The Iliad shows this too, except that it is less epic, more dramatic.<\/p>\n

Total action which is cyclic.\u00a0 And a narrative action beginning at the middle and working both forward and backward to the same point.\u00a0 In the Aeneid total action begins in Troy and ends in a new Troy.\u00a0 Aeneas\u2019 action is more positive, creative\u2013\u2013founds a city.\u00a0 His fighting is secondary.\u00a0 But the narrative action begins at the farthest point from his quest\u2013\u2013at Carthage.\u00a0 Recital of story up to this point takes us back to Troy, & the story moves ahead to a new Troy.<\/p>\n

The narrative action of Paradise Lost begins with Satan already fallen & ready to attack the world.\u00a0 Action now back to beginning (speech of Raphael in Books VI, VII, VII) and forward to end (Michael\u2019s speech in Books XI, XII)\u2013\u2013forecasts the return of God to all, which was the starting point of the total action.\u00a0 The foreground story is in Books I\u2013IV and IX.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/strong> Sense of tremendous ease, yet mighty power in verse.\u00a0 Therefore, readable.\u00a0 Choice of metre: Milton took great care to get every detail right, as we can see from the manuscript.\u00a0 You cannot jump in reading from chunk to chunk.\u00a0 He made many tiny corrections, which show how acute his ear was\u2013\u2013\u201cadmiral\u201d to \u201cammiral\u201d as he did not want the \u201cd\u201d sound so he changed the spelling to fit its origin in the Arabic.<\/p>\n

\u201chorrid\u201d = bristling (about Satan\u2019s army).\u00a0 You must know the power of Latin to understand Milton perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cinsinuating\u201d = wriggling (about the snake)<\/p>\n

\u201cherub\u201d is pronounced \u201cker\u016bb\u201d and is a gigantic angel<\/p>\n

The English language has two sources of metre\u2013\u2013native & imported.\u00a0 Iambic pentameter is imported.\u00a0 But the Old English four\u2011beat line lies at the basis of most of Milton\u2019s poetry.\u00a0 If you read the opening of Paradise Lost naturally you will note a four\u2011beat rhythm, although there are ten syllables.\u00a0 This is to be found often in Shakespeare too.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a part of Milton\u2019s genius.\u00a0 Pope and Dryden have only iambic pentameter as the rhythmic beat as well as the formal beat\u2013\u2013heavy & sonorous. Milton has the one beat influencing the other; this makes a twelve\u2011book poem much more interesting.<\/p>\n

In Paradise Lost we have a sequence of verse\u2011paragraph unity.\u00a0 Often this may begin in the middle of a line.\u00a0 A rhythm of prose runs across the other two.<\/p>\n

The function of the long word in English verse.\u00a0 Most of English alone is monosyllabic or derived from monosyllables.\u00a0 A monosyllabic word always demands an accent, however slight.\u00a0 It slows & heavies the rhythm.\u00a0 The long word lightens, brightens up the passage.<\/p>\n

Onomatopoeia \u2013English is unusually rich in onomatopoeic words (words that sound like the action\u2013\u2013\u201crumble,\u201d \u201chiss,\u201d etc.\u00a0 Also certain consonants or combination of consonants create certain effects.\u00a0 For example, in the scene of the serpent tempting Eve, lots of \u201cs\u201d sounds.<\/p>\n

Use of \u201cw\u201d gives feeling of fear, loneliness.\u00a0 Watch for noises made in heaven (strings, woodwinds) & hell (heavy sonorous brass).\u00a0 Read Milton like an orchestra score.<\/p>\n

Two heavy beats in centre of line.\u00a0 You get a sudden heavy somber sonority. Milton uses it rarely but with great effect.\u00a0 (Raphael warning Milton [Adam?] off the tree).\u00a0 \u201cHurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky.\u201d\u00a0 The fall of Satan from heaven.\u00a0 Satan rattles & bumps all the way down.<\/p>\n

The use of proper names: A cheap way in a poor poet to get resonance.\u00a0 Milton uses them rather to sum up a background atmosphere; he doesn\u2019t need the former<\/p>\n

Milton brings up names of heathen gods\u2013\u2013dark gods, oracles, vague, shadowy, elusive names.\u00a0 Satan associated with this.<\/p>\n

Milton also surrounds Satan with names of chivalric romance & their associates in hell.\u00a0 This too is vague, half\u2011forgotten, yet somehow ominous.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to picture a fallen angel\u2013\u2013in Dante the devils are evil & repulsive but not awe\u2011inspiring.\u00a0 They are gargoyles, grinning monkeys.<\/p>\n

But Milton brings in the concept of awe, attractiveness to evil.\u00a0 Adam must fall to something attractive, not repulsive.\u00a0 Adam was to fall to something splendid, powerful, for that was what Satan was\u2013\u2013the awful majesty of evil.<\/p>\n

The particular kind of detachment Milton preserves Shakespeare does not seem able to accomplish.\u00a0 For example, in Macbeth<\/em>, you often say \u201cpoor Macbeth,\u201d but never in Paradise Lost<\/em> do you say \u201cpoor Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n

[19]<\/strong> Atmosphere of first book is one of mysterious darkness with a few sinister lights.\u00a0 very well done.<\/p>\n

Threshold symbol at opening of Paradise Lost<\/em>\u2013\u2013action fairly well advanced, angels have already sunk into next world (like Alice in Wonderland).\u00a0 A gloom here of depression and sadness, loneliness, isolation, terror; also a somber beauty.<\/p>\n

The sea with its great mysterious monster is symbolic in the Bible of the underlying, mysterious, demonic power.\u00a0 Feeling, first of all, of unmitigated blackness, but as angels rise, cloudy shadows group, until we get a segmented mass.\u00a0 A sudden burst of light as Satan gives order & they draw their swords.\u00a0 Pandemonium is built and the book ends in a glitter.<\/p>\n

Book II\u2013\u2013a logic or dialectic of evil that builds up as you go along.\u00a0 The government of hell is a parody of that of heaven.\u00a0 Satan is man\u2019s idea of a leader\u2013\u2013the commander or dictator.<\/p>\n

