Paradise Lost (Book-IX & X) by John Milton
John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608. He wrote Paradise Lost by dictating the poetry to his daughter as he was blind at that time. Paradise Lost was published in 1667, a year after the Great Fire of London.
It is going to be impossible after this point for human beings to enjoy a friendly conversation with an angel. So this is how Book IX begins. With the departure of Rafael, man will never again be permitted to enjoy enviable discourse unblamed. Milton means that befall brings certain restrictions, specifically the restriction of language, and there start to arise constraints on speech which Milton called here talks. The Angel Michael will continually criticize and correct Adam's talk. So there is an enormous range of consequences and Milton has divided them into two categories i.e. Mythic consequences and Psychological consequences. After the fall, Adam and Eve were finished with bad weather. Milton tries to represent this punishment with as many scientific specificities as he possibly can. There were cosmic shifts. These mythically imagined astronomical alterations will bring with them the flour seasons, the inclement winds, and the biting cold that plague forever and forever the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Considering the magnitude of these cosmic shifts, it is more interesting, that the effect Milton laments is the effect of consciousness and the effect on speech. Even Milton says that his own talk, his own speech is being affected by the subject.
- Misogyny - a hatred of women, as a sexually defined group.
It is important that Milton has waited so long to explain his rejection of zanra of romance. The rejection of romance has everything to do with his imagining it with the consequences of falling into Paradise Lost. One of the more convincing elements of the temptation of Eve is his attempt to turn her act of disobedience into an act of romance. Therefore, Eve is a heroine of romance as if he were saying, Listen Even if I don't what you heard you are not a character in Biblical tragedy, in a Biblical epic, you are a wandering knight in a romance. Your only job is actually to prove your courage, prove your virtue. her courage has been praised rather than her disobedience blamed. So Milton rejects the zanra of romance. This poem is filled with images of wandering.
Eve has the tendency of wandering and that to the real cause of her fall. The word wandering appears 32 times in Paradise Lost. God gave us a mind that wanders beyond our limits. How the four rivers of Paradise spread out and travel throughout the earth. The river is divided into four streams and wandering. Wander is a motion that doesn't follow a pre-determined, pre-distant path. Then wandering is necessarily always from the constraint of an internal force.
That is not just Adam who is responsible for the reduction of Eve's wandering to the status of a small error. Eve falls in deception and Adam falls in love. Adam was not deceived to eat the forbidden fruit but was finally overcome by female charm. Adam's fall was for a different reason than Eve's fall. He knew precisely what he was doing
Adam scruples not to eat his better knowledge.- Scruple - moral or ethical consideration that tends to restrain action or behavior.
But Adam's fall was because of his sense of marriage bond actually. He said that our state can not be suffered, we are one, one flesh, to lose you, to lose myself. His fall was out of connectedness but it doesn't because he has been seduced by his wife.
- Allegory - symbolic work, or symbolic expression of meaning in the story; a work in which the characters and events are to be understood as representing other things and symbolically expressing a deeper, often spiritual, moral, or political meaning.
- Mesmerize - absorb somebody's all attention.
Some of the main & important points
- Milton - 17th century (1608 - 1674).
- He lived right before Shakespeare.
- He lived in England.
- He wrote in Italian, Latin, and English.
- He lived during restoration.
- He did not believe in the traditional Christian "Trinity", one God in 3 representative forms.
- "Making a heaven of Hell" - you have to make the best of the situation.
- There is no shame in being a servant.
First Book of Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is a long poem running over 300 pages and it has 12 books. The first book is very important because here Milton is spreading out a plan and he restricts this plan because this being the long poem, an epic, in fact, would require mental preparation of the readers in book one. So right, in the beginning, Milton would be talking about the planes that he is to execute in poetic terms.
