John Milton (160874)political & religious upheavals - swept across 17th cSt Pauls School - learned Latin & Greek; in later life, added an astonishing number of other languagesChrists College, Cambridge - study for the ministry harsh, authoritarian atmosphere - defiance - responded to unfair disciplining expelled, readmitted (BA 1629; MA 1632)travels in France & Italy (16389) political turmoilnews of the impending English civil war - shortened his tour of Europe to return to Englandentered the political controversy in 1641 - battled with his pen - series of antiprelatical pamphlets - argued for the Puritan version of religious & political freedom

1643: The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce - incompatibility between spouses legitimates divorce 1644 - political pamphlet - Areopagitica

central document in arguments against censorshipdefends liberty of the presssupports freedom of expression 1. licensing, censorship detestable practice Papacy & Inquisition2. freedom in the pursuit of learning3. reading, constant testing, diversity of opinion = crucial to the growth of knowledge & virtue; falsehood and conforming stupidity = far more dangerous than free, new opinions

Secretary for Foreign Tongues to Cromwells Council of State (1649)

translate foreign diplomatic correspondence defend the English Commonwealth across Europe ardent republican1649 - "Of the Tenure of Kings & Magistrates"

God's chosen rulers maintain their "divine right" only so long as they fulfil God's purpose in their exercise of powerright of subjects to depose their king1649 Eikonoclastes (official reply to Charles Is meditations Eikon Basilike) monarch = deceitful to the credulous masses

political works: advocating a free commonwealth governed by leaders responsible to the best interests of the public1651, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio

defence of the English people against the charge of regicide total blindness - response - Milton wrote Sonnet 19 ("When I Consider how my Light is Spent") 1654, Defensio Secunda

defends the English experiment in political freedom & himself (charge that Milton's blindness - direct punishment from God)1655, Defensio pro Se

eve of the Restoration, published The Ready & Easy Way to Established a Free Commonwealth, (1660)

most undiplomatic gesture - defender of the regicidedismissed from office, arrested & briefly imprisoned returned to his calling as a poet1667, the ten-book version of Paradise Lost (revised to twelve books & reissued in 1673) 1671, Paradise Regained (along with Samson Agonistes)

Paradise Lost Christian epicambition to write an epic that would be doctrinal to a nation & rival those of Homer, Virgil and Tasso

initial aim - epic of England eventually: subject of the Fall both Lucifers from Heaven, and Adam and Eves from Paradisemans disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradiseinvocations - expects the inspiring Muse to compensate for his physical blindness with a more penetrating understanding of spiritual truths, to illumine what is dark in him, and thus to enable him to attain to a prophetic strain

theodicy - justify the ways of God to men dramatises mans fall from the state of innocence into that of sin

central theme = felix culpa - the fortunate mistake, a fault with happy consequences mans fall, brought about by his disobedience = necessary moment in the Eternal providence, an evil turned to good in Gods overall plan for the history of creationdraws extensively on classical mythology, Homer & Virgil, Christian Scripture & theology, & British political events of his own time

sweeping narrative - vivifies his conception of humanity's relationship with the Divine supplies a concrete narrative to explicate abstract theological & psychological ideas, while criticizing 17th-c British religious, political, & scientific beliefsstarting from the dualism good-evil, the poem develops an implicit debate on such contraries as freedom/ tyranny, obedience/ rebellion, knowledge/ ignorance/innocence, divine love/ satanic hatredpredestination v. alternative freedom (free arbiter) - Gods infinite knowledge and power do not exclude mans freedom of action and choice

all rational creatures - endowed with free choice & strength to obey God = only true source of continuing liberty

Satan, other heavenly beings, & humans - responsible for their own disobedience & separation from the integrity with which they are createdAdam & Eve - need for education in virtue through experiencing temptations & making choices

marriage - prelapsarian union (spiritual & physical) - separate decisions to disobey Gods commandment - responsibility accompanying freedom of choiceexpelled from Eden, they seek an internal Paradise Paradise moves from a place to a state of mind