Cosmology of Paradise<\/em> Lost<\/em>:<\/p>\n

[here Evans reproduces a diagram that Frye put on the blackboard.\u00a0 A cubic, four\u2011square box at the top, representing \u201cHeaven (Empyrean).\u201d\u00a0 An arrow pointing from this to a semicircle of \u201cHell\u201d at the bottom.\u00a0 In between is a series of concentric circles, labeled \u201cThe World, the entire \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 (created after Satan fell).\u201d\u00a0 On each side of the circles is \u201cChaos.\u201d\u00a0 The concentric circles represent the orbits of the planets, the first of which is the moon, the others being \u201cMercury, Venus, Sun, etc.\u201d\u00a0 To the right of this diagram Frye wrote on the board: \u201c4 elements \/ 7 planets \/ fixed stars \/ crystalline sphere \/ primum mobile.\u201d\u00a0 To the left of the diagram, with an arrow pointing to the center of the circular diagram: \u201cHeavy element, earth at centre (water lies on top of earth.\u00a0 Each element seeks its own sphere) (air lies above water)\u2013\u2013Sphere of fire left out.\u201d]<\/p>\n

Milton\u2019s universe is finite.\u00a0 Milton had met Galileo in Florence, & certainly knew the real shape of the universe, but deliberately adopted the Ptolemaic system with man as the centre, for this was the only one of real poetic significance.\u00a0 The Copernican universe would not be suited to the subject matter.\u00a0 Milton puts heaven and hell outside the created universe; gives us the Ptolemaic system with man at centre, with Satan and God vying for him.\u00a0 But he gets also the Copernican feeling of loneliness.<\/p>\n

A baroque poem\u2013\u2013light & shade, disproportion.\u00a0 Milton uses as much disproportion as Dante emphasizes proportion.<\/p>\n

Milton puts mystery into God\u2019s ways.\u00a0 What may appear reasonable to us may not be God\u2019s reason.<\/p>\n

Milton does not give too many details, but fits into the pattern of Genesis 1.<\/p>\n

N.B. Two meanings of heaven: (10 The Empyrean (2) The Firmament, reaching from the Crystalline Sphere<\/p>\n

Beelzebub\u2019s plan\u2013\u2013attack not heaven but the new suburb that is being planned.\u00a0 They intend to frustrate God\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n

How does Satan get through to Paradise?\u00a0 There is only one break in the Primum Mobile & that is the entry through heaven.\u00a0 Satan has to go through chaos to this entry.\u00a0 He has two dangerous spots (on the border of hell & chaos as he passed the sun).\u00a0 He fools Uriel by hypocrisy for an angel cannot understand hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

[in left margin a small diagram showing Satan\u2019s journey from Hell to the point where he is in the cosmos at the end of Book II]<\/p>\n

Guardians of hell his wife & daughter (Sin) by whom he had in incest a son & grandson (Death).\u00a0 A sort of unholy Trinity, or else unholy family (perversion of Holy Spirit, Mary & Jesus).<\/p>\n

Book I\u2013\u2013Satan, great Promethean rebel<\/p>\n

Book II\u2013\u2013Prompts Beelzebub to suggest his plan, & then volunteers to do the job.\u00a0 He is brave but expedient.\u00a0 He volunteers just a little too quickly, and we see the use of expedience.\u00a0 Gets past Sin & Death by dissembling, gets past Uriel by hypocrisy as a Cherub, & then takes on more & more distasteful manifestations, wolf, etc. down to snake on earth.\u00a0 Snake just fits him.\u00a0 The great Promethean rebel becomes less & less great.\u00a0 In Book IV he wants to take all the angels on at once but by Book IX he rejoices in having caused Eve alone.\u00a0 Courage is now superfluous; evil looks for expediency.<\/p>\n

A subtle but inexorable change in Satan\u2019s character.\u00a0 Satan once cut of (as a hand) from God, loses his vitality, is alone, lonely, self\u2011enclosed ego.\u00a0 Pride\u2013\u2013centre of reality in yourself & nowhere else.<\/p>\n

Satan is the undying ego\u2013\u2013the eternal \u201cI\u201d<\/p>\n

Form of pride in Spenser\u2013\u2013Dungeon of Pride (isolation) & Palace of pride (ostentation)<\/p>\n

[20]<\/strong> In Book V Milton works out the dialectic of evil in the speeches from Moloch (sinister \u201cking\u201d\u2013\u2013the idol who demands sacrifice of children) & Beelzebub.\u00a0 Moloch wants to continue direct war against heaven; hence is evil as the active opposite of good<\/p>\n

Belial (an abstract noun meaning worthlessness)\u2013\u2013draws his arguments from the chain of being (the ladder of form or matter\u2013\u2013God is form without matter.\u00a0 Chaos, matter without form).\u00a0 In the spiritual revolt the spirits have unnaturally fallen below chaos, so what they should do is sit tight & they will automatically rise like bubbles to their proper place.\u00a0 Belial is evil as negation.\u00a0 Christianity had to drive a middle course between two extremes: (1) Manichaeism, which is a duality\u2013\u2013evil is a power equal to & coeternal with good.\u00a0 Satan is a Manichean.\u00a0 (2) Pantheistic view (Plotinus) that there is no evil\u2013\u2013it is only a negation.\u00a0 Christianity is in another paradox: morally, evil has an active role; metaphysically & philosophically it is that which is not, the hindrance or privation of good.<\/p>\n

Mammon<\/em>, then, gives us something closer to Milton\u2019s treatment of good.\u00a0 Mammon is evil as the parody of good.\u00a0 Man is in the middle, drawn both ways, & both appear attractive.\u00a0 Man is drawn spiritually to God & naturally through the physical world to the devil.\u00a0 Mammon sets forth a doctrine of isolation\/<\/p>\n

Beelzebub<\/em>\u2013\u2013Since evil is perverted good, it cannot create but only destroy.\u00a0 Since God cannot rest until he has made man, Satan cannot rest until he has destroyed God\u2019s creation.\u00a0 Therefore, Beelzebub is evil as the temptation of Good.<\/p>\n

Sin and Death are the personification of the Manichean & Pantheist views.\u00a0 Sin is evil as active, yet the heart of sin is utter negation, i.e., death.\u00a0 The role of death is different in man than in the devil.\u00a0 Satan cannot die because the devils cannot make the act of surrender\u2013\u2013they go on in a living death.\u00a0 They cannot let go of their lives since they are pure<\/em> lust & pride, ego.\u00a0 Even at their worst, they greatly fear annihilation.<\/p>\n