To understand Milton, one has to refer to his time and so the level of talent is considered, Milton is an extension of what Shakespeare left as a kind of heritage, as a kind of tradition and the times were important. The late 16th century or the 17th century were times of a different kind. This was a very historical epic and very rarely do such historical epics have such developments that inspired not just one or two but most of the writers, intellectuals, thinkers, activists, etc. So Shakespeare was closing his inning and Milton was beginning from there. England was ruled by James I at the time and he was a different kind of king than Elizabeth. She died in 1603. So time with its development and strength is being carried forward intellectually and literary from Shakespeare to Milton in this particular case. Times are changing quite fast and the times are witness to the growth and development of parliament that was totally in the hands of the king but one never knows because it has a dynamic of its own. Parliament means debates, parliament means framing policies, and parliament means gauging the temperature of life of the people around us, their requirements, and their needs. The king has one view and the parliament has another. Society is always developing, always going, and always expanding in its production and management. Therefore, one can say that in the late 16th century and early 17th century, a trend began, and the trend is of what is called different kinds of production. It would not be just a peasant base or an agricultural base. There will be a large team of workers in the cities and there be a great deal of trade also. England was rising in the matter of trade so much so that it was outgoing to certain other countries in Europe at that time, and a lot of wealth was being created in England and this wealth was in the hands of traders, merchants, or people in the cities. This wealth and its power now translate into political activism in the parliament and this is a direct connection with what Milton does. Then he chooses as a young man when he starts grasping the reality of his time. So Milton was born and when was 10 years, 15 years, and 20 years. This is the time when the parliament is going to strength, and the king is becoming weaker and weaker day by day. so the pendulum is on the side of the parliament. The king felt the pressure, and heat and was threatened all the time by the parliament he dissolved the parliament almost every year, and yet he did not succeed in containing the pressure of the parliament at that time. Parliament on its side gets strength from its followers. who are the common masses, of course, the king and court will not support the parliament? The fat of the courters and nobles was related to the fat of the king, and therefore they were willing to support the king. But then the parliament and the trading lobby there and seats in the parliament were available for sale also. So the rich and new landlords always wish to enter the parliament and play their role there and all these things happen simultaneously and the country and society change at the grass-root.
If the people are taking part in the parliamentary activities and the country's politics and the people are ranging behind the trading merchant community, then the message of change is going from the center which is London to all corners of the country. It means a kind of mass awakening is happening on the 16th. Milton is breathing in all these factors so that they will finally become a part of his mind and consciousness. A kind of republican spirit, a kind of republican sense is now coming in, in the air. It is in the ideological air, political air. People discuss things in the city. They also have things in small towns and even the ruler areas. The form of discussion can shift from one area to another. Maybe it's about religion, culture, entertainment, and simple ways of life.
All these things are connected at that
time and people are discussing them with coming to England of Protestantism in
the 16th century. A large number of people are now directly hearing
about the Bible, directly reading the Bible and when you read the Bible
yourself and you start discussing it, then a different view of the Bible emerges
in the country. Earlier people would go to the priest and the priest would tell them
what is there in the Bible, and then the priest also would tell the message of the
Bible as interpreted by the people. But now the priest talks directly to the
people and there is a kind of influence by reading the Bible on the people. So, a
new kind of religion sense if happening when a religion becomes a part of
social life, and when a religion becomes a part of social life, then it is not
affecting social life. On the other hand, social life itself starts affecting
religion. Now religion is not as much God-centered as it becomes social-centered because people are discussing it, and they are putting pressure on the
religion. So, the religious debate becomes at that time a kind of vehicle of
ideas that will travel from one place to another, and a kind of area in which
ideas will sprout, ideas will be generated there and these ideas will finally
accumulate in the culture in the air and then in literature. Milton lives in the middle of all these. So, this republican spirit is growing day by day in
England at the time of Milton is growing.
King James died when Milton was 20 years and his son took over, and then the crisis became still deeper in English political life. Milton at the time was post-graduated and he was reading Greek Literature, Greek thought, and the Greek language. He is reading Italian. He is reading Latin. He was a great scholar, and his name spread in England at that time as a great scholar in the early 20 years of age and he became a poet. In 1930 Milton jumped into political activities and this was in the form of writing pamphlets and studying things nearer one’s heart. For instance, there was a big debate going on at that time regarding the desirability or acceptability of divorce. Now Christianity takes one view of the human relationship between man and wife but can divorce happen? Milton takes part in this debate and writes a whole pamphlet. In this debate, he is quite open. Milton takes an intellectual stand that is open, which is curious to study things and if things are changing, the world is changing, then the definition of the older relationship also changes. He was on the side of Cromwell and he wrote political pamphlets for him to support his cause, and when the civil war happened in the late 30s or early 40s, Milton was directly a part of it. He was a political activist and a great philosopher and can compare what was happening in England in the 17th century with what happened in Rome many years ago, and what happened in Greece. His range of imagination and comprehension is expanding. In the meantime, he also started writing poems but then there is a setback to Republicanism. In 1650, in that crucial period, the parliament was in the hands of Cromwell and things were working really fine. It was not the same in England as it was 20 years ago. Now literature has to serve a purpose in society and that is what Cromwell wants to tell people. people also start asking about the efficacy and appeal of literature. So, under the Puritan influence, the playhouses, and the theaters were closed because they generally spread all kinds of ideas and irresponsible anarchy. So social, cultural, and ideological scenes are changing drastically in 1650 and later. Cromwell dies and his son can’t carry his mission quite far. Milton’s hands were tied and were identified with an old cause, Republicanism. The parliament was strong but they called back the king for a very narrow reason.
