John Milton (1608-1674)

 the great polemic on religion and politics - the middle of the 17th c- shaped
John Milton’s literary career.
 The Civil War disrupted political and religious thinking: pamphlets, tracts,
sermons were largely produced, with a lot of people (as Milton put it in his
Areopagitica)”disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to
a rarity and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of.”
 Milton*s commitment to the parliamentary side in the Civil war crucially
affected his middle and later poetic career.
 He received a Christian Humanist education from the beginning.
 He was educated at St Paul’s school (1615/1620-1625) which gave him full
access to the Humanist ideals of Desiderius Erasmus and John Colet.
 He studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew and was strongly instructed in classical
rhetoric which he applied to the analysis of Latin and Greek prose and
verse.
 Later as a literary man he considered it mandatory to take part in public
affairs but his disillusionment over the possibility of a reformed England
made him distrust the powers of rhetoric. Milton showed its abuse in the
speeches of Satan and his followers in Paradise Lost and in Paradise
Regained. While Satan, the tempter, is the master of rhetoric, Jesus speaks
in a language cleared of all rhetorical ornament.
 At Christ’s College, Cambridge, in1625, Milton expressed his disagreement
with scholastic philosophy and the trivial subjects it approached
 Divine Poetry, Rhetoric and History were opposed to the “useless and
boring controversies and verbal wranglings-intense arguments- which have
no power to stir the soul.” Geography too is recommended as an
alternative subject.
 Milton’s talk/prolusion reminds us of Francis Bacon’s attack on the
emptiness and mere verbalism of scholastic philosophy.
 The Pythagorean and Platonic notion of the music of the spheres is
connected to Milton’s sense of order and hierarchy - his belief that only
purity and chastity can give access to divine harmony.
 he was the 1st who held the concept of “the poetic mission” , i.e. to save
his nation from lack of morality and disorder.
 Puritanism emphasized strict rules and rigid morality and Milton was a
puritan poet animated by noble ideals and aspirations
 Milton tried to blend the religious spirit with the humanist one.
 Milton began his poetic career with verse paraphrases of Psalms and Ovidian
Latin elegies- the two directions, the Christian one and the Humanist one, are
actually kept distinct, each producing its own kind of verse.
 The Latin verses: Milton hedonistically enjoys nature and female beauty.
 His 1st formal poem in English is probably “Ode on the Death of a Fair Infant
Dying of a Cough”(1628) - Milton, in the manner of Ovid and Spenser, fuses
classical mythology with Christian ideas.
 His first Latin Elegies, written to Milton’s old school-friend Charles Diodati, show
Milton masterfully using language in Ovid’s manner.
 Out of his Latin poems: “In Quintum Novembris” (On the Fifth of November) = a
mock heroic poem in which Milton creates an atmosphere of darkness and
horror and offers a good example of sharp Satanic speeches
 Among Milton’s other Latin poetry written at Cambridge - the Seventh Elegy, on
spring and love- it begins with an invocation to Venus and a dialogue between
the poet and Cupid and ends with an elegiac picture of himself as Cupid’s
victim.
 The finest of all Milton’s Latin poems is the Fifth Elegy – 1628, ‘In Adventum Veris”
(On the Coming of Spring). It is inspired from Ovid and it deals with the revival of
nature, of his own poetic inspiration, and of love and passion. (a pagan plea for
optimism and enjoyment of life.)
 In 1629, while still as Cambridge, Milton wrote his 1st successful English poem “On the
Morning of Christ’s Nativity.
 It is a religious poem and it consists of an introduction and a hymn- the juxtaposition of
realistic and symbolic details, of simple feelings and brilliant, baroque imagery and
conceits.
 Its musicality is observed both in the way language is handled and in the way the entire
poem is structured.
 The introduction is written in rhyme royal; the hymn, in an eight-lined stanza, alternates
short and long lines.
 The infant Christ figures as a classical hero- peace descends on the world and the pagan
gods and all the elements of superstition are defeated.
 The music of the spheres assails the ears of the shepherds on the lawn; the picture of the
infant Christ being laid to rest guarded by the hierarchic orders of angels.
 The image of rank, order, gracefulness and stability render an atmosphere of harmony and
peace. Milton’s Protestant formation made him celebrate Christ as the divine hero who
defies error and evil and who is able to resist temptation.