In Satan\u2019s journey through Chaos, Milton remains deliberately vague.\u00a0 He tries to suggest a world in which there is neither life nor death.\u00a0 In his doctrine of creation, Christianity had to steer a middle course again.\u00a0 If god made the world out of matter which preceded creation, then matter would be co\u2011eternal with God.\u00a0 This is impossible for Christianity.\u00a0 The orthodox doctrine is of God making the world ex nihilo, but this is still out of something else.\u00a0 God did not make the world out of anything.\u00a0 Ex nihilo leads to the pantheistic view that God made the world out of God.\u00a0 Milton\u2019s solution is that God made the world de Deo<\/em>, i.e., from God.\u00a0 Then, what is the role of matter in Milton\u2019s thought?\u00a0 He conceives chaos negatively\u2013\u2013it is that part of the world into which God naturally chooses not to extend Himself.\u00a0 The chain of being is a part of backing\u2011up process as God retracts from his creation, leaving the being he has created, but which is no longer identical with Himself.<\/p>\n

God is seen differently at different stages.\u00a0 God wanted man to be free to choose.\u00a0 His higher creations with a spiritual existence do not have a power of choice.<\/p>\n

God, Spirits, Men: free will.<\/p>\n

Animals, Plants, Minerals, Chaos: existence.<\/p>\n

The workings of God\u2019s mind appear differently at different levels.\u00a0 Angels have direct vision of the mind of God.\u00a0 Man looks up at the creation, so when he conceives of eternal will or purpose, he conceives of it as fate or fortune.\u00a0 Animals or plants fulfill the law of their being in a way half between automatism & choice\u2013\u2013instinct.\u00a0 In the mineral world, automatism.\u00a0 In chaos things are all mixed up\u2013\u2013things happen by luck or chance.\u00a0 See Milton\u2019s journey through chaos\u2013\u2013lucky bounce gets him to earth, but it\u2019s still God\u2019s will acting through matter that gets him there.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/strong> Dec. 17<\/p>\n

Raphael\u2019s views on astronomy not necessarily those of Milton.\u00a0 Must be read in character.\u00a0 Adam has to resist idolatry\u2013\u2013created rather than creation.<\/p>\n

The speech of Michael balances Raphael\u2019s speech.\u00a0 Michael\u2019s parable is a prophecy; Raphael\u2019s, a warning.\u00a0 Book XII is not a poetic success.\u00a0 Transmits Old Testament history.\u00a0 Milton does not feel himself as creator but as transmitter.\u00a0 Rather perfunctory & pedantic at times.<\/p>\n

{Recounting of some incidents in Old Testament interpretation.}<\/p>\n

Paradise<\/em> Lost<\/em>\u2013\u2013Nature of Christian hero.\u00a0 In demonic society the military leader is a sign of Satanic heroism.<\/p>\n

The traditional hero (Ulysses, Achilles) is Satan.\u00a0 The Christian hero in the fallen world is Abdiel.\u00a0 His life must be lived in opposition to this world\u2019s demonic society<\/p>\n

Model\u2013\u2013Incarnation\u2013\u2013life and death of Christ.<\/p>\n

Political moral\u2013\u2013seen in Milton\u2019s concept of liberty.\u00a0 How does man lose liberty & why does he fail in his attempts to restore it?\u00a0 Both questions answered here.<\/p>\n

Liberty\u2013\u2013Divine\u2013\u2013Creation\u2013\u2013Reason<\/p>\n

Hesitation\u2013\u2013Disobedience\u2013\u2013Will<\/p>\n

Bondage\u2013\u2013Demonic\u2013\u2013Rebellion\u2013\u2013Passion<\/p>\n

Milton associates liberty & reason.\u00a0 Adam\u2013\u2013\u201cReason is but choosing.\u201d\u00a0 Man had this freedom & should have chosen choice, but he didn\u2019t & so has lost this freedom.<\/p>\n

The person who really wants to do as he pleases follows reason<\/p>\n

Michael explains the loss of liberty on Adam\u2019s terms in Book XII.\u00a0 The tyrant is the source of authority, the projection of human inertia, love of bondage, passion.<\/p>\n

Reason for Milton is not a logical process, but the power of choice.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/strong> Dec. 18<\/p>\n

In Milton\u2019s conception of the Bible there are three stages of the vision of God which fallen man gets:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0 Moses.\u00a0 Vision of the law\u2013\u2013Israel as chosen people\u2013\u2013allegory<\/p>\n

After the flood, comes Nimrod, who sets up a demonic pattern.\u00a0 A crisis arises & God decides to choose one people, to whom he gives the law so that they may rescue moral good through their knowledge in this world of evil.\u00a0 Knowledge of moral good in this world is secondary, derived from the knowledge of evil.\u00a0 The law in this world is absolutely powerless.\u00a0 No law makes anyone better.\u00a0 \u201cLaw can discover sin, but not remove\u201d [Book 12, l. 290].\u00a0 The law consequently is a kind of allegory of a redeeming power.<\/p>\n

(2) Jesus.\u00a0 Vision of the Gospel\u2013\u2013Israel as God\u2019s people\u2013\u2013revelation<\/p>\n

Brings a new conception of Israel.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 coming cancels out most of what Michael says, for what Michael says in interpreted & seen through the law<\/p>\n

(3)\u00a0 Second Coming of Christ.\u00a0 Vision of apocalypse\u2013\u2013Israel is one with God\u2013\u2013eternal life.\u00a0 Here we have man\u2019s unfallen state again.\u00a0 The city & the garden\u2013\u2013the tree of life & the water of life (the four\u2011fold stream of Eden) return.<\/p>\n

In reading Paradise Lost<\/em> we can hardly help but feel that Adam and Eve are a pair of naughty children who outgrew Eden.\u00a0 We feel that it is almost necessary that they should fall as a natural part of their growth.<\/p>\n

Milton tries to offset this idea in the poem, as it runs against the doctrine he is trying to put across.<\/p>\n

What we get back in the apocalypse is a state of existence & a state of mind, not the physical Garden of Eden.\u00a0 In Book X the Garden of Eden is washed out of the world by the flood; to teach, says Michael, that God knows no sanctity of place.\u00a0 An attack against idolatry.\u00a0 The new order will not be a garden, but something springing up in the mind.<\/p>\n

The sexual act at the end of Book IX shows supreme irony.\u00a0 The two are not together; their minds are apart; they are essentially alone and lonely<\/p>\n