These were the things that happened in
most of the histories. When the parliament gains strength with the support of the
people, then parliament wants to build a distance between itself and the
people. So, now they will curb the people. As the new king was at the mercy of
the people, therefore, parliament didn’t need more support. It means the
country now is coming down heavily on those people who actively participated in
the social change. So, in this case, where should Milton go? He was a Republican, he was an activist. He raised the people, and he wrote pamphlets but now when the times have changed, the same government, the same regime that earlier took part in the section that came to the regime now wants to curb all the freedoms and liberties of ordinary masses because Milton in their champion and therefore, they would not Milton to raise, speak or act further. This was the time when Milton turned to writing. He was in a state of house imprisonment even though whatever he wrote was also checked. So he started planning a different activity for himself which is poetry. He lived a very hard life and he almost turned blind. Therefore, he took help from his daughter who was grown up at that time. He requested her to take down whatever he spoke.
So, Paradise Lost is a poem that is dictated by Milton to his daughter. Imagined the kind of mind Milton had. Without having a second look at the page he wrote Paradise Lost. Everyone makes changes after writing but Milton didn't have eyes, and couldn't see the paper. Three hundred pages long poem, a poem that consists of 12 thousand lines as every book has more or less than 1000 lines. Milton decided to write an epic in the 17th century in English. He could easily write an epic in Latin as he was a great Latin scholar. English was not a developed language. Then Shakespeare introduces English and Milton takes it further.
Milton writes to tell people what happened earlier. So, he is a kind of historian, a kind of poet who shares perspective with the audience, and when that happens. Milton raises the level of English very high. English doesn't have a vocabulary. English doesn't have a large number of words that will suit an epic. Therefore, he borrowed words from Latin and Greek. He writes long sentences. The first sentence of Paradise Lost is almost 19 lines. The sentence goes on and on. This shows that Milton is borrowing certain aspects of the writing of the original ancient epic writers. the kind of poetic genius and poetic level Milton had described beautifully by the 19th-century thinker called Mark. Somebody asked him what he thinks of Milton. Mark replies, "Milton writes poetry the way silkworm produces silk". What a beautiful simile, as silk comes naturally to silkworms, just like Milton produces poetry naturally. By nature Milton is a poet, says Mark. He spontaneously says and may pause sometimes only to wait for her daughter to write. So, he effortlessly renders the whole perspective. He doesn't make a conscious effort and he simply dictates and that's why he became the darling of the 18th-century Romantic Poets.
Initially, Milton had the plan for this particular content to write in drama mode, certain characters give roles and those characters will speak their own ideas in the drama but he changed his plans and thought of epic writing.
What is the difference between an epic and a drama? There are two different roles. In an epic, you are supposed to sing alone, you are supposed to comment and you are supposed to give your own vision and your own emphasis also. You are standing in front of the audience as they are the representatives, they are entertainers, and somebody who is explaining to them and letting them know about what happened sometime earlier. This is the role of the epic writer. On the other hand, a dramatic writer just visualizes the situation and assigns the roles of the character. Those characters come on the stage and speak their lines and then they just carry on with the clashes, agreements, and disagreements on the stage itself, and the dramatist who has given them lines is standing in a corner.
It means that the dramatist doesn't have an opinion. The opinion of the dramatist is in some way expressed by the characters on the stage. So there are two different forms of writing. Milton, later on, though he should not use the drama mode, he should use the epic mode. When he talked about content, that was supposed to be dramatic initially and gave it the form of epic certain forms of drama silently crept it. So, we have long speeches in Paradis Lost, and speeches are made by different characters. When the speeches are introduced, Milton makes a comment and at the of the speech, also makes a comment and then lets the other person speak. Now there is a problem with respect to this, and a very creative, a very fascinating problem. Milton is thinking now of writing an epic in English, taking inspiration from Latin and he will follow certain conventions of writing, without conventions, he can not write an epic, you have to be very formal, you stand in front of two or ten thousand people, therefore, you have to be former, therefore, Milton starts to book one with a former statement, and this former statement is to be supposed to one of the finest statement, a statement with is discussed by all students of English Literature at some point or at the other. this statement is in fifteen or nineteen lines or so and this is supposed to be just one sentence and this is not an English sentence.