 L’Allegro and Il Penseroso are two poems that refer to generic moods which are created
by appropriate imagery and tone.
 The 1ST one: a mood of joyful, peaceful life through appropriate mythological and pastoral
imagery: description of Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces, of a vine covered pastoral
cottage , of milk-maids singing. The poem moves from the lark’s song which announces
dawn to a sunset full of references to tournaments, pageants and music.
 Il Penseroso : a mood of contemplation, gloom and meditation is very well
reflected in the dark symbols of the poem: moonlight, dark words, the song of
the nightingale.
 Desolation is very well voiced in images such as: the sound of the curfew, the
midnight lamp, the fire half-lighting a room.
 The pace of the poem is slower and the music is associated to religion and
study.
 The 2 poems counterbalance each other and in their universal moods and
impersonal rendering of personal moods they announce the transition to
classical poetry
 Paradise Lost was written in Restoration and it was influenced by two tragic
events: the defeat of puritanism and his blindness.
 Divided in 12 books, it poetically and unconventionally renders the story of the
Fall and illustrates the tragic ambiguity of man as a moral being.
 This heroic poem is characterized by flexibility- it depicts changes in moral
attitude, differences in universal status, and the relationship between the four
settings –Heaven, Eden, Hell and the ordinary, postlapsarian world.
 It consists of a variety of styles - the description of the ideal nature in the 1st
account of Eden in Book IV, the primaeval gentility of Adam’s and Eve’s talk
before the Fall, the naturalness and splendour of Eve’s speech in Book IV vs. the
penitential / remorseful tone of her speech in Book X, in which the moral
recovery of the pair begins.
 The cosmic scenery and the world of ordinary men are linked with the help
of similes.
 In the beginning of Book I Milton openly states the theme of the poem-
Milton wishes to have his darkness lightened and his mind elevated so as to
write of “the ways of God to men” .
 Like The Faerie Queen, Milton’s epic is a great synthesizing poem
 Milton establishes a logical hierarchy of his different kinds of knowledge-
biblical, classical, medieval, modernand never merges them on equal
terms. Milton is here the Christian Humanist using all resources of the literary
tradition: biblical, classical, medieval, Renaissance.
 Milton resorts to classical mythology to construct a vast picture of the
beauty of Eden before the fall .
 The opposition between infinite beauty and loss and impending evil=
readers come at the sense of transitoriness.
 The implications of the Fall exist and they emphasise a paradoxical idea
which lies at the core of Milton’s work: the Fall is necessary so that we may
seek the ideal with a deeper sense of its desirability/attractiveness.
 Book I presents the fallen angels in Hell after they have been defeated in heaven.
 These corrupt and perverted figures speak in grandiloquent rhetorical verses -Milton is very
much aware of the attractiveness/enchantment of evil.
 The speeches of Satan and his followers in Books I and II are indeed Miltonic: they
represent the fascinating power of evil.
 It is because of bombastic speeches which “make the worse appear the better reason”
that Satan is so great a danger.
 Milton exposes the superficial seductiveness of evil- Satan’s dominant emotion is a self-
frustrating malignity. It is when he uses the most impressive heroic terms that his discourse is
most meaningless.
 Milton cautiously pointed that corruptio optimi pessima, meaning that the corruption of
the best is the worst of all and that every human virtue has its moral dangers.
 The scenes in heaven in Book III are full of literal descriptions of God who gives very logical
arguments in answering all the doubts we feel about allowing an innocent couple to be
tempted and then drastically punished.
 Man came equipped with free will; even though God knew before the creation of man
that man would fall, man’s Fall was man’s own fault and properly punished.
 Thus, Milton’s picture in BIII of God insisting that after the Fall someone must be punished
seems very far from the Christian doctrine of redemption
 the poem asserts that virtue can only be achieved by struggle, that the Fall was inevitable
because a passive and ignorant virtue cannot cause greatness without the challenge of
an imperfect world.
 when Satan arrives in Eden in BIV, Eden is seen in its unfallen brilliance through Satan’s
eyes.
 Using Satan as the camera eye, Milton shows us the glories of the Garden of Eden and the
innocent nakedness, nobility and dignity of our first parents.