But in Book X we see them going out of the garden hand in hand & this is symbolic that the seed of man has already been planted.\u00a0 A new society has sprung up between them.\u00a0 An impressive tribute here to marriage.\u00a0 Adam & Eve are not two solitudes but one.\u00a0 They are now knot together as they never have been knot before<\/p>\n

The argument shows how the demonic takes more & more of this life.\u00a0 The gradual overthrow of the people of god & their absorption\u2013\u2013Jerusalem in captivity, the Apocryphal Civil Wars, Christ born in obscurity.\u00a0 Then the Incarnation.\u00a0 Following this the world moves in & takes over the Church.\u00a0 So no matter where the true follower of Christ is, he is isolated.<\/p>\n

The rhythms of the whole of Paradise Lost<\/em> are ranged around the poles of creation & destruction.<\/p>\n

Book XI\u2013\u2013The recession of the flood is a superb piece of writing<\/p>\n

City of God (New Jerusalem) & Garden of Eden.<\/p>\n

Earthly City<\/p>\n

(A rhythm here)\u00a0 [Evans reproduces Frye\u2019s blackboard<\/p>\n

diagram of an undulating, snake\u2011like series of U\u2013shapes]<\/p>\n

City of Destruction (Sodom, Egypt, Babylon) & Wilderness, Desert, or Sea<\/p>\n

Captivity in Egypt in Exodus & the wilderness. \u00a0Flood of Noah is one of the down dips (Genesis).\u00a0 All the people of life in a little box floating on the sea.\u00a0 Another dip is all of Israel under Rome.\u00a0 Little manger floating on a vast expanse of snow.<\/p>\n

Christ as the epic dragon\u2011killing hero is the theme which lies in the background.\u00a0 \u201cFrom the loins of Eve will spring a hero who will kill the serpent\u201d [\u201cVirgin Mother, Haile, \/ <\/em>High in the love of Heav\u2019n, yet from my Loynes \/ <\/em>Thou shalt proceed, and from thy Womb the Son \/ <\/em>Of God most High; So God with man unites. \/ <\/em>Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise . . .\u201d Book 12, 379\u201383] & also Adam\u2019s speech to Michael which retains the visual image of Christ fighting the dragon in a spiritual context.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013This leads to Paradise Regained <\/em> & the conflict of Christ & Satan. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

[23]<\/strong><\/em> <\/em>Paradise<\/em> Regained<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Temptation in the life of Christ is almost the only place which is filled with suspense, drama.\u00a0 It is the one time he fulfills the role of the fighter, conqueror.\u00a0 The temptation of Christ is an action which is a passion.\u00a0 As with Comus<\/em> the apparent situation is the exact opposite of the actual.\u00a0 Christ holds all the power & retains his freedom by his inaction.\u00a0 Satan gets all our sympathies.\u00a0 This part of the poem is a parody of the epic form.\u00a0 Satan has to form the dialect of evil, has to refine & subtilize his words; becomes more & more crafty.\u00a0 We get the idea that the external world is unreal, evil.\u00a0 In Paradise Regained<\/em> he deals with temptation in much the same way he treats Eve\u2019s temptation in Book IX of Paradise Lost<\/em>, but with different results.\u00a0 The main thing to watch in this poem is the order of the temptations (he chooses the order found in Luke rather than in Matthew).<\/p>\n

In the Gospel the baptism, Christ\u2019s first manifestation as the Son of God, immediately precedes his temptation.\u00a0 In heaven in Paradise Lost<\/em>, after Christ\u2019s first manifestation, he has to fight the great battle.<\/p>\n

Events in Christ\u2019s life correspond to certain actions in the Old Testament.\u00a0 Christ is taken into Egypt by Joseph, as the Israelites once were.\u00a0 The slaughter of the innocents corresponds to the slaughter of Egypt\u2019s first\u2011born.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s going into the wilderness corresponds to Israel\u2019s wandering in the wilderness (forty days as compared to Israel\u2019s forty years).\u00a0 The choice of twelve disciples corresponds to the twelve tribes.\u00a0 Joshua\u2019s name = Jesus name = Saviour, Redeemer.\u00a0 Moses is not to enter the promised land because he represents the law.\u00a0 Jesus is given his peculiar name because he is like Joshua to lead an attack on the promised land.<\/p>\n

The temptation presents Jesus in a phase of complete withdrawal from the world.\u00a0 Flesh, world, devil seem all equally evil.\u00a0 To pass this temptation he must spiritually withdraw himself from the world; a wholly dissimilar spirit from the world.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 life proves that man hates God\u2013\u2013absolute opposition of token enmity.\u00a0 Through all this time man is under God\u2019s wrath\u2013\u2013the objective regarding of absolute evil by absolute good.<\/p>\n

In Paradise Regained<\/em> the son of God enter the state where he is under the wrath of God.\u00a0 Satan tries to make him accept the heritage of the people since Adam.\u00a0 Christ appears in an unfriendly light; he is here unattractive, but his abnegation of this world is necessary before redemption cam proceed.<\/p>\n

The point at which you lose sympathy with Jesus is the point where you yourself would give in.\u00a0 Christ rejects all of forbidden knowledge\u2013\u2013moral good as well as moral evil.\u00a0 There is a chilliness, iciness about the Christ character.\u00a0 We almost feel he is bored.\u00a0 A kind of aimless skirmishing in some of the opening scenes.\u00a0 This corresponds to the aimless wanderings of the people in the wilderness.\u00a0 Christ refuses to accept bread of the devil in contrast to the Jews acceptance of manna.\u00a0 Christ refuses to fall into the rhythm of the Jewish law.\u00a0 \u201cYour fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead; but I am the bread of life.\u00a0 Satan knows he cannot make Christ do something foreign to his nature; all he can hope to do is to make him the Anti\u2011Christ\u2013\u2013to make Christ seize the outward, physical types (shadows) of his inner spiritual realities; therefore, by rejecting the temptation Christ gets the real spiritual form of all the devil offers him in its perverted physical form.\u00a0 Thus, Satan offers Christ kingship (a substantial job, with a real gold crown\u2013\u2013kingship as it is understood by fallen man).\u00a0 Christ knows this is the shadow of spiritual kingship.\u00a0 In rejecting this he truly becomes king.\u00a0 He rejects human wisdom, philosophy, the knowledge of the fallen human mind.\u00a0 I doing this he becomes wisdom itself\u2013\u2013 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2\u2013\u2013the Word of God.\u00a0 Christ rejects the illusion of Christ, which is man\u2019s concept of him: this would be the Anti\u2011Christ<\/p>\n