This is not an English sentence as an English sentence always starts with a subject but in Latin, a sentence doesn't start with a subject, and Milton deliberately chooses it. For instance, the first sentence is, "Of man first disobedience", and after, finally he says I sing. Whereas I sing should be at the beginning, and this creates a kind of effect, which is difficult to ignore. So, Milton is using a Latin kind of style and long sentences as that is a formal thing. The subject of his epic is "Man's Disobedience". Human beings disobey, God. That is how the poem begins and is an explanation of man's disobedience. So, it is a religious poem. He is going to justify the ways of God to man. This is what he says in the second line. It means the principles of God, the ideas of God. These ways, the poet is going to justify, to hold them true. To prove they are true, he tells the people to come back to the fold of God and should start believing in him. He will justify, he will give reasons. So, the epic's purpose is very clear. He will talk to human beings distrusting God, disagreeing with Him, flouting his wishes, and coming to grieve for that reason, and God will be angry with them and therefore, he will tell them how they can come back to his fold. Milton in a way is intervening between God and man. So, one part is a man one part is God and the intervening part is Milton. What he is doing? I think he has subverted the ideas of religion. Religion doesn't require any kind of bridge between God and man. God will directly govern the affairs of the world but here is a representative between God and man and his job is to intervene and justify. So, right at the beginning, you can say there is a secular voice. So, he starts with disobedience and disobedience of whom. Initially, disobedience came not to form human beings. There were two human beings at the time of the epic, Adam and Eve and there is somebody else who disobeys God. This person is Satan. Satan wanted to displace God from the throne and occupy his place and for that, he led a revolt of his followers against God's armies. Finally, God was very powerful and omnipotent and threw them out of heaven. They went into a pet, and they went into chaos in hell. So, here he talks about this disobedience of Satan against God.
The epic tradition is right at the beginning, the entire plan is given. Milton also follows that convention. He makes a statement of 10-15 lines saying that he is going to show us this. Therefore, the first 19 lines are the statement of purpose. There is a word for it in English criticism for epic, and that word is an invocation with a capital "I". Can Milton handle such a grand theme as God? God's relationship with a man. The challenge of Satan. They are big themes. They are lofty or high themes. These themes belong to the cosmos, stars, and planets. They belong to heaven. So, how can an ordinary human being do justice to this kind of thing? Milton knows it but Milton says that he will do it with the help of God. His goddess Muse is the goddess of poetry, creation, and imagination. God has ousted Satan and his followers. These people are lying half-conscious somewhere in the chaos near hell. Finally, they wake up and first Satan wakes up himself. what they do, where they should go? They can't go back to heaven. So, what does Satan do now? Satan wakes up and looks around there is a scene of destruction and can't do anything for some time. then he realizes that he has to get up and play a role to revive his old glory and for that, he wakes up his followers. Then he makes a speech. This speech and the later speech that he makes in this poem, they are remarkable for their contents. Satan is coaxing his followers to come on and fight against the common enemy. Some of the lines of Satan are very moving like "it is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven". Satan is a culprit. He is an ambitious person and he doesn't have any hope for him. He is meant to do evil and he says it very clearly, "I am an evil person and I will do evil only, God is good to me and I will turn that good into evil and I will fight him".
But Milton clearly says that he wants God's grace and wants God to remain as kind as he has been all through. What is the theme of God? God's theme was that human beings should remain in heaven and enjoy themselves without any bother to work. they should believe in God and remain happy. the only restriction that God imposed on humans is that they should not go near a particular tree. That tree was dangerous, said, God. What is the dangerous aspect of that tree? God said, "This is a tree of knowledge". Don't go near it because knowledge will destroy the sense of faith you have in me. You will start thinking of your own self. God had a reason for this. Whenever you think of a reason, you start thinking of yourself or others. So, the reason is supposed to divide you from anybody else and the reason divides you from the creator and that fruit is in fact called by Milton "the forbidden fruit". So, Adam and Eve were forbidden from that fruit as tasting this fruit would set them against each other. There is a kind of research done by Satan now. The research is to find out what will hurt God the most. He realizes that God has in the meantime created the human race and they are darlings of God. God is pleased and puts them in the nicest place possible in the world. He has given them a garden and they roam around freely. They roam around naked and are not ashamed of their body. Satan was determined to destroy this happiness and God will be hurt.
When they eat the forbidden fruit (apple), the unhappiness begins on that day. He is rewriting the Bible from his angle. In the 17th century, a person could write the Bible and can assign roles to God, his son, and Satan. So, it is the author to creates all the characters. God is the creator of the universe and the author is the creator of ideas, images, descriptions, and roles. So, he is writing the second Bible. If Milton is assuming the role of writer, who will decide what God is to speak, what son has to speak? Of course, if Milton is asked why he is doing this? He will say that he is not doing this but it happens.
When we read Paradise Lost today, they still approach God through Milton. Milton is using the Latin form. If he is writing in English. He is using Latinism. He is Latinizing the sentences. Milton clearly said that he was on god's side but in the 18th century, William Blake, the great romantic poet, said no he was not at God's party. He said that Milton is actually of the devil's party because he gives the devil a voice and a character that brings the devil closer to us God.