BOOK I begins with a traditional invocation of the Heavenly Muse (Holy Spirit who inspired Moses, on Mount Sinai) to aid the poet epic convention: enumeration of Satans fallen angels from Moloch to Belial, resembles the epic catalogue extended list of ships in Homers Iliadthen the reader is plunged in medias res: the fallen angels in Hell, burning in the darkness visible of those regions of sorrow, called to a council in Satans infernal palace, Pandemonium (pan + daimon)

lost Archangel - determined that he will never repent and bow to GodHeaven has given him free will, Satan recovers his strength and concedes that he must bid farewell to his former happy state and welcome the horrors of the infernal world, but at least he will be free Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heavenenvy of Gods new creation, Man, prompts Satans revenge

BOOK IIcouncil to which the fallen angels are all called in the Pandemonium - their discussions are rendered in solution - find the weakness of man and to seduce him to join their party - corruption of Gods creation Satan - voyage through the great gulf separating Hell from Heaven, the ascension from darkness to the light of his native seat evoking vast spaces and general chaosadherence to the epic convention: depicts vast settings of Heaven, Earth and Hell

BOOK III doctrinal argument divine foreknowledge of the Fall God explains to the Holy Son that knows in advance that Satan will succeed in his attempt to pervert manMans sin of disobedience must be punished justly, and the only way to satisfy divine justice is a sacrificial death that would redeem man God anticipates the event of His Sons incarnation, death and resurrection

Whose fault?Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of meAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all the Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed;Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

I formed them free, and free they must remainTill they enthrall themselves: I else must changeTheir nature, and revoke the high decreeUnchangeable, eternal, which ordainedTheir freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.The first sort by their own suggestion fell,Self-tempted, self-depraved; Man falls, deceivedBy the other first: Man, therefore, shall find grace,The other none; in mercy and justice both,Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel,But mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine

BOOK IV Satans arrival in the Garden of Eden contemplates making humans transgress Gods interdiction of tasting the fruit of the Tree of Knowledgeprevented from by the angels guarding Paradise

Book V - angel Raphaels sent by God

visits Adam in Paradise to warn him about the danger from Satan reminds him that obedience to his Maker means enjoying the present happy state, without aspiring to know things above his power of understandingAdam asks Raphael to tell him the story of the fallen angels

rest of Book V and Book VI - retrospective account of the war in Heaven, instigated by Lucifer given by Raphael as a terrible example of the reward for disobedience explicit warning - remember, and fear to transgress!

BOOK VII Raphael also tells Adam the story of the creation of the world and of manbiblical Genesis Milton: God entrusted His Son with the act of Creation

gave life and order to unformed matter & turned chaos into cosmoslarge-scale description of the making of celestial bodies sublime picture of the primal watersdescription of more familiar details of earthly Nature in Miltons poem, the divine creation took place after the fall of LuciferGods desire to create good out of evil

In his hand/ He took his golden compasses, preparedIn Gods eternal store, to circumscribeThis Universe, and all created things.One foot he centred and the other turnedRound through the vast profundity obscure,And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds;This be thy just circumference, O World.Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth,Matter unformed and void. Darkness profoundCovered the abyss, but on the watery calmHis brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purgedThe black, tartareous, cold, infernal dregs,Adverse to life; then founded, then conglobedLike things to like, the rest to several placeDisparted, and between spun out the air,And Earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.

BOOK VIII Adam grateful to Raphael, the divine historian, for the evocation of the making of the worldwishes to know more about the celestial motionsRaphael once again advises him against trying to penetrate the secrets of the great Architect

BOOK IX scene of Eves seduction by Satan (serpent) - in this disguise, Satan gives voice to his torments and to his ambition of destroying Gods creation.Eve - angelic grace - amazed at the miracle of a beast capable of speech - seduced by his promise of higher knowledge and by his assurance that there is no sin in such aspirationtastes from the forbidden fruit and tries to convince Adam that its effect is not to open the way to evil unknown, but to open eyes and bring those who taste closer to the condition of a goddisaster of the original sin shakes the foundations of the natural order: Earth trembles, the thundering skies weep, and all Nature is in painformer innocent sensuality - now replaced by guilty lust and the feeling of shame

WILLIAM BLAKE, Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve

1. Queen of the Universe, do not believeThose rigid threats of death; ye shall not die.How should ye? by the fruit? it gives you lifeTo knowledge; by the Threatener? look on me,Me who have touched and tasted, yet both liveAnd life more perfect have attained than FateMeant me, by venturing higher than my lot.Shall that be shut to Man which to the beastIs open?