But Satan does not accept Belial\u2019s suggestion that he be tempted with woman.\u00a0 Christ takes his mission too seriously for that.\u00a0 If he can be persuaded to take his Messiahship literally, physically this is Satan\u2019s only chance.<\/p>\n

Christ is for one instant in his life paradoxical.\u00a0 Rather than the essentially active love, he for an instant holds this power forcibly within himself while he does a job no one else can do.\u00a0 This is how all the paradoxical symbolism can be worked out.<\/p>\n

In Christ\u2019s wandering forty days in the wilderness, he imitates Moses\u2019 forty years & Elisha\u2019s forty days.<\/p>\n

Satan\u2019s use of banquet to tempt Christ is a difficult point in Paradise Regained<\/em>.\u00a0 It is the strategy, perhaps, of temptation to be beaten once.\u00a0 He knows Jesus is very hungry, & willing to take the opening gambit.\u00a0 After giving Jesus the temptation of stones as bread, & weakening Jesus in that fight, he immediately wheels around & gives him a real barrage of food..\u00a0 Giving Christ stones as bread is appealing to Christ as Jew; the banquet corresponds to Peter\u2019s many meats [Acts 10:11\u201313], which Milton refers to in Areopagitica<\/em>; it is more specifically Christian\u2013\u2013the abnegation of old Jewish law.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/strong> The devil attempts to reduce Christ\u00a0 by appealing to him to take time by its ears.\u00a0 Anticipate God\u2019s time for doing things by becoming a ruler immediately.\u00a0 A particularly subtle temptation.\u00a0 Satan wants to reverse the balance of power\u2013\u2013ally Palestine with the Parthians to knock off the Romans.\u00a0 The temptation of Rome is an even more subtle one than the temptation of Parthia.<\/p>\n

The tempter talks of Glory, i.e., the physical illusion of a glory.\u00a0 Christ keeps his eyes fixed on the spiritual reality & is not fooled.<\/p>\n

But in the temptation of Rome Satan works in the concept of justice, a good emperor.\u00a0 Wants Christ to become a world ruler, the same role that Julian the Apostate later took.\u00a0 Satan could give all fallen knowledge.\u00a0 Julian has been called by Cardinal Newman the Anti\u2011Christ, and we see the subtlety of the temptation here.\u00a0 This time Satan has fallen or moral good on his side; & Christ\u2019s rejection makes us lose some of our sympathy for him.<\/p>\n

Book IV.\u00a0 The next phase is subtler yet, for Satan sees his mistake.\u00a0 He presents Christ with the pagan wisdom of Plato & Aristotle.\u00a0 Again, Satan has moral good on his side & Christ in refusing will lose even more of our sympathy.\u00a0 This is the temptation of Athens.\u00a0 Christ is in the Hebrew tradition, which has to do with revelation.\u00a0 It is not reasonable & discursive.<\/p>\n

The revelation of God as the delivered of man has power behind it.\u00a0 The Greek conception of God as First Cause, does not give God this power and attractiveness as deliverer.\u00a0 The temptation of Christ is more or less \u201cinnocent.\u201d\u00a0 If he had fallen for this, he would conceivably had led a sinless life; although he would have never saved the world<\/p>\n

After that temptation Christ spends the night in the middle of a storm raised by the devil\u2013\u2013evil omens, dreams.\u00a0 Shows the devil\u2019s temptations to be physical as well as spiritual.\u00a0 This storm shows Satan\u2019s own power since his conquest of Adam.\u00a0 The power of waste land, sea, meteors, etc.\u2014the upsetting of nature\u2019s balance.\u00a0 The demonic in human affairs.\u00a0 Christ is shown through this storm that if he insists on waiting for God\u2019s time, he will have the whole order of nature against him<\/p>\n

The end of the devil\u2019s assault on Christ is to place him on the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem\u2013\u2013asks him to jump, telling Christ that it says in Scripture that the angels will be given charge over him.\u00a0 A remembrance that when man climbs to his pinnacle, he is smitten with a kind of dizziness, hubris.\u00a0 Man\u2019s life in tragedy & in the medieval conception is a parabola.<\/p>\n

The devil feels that perhaps Christ may be dizzy, having had all these temptations thrown at him.\u00a0 The devil hopes perhaps some of the illusion of glory has slipped past the guard of his consciousness.\u00a0 If so, he will certainly be dizzy.<\/p>\n

The temptation to fall is a subtle one\u2013\u2013a fascination to throw ourselves over.\u00a0 All a heritage of fallen man\u2013\u2013a \u201cdeath wish\u201d about which psychologists tell us.\u00a0 But Christ has no desire for death, either now or in the time of the Crucifixion.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t go to his death with a will to die.\u00a0 He has protested strongly to God in the garden.\u00a0 He has no narcotic wish for martyrdom.<\/p>\n

In falling Christ would be trusting to luck, i.e., Satan.\u00a0 Hence he would have fallen into the arms of Satan.\u00a0 A new centre of gravity would be established in the world.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s standing on the temple shows the subordination\u00a0 of the old law to the new liberty.<\/p>\n

The devil knows Christ is to be the Messiah.\u00a0 He does not know that Christ was his conqueror (Book VI, Paradise Lost<\/em>).\u00a0 The final evidence of that fact is given on the pinnacle of the temple.\u00a0 Here he finally realizes Christ to be that figure, & the devil\u2019s defeat is complete.\u00a0 It is he that falls.<\/p>\n

[25] <\/strong>Christian hero\u2013\u2013a sufferer, patient.\u00a0 His heroism shown through suffering, obedience.\u00a0 The defeat of the dragon in Paradise Regained<\/em> has no physical heroics about it, has been just a quiet walk in which he changed the history of the world.<\/p>\n

Isolation\u2013\u2013he went out alone to do it.<\/p>\n

Milton always uses decorum\u2013\u2013the proper speech for the proper person. Clowns & satire usually use the low style (Tetrachordon<\/em>).\u00a0 High style is for leaders in Paradise Lost<\/em>.\u00a0 But in Paradise Regained<\/em> the middle style is used\u2013\u2013a quiet, natural, speaking style, & we get it in its perfection of tone.\u00a0 A sort of string quartet rather than a full orchestra.\u00a0 Direct positive style\u2013\u2013immediate rather than obscure references to the Bible.\u00a0 Talk of wood\u2011gods & wood\u2011nymphs in Comus<\/em> would have been worked into the verse, but here they are not.\u00a0 The style remains flat.<\/p>\n