 Adam’s reception of Raphael in B V emphasizes the beauty of prelapsarian sincerity.
 Milton constantly contests conventional notions of heroism ( which turn out to be demonic)
and conventional, courtly and Puritan, notions of love. Milton makes use of different
devices: epic devices, imagery, modulation, shifts of tone in a highly idiosyncratic manner
 Raphael’s account of the war in Heaven which occupies part of BV and all of BVI, is the
least original part of Paradise Lost.
 The Almighty God’s considerations on what to do appear absurd, the posting of angelic
guards round Eden to prevent Satan’s entry, when God has already told the angels that
Satan will enter and successfully tempt Adam and EVE, likewise is mere gesturing.
 In BVII Raphael’s record of the creation gives Milton the possibility to draw on imagery from
Genesis, the Psalms, Proverbs, Job and Plato.
 In BVIII Adam tells Raphael of his own experiences after his creation.
 Book IX is one of the great books. Adam and Eve are involved in a
disagreement around Eve’s desire of gardening alone in another part of Eden
that morning.
 The readers assume that this suggestion was made to Eve by Satan when he
lay by her ear in the form of a toad as she slept the previous night.
 Milton gracefully describes the behavior and conversation of the pair before
the Fall.
 Milton appeals to classical mythology to contemplate for the last time on Eve;s
innocence and beauty. Milton seems to be himself reluctant to let them part
and Milton indulges in the final scene: prelapsarian man and woman stood
hand in hand for the last time.
 The unfallen, innocent Eve will never return, the woman who came back to
Adam with a branch of the forbidden tree to give to him was a very different
person.
 The temptation scene shows Milton taking advantage of simplicity.
 Milton describes the speech of the cunning serpent as the eloquent speech of
“some orator renown’d /In Athens or free Rome. “
 Eve’s sin was disobedience, but what caused her to commit sin was innocence,
lack of knowledge, credulence. A moral paradox lies at the heart of the matter:
is credulity sinful and suspicion a virtue?
 In a cunning parody of the courtly love tradition MILTON has Adam eat the
apple as ‘a glorious trial of exceeding love.”; they both become
irresponsible and foolish.
 Now shame follows self-consciousness and Book IX ends in disillusion and
bitterness .
 Book X charts the change that begins to take place on earth and in Hell as
a result of the Fall. It also shows the gradual process of recovery on the part
of Adam and Eve;
 Adam’s bitter repudiation of Eve is followed by Eve’s penitential speech till
they last come to repentance.
 The final part of Paradise LOST shows Michael narrating the future history of
the world to Adam , from Cain who commits the first murder to the final
picture of the world as malignant and wicked.
 The story of Christ’s triumph and the picture of the earth returning to normal
after the flood introduce a more optimistic view on things.
 In the end Adam and Eve confidently leave their former Paradise to face a
world of work and struggle.
 Milton lost his earlier confidence that Heaven on earth could be restored by
a regenerate, reformed England . For him only private virtue was real.
 In Paradise Regained he makes his point even clearer for Satan tempts
Christ there to the public life which he rejects; Christ submits himself quietly
and patiently to God’s purpose for him. The turn to the paradise within
represented a radical change in Milton as a result of the failure of his
political hopes for England
 The high rhetorical manner belonged to Satan’s speech, to the public
manner , to evil.
 God, angels and men spoke in a more carefully modulated tone.
 Through the way he handled imagery, through the simultaneous
exploitation of the musical and semantic aspects of words, through all
mythological allusions, Milton turns his story into a unique means of casting
light on human condition.
 Paradise Lost deals less with the logical justification of the ways of God to
men than with the essential and tragic ambiguity of human beings.
 The poem clears up the paradoxical situation of human beings: both
man’s nobility and his weakness; the sense of man’s looking backwards to a
golden age coupled with the knowledge that such an age can never be
realized
 In the end , Paradise, the world of innocent idlesness/ inertness/stagnation
has become uninhabitable. As they look back for the last time Eden
becomes hot and frightening and the angels guarding it seem dreadful
figures from another world .
 Paradoxically, it is work, which was a punishment for the Fall that gives a
sense of hope and recovery. Adam and Eve go hand in - mutual love and
support alleviates human strive. Still complete communion between
individuals is impossible for self-interest ties up both love and comradeship..