2. Why, then, was this forbid? Why but to awe?Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,His worshippers? He knows that, in the dayYe eat thereof, your eyes, that seem so clearYet are but dim, shall perfectly be thenOpened and cleared, and ye shall be like Gods,Knowing both good and evil, as they know.

3. And what are Gods, that Man may not becomeAs they, participating godlike food?The Gods are first, and that advantage useOn our belief, that all from them proceeds.I question it, for this fair Earth I see,Warmed by the Sun, producing every kind,Them nothing.

4. What can your knowledge hurt him, or this treeImpart against his will, if all be his?Or is it envy? and can envy dwellIn heavenly breasts? These, these and many moreCauses import your need of this fair fruit.Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste.

Eve and the Serpent (illustration by John Martin, 1827 )

Postlapsarian world

Book X, God sends Him to communicate the divine punishment to Adam and Eve, combining thus justice with mercy Book XI, the Son of God acts as a mediator between the sinful humans and His Father, asking God to accept their prayers and sincere repentance, and offering to pay the price of His own death for the peace between God and mankind Book XII, where the central episode is the promised birth of Gods Son, Jesus, his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension to Heaven - comforting story gives Adam peace of mind and the hope that man is able to build in Michaels words a paradise within, founded on love, faith and good deeds

CRITICAL RECEPTION Gustave Dor, illustration of Satan

paradox - the heroic spirit of Miltons epic is embodied in Satan; Adam has more in common with a tragic heroportrayal of Satan as an attractive figure who rebels against God in his personal ambition for independenceRomantic poets - Satan - embodiment of the spirit of freedom and of resistance to tyrannical oppression

William Blake - instinctively supported the idea of freedom - unwilling to serve a power that he considered tyrannicaldark sublimity - Shelley slyly observed that "the Devil owes everything to Milton" Revised in Shelleys Prometheus & Byrons CainColeridge & Wordsworth admired Miltons craft & his republican politics

Farewell, happy fields,Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,Infernal World! And thou, profoundest Hell,Receive thy new possessor one who bringsA mind not to be changed by place or time.The mind is its own place, and in itselfCan make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.What matter where, if I be still the same,And what I should be, all but less than heWhom thunder hath made greater? Here at leastWe shall be free; the Almighty hath not builtHere for his envy, will not drive us hence;Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Samson Agonistes treatment of a biblical story in the form of the classical Greek tragedypoetic drama dialogues between the blinded & imprisoned protagonist & a succession of visitorstitle bestows upon a Hebrew name a Greek epithet signifying: a contestant at the games; a champion; & one engaged in spiritual struggle & developmentOld Testament - strong parallels between Samson & Milton (both are blind, both have been betrayed by their nations) Samson Agonistes = a thinly disguised autobiography of MiltonSamson - an anticipation of Christ

Milton makes his Samson eloquently introspective & gives him the conscience of a 17th-c Puritanspiritually blinded, emotionally exhausted, he is imprisoned in his own despair Milton's tale of Samson traces a series of interrelated movements:

physically, he moves from slavery to mastery;socially, his reputation changes from infamy to glory;psychologically, he grows from despair through hope to patience; spiritually, his state changes from pride through humility to magnanimity.

four traditional steps of salvation: conviction, contrition, confession, & conversion from evil to goodparadoxical metaphor when Samson had outward sight, he was inwardly blind; & the sufferings of physical blindness lead him to spiritual sightreassurance that God does not abandon his chosen ones

Paradise Regained Christ, whose human nature is emphasized, as the example of consummate obedience epic poem in 4 books sequel to PL

Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam & Eve to Satans temptationSo it was regained by the resistance of the Son to the temptation of the same spiritParadise Regained and Samson Agonistes, published in the same volume in 1671 complementary pieces on the topic of temptation