Milton\u2019s conception of originality was to go back to the origins of literature\u2013\u2013to steal as much as possible from the Bible.\u00a0 His originality does not consist in what he adds to the theme, but in how well he can hand on to the reader the great story of the temptation in Paradise Regained<\/em>.\u00a0 He plays down his own role of creative poet in order to be a transmitter.<\/p>\n

(Nietzsche)\u00a0 The great tradition in literature is to copy as much as possible what is great.\u00a0 Try to tell the same story again & tell it better.<\/p>\n

Samson Agonistes<\/em> (Samson the Wrestler or Struggler)<\/p>\n

Samson in Hebrew tradition had tremendous physical strength; at one time he was considered a sun god.\u00a0 The story, derived partly from Mesopotamia, is a primitive one; much more so that the others in Judges.\u00a0 Samson Agonistes<\/em> is an essay on drama which turns its back on the current theatre (Restoration tragedy and drama).\u00a0 Hence, Milton says that Samson Agonistes<\/em> was not meant for the stage.\u00a0 But his drams are not closet dramas; it is a real play.\u00a0 It was written in the Greek form based on an Old Testament story, which was unique at this time.\u00a0 As essay in the Greek classical form\u2013\u2013a religious ritual, surrounding a god.<\/p>\n

Milton is a poet of the \u03b1\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd, the struggle\u2013\u2013we can see this is also the case in Paradise Regained<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the original Greek the hero struggles & wins but dies; then he comes to life later.<\/p>\n

In Samson Agonistes<\/em> the form is followed\u2013\u2013he struggles against temptations; then there is the pathos when he dies in victory; finally, the lost memory & glorification of deeds is made immortal.<\/p>\n

The last line of the play shows a preoccupation with Aristotle\u2019s \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c3\u03b7.<\/p>\n

Emotions of pity & fear are emotions directed towards & away from the characters.\u00a0 Tragedy must pass beyond these emotions.\u00a0 (In Othello<\/em> Desdemona deflects our pity; Iago our fear, & we have mixed feelings about him.\u00a0 The tragedy in no way depends on the moral worth of the hero.)<\/p>\n

Tragedy itself must not be associated with pity or fear; it just happens.<\/p>\n

This carries over to Samson\u2013\u2013he is neither a good man or a bad man.<\/p>\n

The full meaning of any Old Testament story for Milton is derived from the New. \u00a0Hence Milton finds the significance of Samson in the life of Christ.\u00a0 Christian meanings are to be discovered here.\u00a0 Samson goes through the same type of process as the Messiah.<\/p>\n

Manoah, Dalila, & Harapha represent Samson\u2019s fight for liberty & roughly correspond to religious, domestic, and civil liberty.\u00a0 There are many analogies between Samson & Milton: both blind giants under the power of the Philistines.\u00a0 Samson tried to free the Israelites before, but had been defeated because his countrymen deserted him (like Milton).<\/p>\n

In Paradise Lost<\/em> and Paradise Regained<\/em> the action is foregrounded.\u00a0 They are all puppets.\u00a0 The only one who really acts is Christ & he is the expression of God\u2019s will.\u00a0 There is only one point of view of the action\u2013\u2013the will of the Father produces the whole show.<\/p>\n

In Samson Agonistes<\/em> we again have the conception that the real source of power is working behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/strong> Samson Agonistes<\/em><\/p>\n

In tragedy there is always a contest between the hero and some other force.\u00a0 It may be called God (as in Samson<\/em>), or fate, etc. or undefined.\u00a0 But it is a force on the other side of the stage to the audience.\u00a0 It is unseen.\u00a0 The tragic hero can be set against the force & be broken, or set against it and finally become reconciled to it after the contest.\u00a0 Tragedies of passion<\/em> & serenity<\/em>.\u00a0 The Oedipus Rex<\/em> is a tragedy of passion; he is broken.\u00a0 The Oedipus at Colonus<\/em> is one of serenity.\u00a0 Oedipus dies, but is reconciled to it.\u00a0 Samson Agonistes<\/em> is like Oedipus at Colonus<\/em>.\u00a0 There is a real serenity at the end.<\/p>\n

First of all we find Samson as himself, as his own character\u2013\u2013a situation comic to the Philistines, tragic to the Israelites\u2013\u2013doing sport for the Philistines, but the bondage of the saviour of the Israelites.\u00a0 Then suddenly it is all reversed.\u00a0 The Israelites\u2019 humiliation becomes their triumph.\u00a0 And the Philistines end in tragedy.\u00a0 The same situation occurs in the passion of Christ.\u00a0 Christ is the subject of mockery, a buffoon.\u00a0 Then suddenly it turns into a triumph for Christ & his followers.\u00a0 For Samson we have a turning point with a very involved double meaning.<\/p>\n

Use of messenger.\u00a0 Greek tragic touch.\u00a0 When he says he won\u2019t go entertain the Philistines, he comes to the end of his own will.\u00a0 Then suddenly he changes his mind\u2013\u2013quite suddenly without apology.\u00a0 Here another force has taken over Samson\u2019s will.<\/p>\n

The turning point is inscrutable, but we know that Samson is the sole mediator between the audience and that force on the other side of the stage.<\/p>\n

In most tragedies the hero is not usually the legitimate hereditary ruler (\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2) but rather a chosen leader or a leader whose position is insecure (\u03c4\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, or imperator).<\/p>\n

Samson is surrounded by a world of mocking voices.\u00a0 People stare at him uncomprehendingly, & he is unable to stare back.\u00a0 Almost total condemnation of him by those he loves.\u00a0 Naked & elemental human relationship between Samson & Dalila.\u00a0 After this scene we have the stock comic miles gloriosus<\/em> scene.<\/p>\n

Parts a bit wooden, but most of the versification is wonderful in English.\u00a0 Radical & flexible free verse, which is truly great.\u00a0 The \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 [chorus] passages are wonderfully free & yet hold together by a rhythm we cannot quite see.<\/p>\n

Greek tragedy was still partly a religious ceremony & corresponds perhaps to the Christian Eucharist.\u00a0 The tragic hero usually dies and hence a sacrifice.\u00a0 Sort of a half\u2011human, half\u2011divine body of the hero (like Christ in the Mass).<\/p>\n

Tragedy is impersonal.\u00a0 Not a thought of morality.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/strong> [Paradise<\/em> Lost<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Three stages of Satan\u2019s advance (1) Building the castle in hell (2) Opening the door into Chaos, making Hell and Chaos continuous (3) Making Adam & Eve fall, so that Chaos can flow into the \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 [cosmos] making all three continuous.\u00a0 When \u03c7\u03ac\u03bf\u03c2 [Chaos] is made continuous with \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 the world swings 22 \u00bd degrees off the perpendicular, beasts of prey come on earth, etc.<\/p>\n

Book III.\u00a0 Praise of heaven\u2019s great light at opening\u2013\u2013contrast with Book I.<\/p>\n

God the father is now turned into a gramophone record announcing the Creed.\u00a0 Milton accepted the doctrine that the Father is unknowable except through the Son.\u00a0 Therefore, he makes a mistake in terms of his own theology in letting God speak here.\u00a0 He puts God\u2019s argument concerning man\u2019s place into the mouth of God.\u00a0 He knew man was going to fall but did not compel him to do so.\u00a0 Therefore, he is not responsible.\u00a0 Sets a baited mousetrap in front of Adam\u2013\u2013a wide open fallacy which would never stand up in a court of law.\u00a0 God in his very creation of Adam creates him in the knowledge that he would fall.<\/p>\n

If a man has been framed by God, irresistibly compelled, then you chuck out the principle of divine providence & intelligence & substitute a sort of mechanical causation.\u00a0 Man\u2019s fall is then the cause of God\u2019s will.\u00a0 But the poem has man falling by his own will, and God\u2019s taken up with the problem of redemption.\u00a0 So Milton separates God\u2019s knowledge of man from God\u2019s action on man, so that his will can express itself in redemption, not in making man fall.<\/p>\n

Accepting this principle in Paradise Lost<\/em> every crisis seems to be followed inevitably by the next step, but every step is actually not inevitable; at each step there was a possibility of freedom.\u00a0 Therefore, through the chaos of the weak argument Milton is trying to show God\u2019s great love for man\u2013\u2013trying to make this love intelligible.<\/p>\n

Book III sets the stage for the reverse movement.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s promise to step into the \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 & defeat Satan, driving him back.\u00a0 Ingenious parallel between heavenly council & Satan\u2019s council (in Book II)\u2013\u2013hesitation before someone volunteers.\u00a0 Becomes from there a heroic conflict between Satan & Christ.<\/p>\n

Limbo of Vanities\u2013\u2013Satan\u2019s [position on the primum mobile<\/em>.\u00a0 This sick bit of humour degenerates into an attack on the Catholic Church\u2013\u2013has no business here.\u00a0 But the Limbo of Vanities does mark the extent of the power of people who try to make their own salvation without regeneration.\u00a0 They try to achieve heaven alone & fall just short, as Satan does here.\u00a0 Satan gets past the angel by using hypocrisy.\u00a0 From here on Satan\u2019s medium is sneaky\u2013\u2013disguise.\u00a0 Not like a true heroic character.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/strong> The cosmology of the poem is part of its poetic shape.\u00a0 The chain of being is intrinsic in Milton\u2019s poem.\u00a0 Each level has its primate, i.e., the most perfect form\u2013\u2013e.g., rose dolphin, lion, eagle, gold, man (as opposed to woman).\u00a0 The chain of being ranges from pure form to pure matter.\u00a0 Where in this chain does the material pass into the spiritual in man?\u00a0 The physiology in Milton\u2019s time, besides the four humours, divides man into three groups of spirits or fluids which are on the border between material & spiritual.\u00a0 These were (1) Digestive spirits (2) vital (cordial) spirits\u2013\u2013bloodstream, emotion, heart (3) Animal spirits (animus = soul) = intellectual spirits.<\/p>\n

The conflict of Christ & Satan has for Milton not only a moral but a physical reality.\u00a0 Satan is the explosion of Chaos into the cosmos, the world of God\u2019s creation.\u00a0 Book X is a partial triumph for Satan\u2013\u2013the world become half\u2011chaotic.<\/p>\n

In Book III as Satan ends his journey to the world, he takes the forms of the fallen world..\u00a0 Just as he must attack Paradise instead of heaven, Satan must attack Eve instead of Adam, for Eve is the link with the animal world.<\/p>\n

He tries dreams\u2013\u2013Milton feels dreams represent desires, which are churned up from Eve\u2019s inferior spirits.\u00a0 Literally, her lower self.\u00a0 Chaos enters her.\u00a0 She loses her balance and feels herself a self\u2011enclosed creature.\u00a0 Pride enters.\u00a0 In her dream she wishes the one thing she is not to have, and from this gets a feeling of exaltation, flying, rising on the chain of being.<\/p>\n

The angel\u2019s dropping in for lunch and talking for three books has a result that we do not realize how the dramatic results of Book IX follow so swiftly on the opening lines of Book V.\u00a0 Eve already feels (1) Desire (2) Exaltation (3) Individual.\u00a0 For the first time in her life, at the opening of Book IX she wants to be in insulation, luxury.\u00a0 She is now defined as target for Satan\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

Satan disguises himself as a royal serpent, who until the fall slides around on his rear.\u00a0 Satan gives her flattery designed to appeal to her self\u2011enclosed feeling; but he doesn\u2019t actually want her conscious self to hear him.\u00a0 \u201cInto her heart Satan\u2019s words found their way\u201d [\u201cInto her heart too easie entrance won,\u201d Book IX, l. 734].\u00a0 He slips past the guard of her consciousness into her subconscious.<\/p>\n

Eve stands agape, wondering how the serpent can talk.\u00a0 He says from eating of a certain tree.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t stop to think of what tree, so she is confronted with it in the physical sense before she realizes what she is doing.\u00a0 She now repeats all that Satan has been slipping into her subconscious.\u00a0 She eats, and the fallen world is now divided from the world of God & spirits.\u00a0 Woman is the wedge that splits this.\u00a0 Eve worships the tree\u2013\u2013this is (1) an act of idolatry (2) the consummation of a contract with the fallen world.\u00a0 She now is a temptress, a wedge, when she confronts Adam.<\/p>\n

She no longer wants to be seen; she feels a remoteness between heaven & earth; she resents the thought of being watched..\u00a0 She wants secrecy, self\u2011enclosure.\u00a0 She is now in a state of pride,& everything she comes in contact with is subordinated to her; she desires to possess them.\u00a0 Hence, for the first time she feels jealousy.<\/p>\n

The fall of Adam is perfunctory.\u00a0 He falls in full consciousness, without the flutter & dither that was in the mind of Eve.\u00a0 Adam has the choice of sticking with his Creator or going over to the fairest of the created.\u00a0 The act is essentially one of chivalry.\u00a0 Adam does what we feel any other man would have done in his place.\u00a0 If we could not feel this, we would not be involved in the fall of Adam.\u00a0 It is essential to maintain this feeling.<\/p>\n

The original story from which the story of Adam & Eve is derived is the threat of the Gods by man.\u00a0 The Gods fear that Adam will reach for the tree of life after he eats of the forbidden tree.\u00a0 The Gods feel that Adam might become a God.\u00a0 In Milton we see something of this too.\u00a0 Adam must not eat of the tree of life for he must not live forever in the fallen world.<\/p>\n

Last part of Book IX is full of wonderful subtlety.\u00a0 Adam becomes the first natural man\u2013\u2013they feel naked, try to cover themselves, hide.\u00a0 They are naked & resent being looked at.\u00a0 This sense of deep melancholy which surrounds the noble savage is found in Adam.\u00a0 Ironic sense of isolation\u2013\u2013being cast out from a society.\u00a0 Self\u2011enclosed yet under a curse.\u00a0 The working out of a state of pride.<\/p>\n

The comes the working of sexual lust.\u00a0 Milton is careful in handling sex relations.\u00a0 Before the fall, sex relations are a matter of love\u2013\u2013Adam\u2019s love for Eve.\u00a0 After the fall, it is lust\u2013\u2013a<\/em> man desires a<\/em> woman.\u00a0 The desire for satisfaction of an urge\u2013\u2013the feeling of possession of another\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

[29] <\/em><\/strong>Books I\u2013IV, IX\u2013X\u2013\u2013continuous action, well planned.\u00a0 Books V\u2013VIII\u2013\u2013Raphael\u2019s speech, where we go back to the chronological beginning.\u00a0 Adam is to be introduced by Raphael to Christ.<\/p>\n

To create is to create in time.\u00a0 The Son does not live in time; he is begotten from eternity.\u00a0 The Son was begotten from eternity, but when God makes Christ manifest for the first time\u2013\u2013\u201cThis day I have begotten my son\u201d\u2013\u2013he says this.\u00a0 This is the first occasion of Christ\u2019s being shown.<\/p>\n

Parallels which link the Christ in the speech of Raphael with the speech of Michael about Christ:<\/p>\n

Defeat of Satan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cleansing of temple<\/p>\n

Creation out of chaos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Command of the sea to be still<\/p>\n

(command of chaos<\/p>\n

symbolized by the sea)<\/p>\n

Creation of Adam\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Incarnation<\/p>\n

Fall of Adam\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Temptation<\/p>\n

Two of the four gospels are nativity gospels, & they deal with time.\u00a0 Mark & John begin with the baptism\u2013\u2013Christ\u2019s first earthly manifestation (epiphany). \u00a0This corresponds to his relation to the angels as described at the beginning of Raphael\u2019s speech about him.\u00a0 (We have called epiphany the exhibition of Christ to the Magi, but such is not the case in the Eastern Church, which still calls epiphany the baptism.)<\/p>\n

Abdiel is the Christian hero for Milton\u2013\u2013remaining faithful among the revolting angels, just as a Christian must in the fallen world.\u00a0 Satan makes the mistake of thinking Christ came later than the angels, rather than knowing him to be an eternal manifestation of God.<\/p>\n

God\u2013\u2013time as eternal present (no distinction of time as past, present, future.\u00a0 Whole of time contained in the eternal presence)<\/p>\n

Angels\u2013\u2013Time as energy of eternal life (sense of presence).\u00a0 Angels have day & night for enjoyment, alternation of moods: L\u2019Allegro<\/em> & Il Penseroso<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Unfallen Man\u2013\u2013\u201ca little lower than the angels\u201d\u2013\u2013not temporary.\u00a0 More of necessity<\/p>\n

Fallen man\u2013\u2013time as temporary duration (we are blessed with death since Adam didn\u2019t get to hold the tree of life)<\/p>\n

Devils\u2013\u2013time as unending duration (our sense of infinite time)<\/p>\n

All action centres on a certain moment.\u00a0 God\u2019s moment is Incarnation, when the timeless enters the world of time.\u00a0 Our moment is Adam\u2019s choosing death instead of eternal life<\/p>\n

The war in heaven anticipates not only the cleansing of the temple, but Christ\u2019s death & resurrection.\u00a0 The battle takes three days.\u00a0 The second day, evil has some success\u2013\u2013corresponds to Christ\u2019s struggle with death & hell.\u00a0 The third day the Son of God goes forth to war.\u00a0 Sulphurous fumes.\u00a0 Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot\u2013\u2013the invention of gunpowder by the devils\u2013\u2013all tie in in Milton\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Discussion in Book VIII of Copernican & Ptolemaic universe systems seems to detract from the poem.\u00a0 Milton knew the score, having met Galileo, and he does not need here to try to justify his poetic choice of the Ptolemaic universe.<\/p>\n

But in the context of Raphael\u2019s character, the harangue does have some merit.\u00a0 Raphael tells Adam the kind of knowledge he needs for his salvation.\u00a0 The Ptolemaic universe, which makes us the centre.\u00a0 Raphael centres Adam\u2019s attention on his immediate situation.\u00a0 Temptation comes from without.\u00a0 Adam needs his inner strength.<\/p>\n

At the end of Book VIII, when Adam says he adores Eve, Raphael bawls him out on the dangers of idolization.\u00a0 This is exactly the cause of Adam\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily English 3j was devoted to both Spenser and Milton, but for this year Frye lectured only on Milton.\u00a0 The daily notes are undated (except in two instances), but there appear to have been twenty\u2011nine class sessions.\u00a0 Whether the lectures on Paradise Lost that come at the end (27\u201329) are out of sequence is uncertain: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-8249","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nPeter J. A. 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