Reading Paradise Lost reminds me of listening to Tristan and Isolde , there are many many parts where my mind wanders and then I am caught up with transcendent beauty and I am not sure that I would have appreciated the final lines so much if I had not slogged through so many passages before.
Have a good long drink, lie back on the sofa, close your eyes and drift off to the music and remember to set your alarm for five hours and you will wake in time for the wonderful final aria.
I knew an opera singer who was the lead in Parsifal and she said it was really annoying in the second act as she was singing her bloody socks off and could just hear the audience settling down for a nice doze.
Thank you for your guidance through this epic. So much to think about. I am in the process of writing my annual Christmas poem as well as compiling about 300 others. I have learned much about poetry from this series - how poetry circles the truth and provides avenues into truth even while entrancing us with the delight of words and rhythm. In my poem God’s angel who is commissioned to announce the birth of Christ searches for just the right people to whom to deliver this message. It turns out is has to be only the shepherds who would intrinsically understand Christ’s role as the good shepherd.
This is music to my ears, Jack (poetry, even!). I love how you put it: “poetry circles the truth and provides avenues into truth even while entrancing us with the delight of words and rhythm.”
Yes! So glad you are being enriched in this space as am I.
I was reading a sermon delivered by an Anglican in the presence of King James I in which he talks of the congruence of Scripture - the ability of God’s Word to fit into our circumstances no matter the time or place. I marvel at how African slaves saw themselves in the Bible at the same time their masters thought they saw themselves in the Bible. In 508 ff. it is clear that these wolves are ever present in Scripture, in Milton’s day, and in our day. Although my sense is that they have found ways to be moe persuasive given the chaos that rile our churches. The only thing Milton has left out is the chain saw.
I can certainly see where C.S. Lewis is coming from with his “lump” comment. So far in life nothing we have experienced as believers can surpass the Edenic experience. To say the fall was necessary simply denies God’s ability to transform our lives once we are caught up to be with him in the new heaven and the new earth. Sin isn’t needed for that. But in a sense, the innocence of Eden means to live without the knowledge of what depths sin can plunge us into. Would we be better off without that knowledge? I don’t know. God’s mind is ever beyond our ken and we must humbly bow to his wisdom in all things.
OK, I'm back for now. Yet another storm threatens but at least we now have some generator backup - power is not yet restored.
I agree with Lewis. This last section was mostly telling, not showing. I have said earlier that Milton did not seem to understand the deep truths. His giving Adam a bird's eye view of history shows that lack of depth. As beautiful as Milton's can be, the words of Hebrews (11:13) about those who lived before Jesus Christ came are more beautiful, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."
The deep mystery of faith lies in not fully knowing or understanding, yet still hoping in the goodness of God.
Milton's theological views seem to have developed between PL and PR, as Regained sees the reversal of Adam and Eve's Fall, not in the Cross and Resurrection, but in Christ resisting the temptation Adam and Eve fell prey too and only depicts the exchange between Satan and Jesus in the wilderness.
That’s a good contrast between Milton and Hebrews. But I think Milton was “showing” in the conventional sense of that word when used about narration, and Hebrews is telling (giving the meaning).
Hebrews is summarizing in retrospect the Biblical narrative which shows how the people of faith in the Old Testament lived out the hope. Milton's Michael is foretelling to Adam what will happen, instead of letting Adam live out his faith with the simple knowledge of God's one promise, that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. The Biblical Adam and Eve are far more courageous, for they both leave Eden with only that promise, and it is enough to carry on.
Yeah, that contrast is striking. I think you are helpfully fleshing out the criticism Lewis offered in an offhand way. Your point gets at the real issues better.
Yes, I realize that, but the device of showing it to Adam makes Adam more of a passive than active character in the narrative. Also, the compressed summary of the rest of the Bible doesn't match the previous leisurely pace of the rest of the narrative. Milton spends pages in just describing a scene and more in playing out a drama, like his battle in Heaven or the Pandemonium in Hell. Now, all of a sudden he is squishing multiple high dramas into a couple of lines each.
It isn't that he needed to rewrite all the Bible at as much length as he did the first three chapters of Genesis. Rather he could have just stopped where Genesis 3 did, with the expulsion from Paradise, and the poem would have been as effective. As I remarked about an earlier superfluous passage, an editor would have made him cut it. I do wonder if him compressing the rest of the Bible was actually to ward off criticism. The Puritan mindset didn't like going outside of Scripture at all - there was still considerable opposition when hymns were introduced in the next century - so Milton may be trying to demonstrate he isn't trying to rewrite Scripture with his summary.
I have to disagree with C.S. Lewis here. I’m wondering if Milton was thinking of the unbeliever. Christian readers familiar with the Bible who already know the stories may not recognize the uniqueness of them as much someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to read the Bible. I think perhaps it’s not for us but for someone else, maybe he wrote it with a specific person or group in mind.
He wrote so succinctly and clearly and then ties it in with Jesus Christ so beautifully that perhaps the last two chapters aren’t for believers, but for unbelievers.
I think what the angel is doing in the last two books with Adam is giving him hope by sharing the gospel story throughout the Bible, which is incredible. To me it’s unique how Milton portrays Adam and Eve in need of the gospel message to sustain them. I think it’s very generous minded on Milton’s part to write it in this way.
On another note, Tuesdays are out for me because of an online class I need to attend, so I would prefer Wednesday.
The time I’ve spent with Paradise Lost will stay with me for a lifetime. Thanks friend.
You raise a very interesting point, Mel. And let me contextualize your idea a little bit. 17th century Puritans of the political and clerical class like Milton didn’t “evangelize” the way we do today. In fact, when the evangelical revival arose in the 18th century, that is one of the reasons it arose. Because there was little evangelism going on. So I don’t think Milton would have necessarily been writing for unbelievers. However, your point raises another interesting angle and that is that Milton was writing in a time when not many had access to or had even read the Bible or much of it. Now such people were not necessarily his target audience. His target audience would’ve been very learned and erudite. But still the assumption that every Christian knew the Bible inside out, and had read through it in a year every year of their lives, certainly didn’t exist. So even in writing for an educated and elite audience, Milton could’ve safely assumed some of that audience was not intimately familiar with the entire biblical narrative the way we expect believers be today. I hope that makes sense. Those are my rambling thoughts in response to your excellent comment.
I had a feeling that you would be able to shed some light on my thoughts. Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. There are certain things I’d like to think Milton was thinking about and then the reality 😆. I didn’t know if I could forgive him for putting Eve to sleep during that conversation😆, but what a lovely ending, so he made up for it. Ha!
Karen, this has been just great, and your guidance and teaching have been so helpful. Now, as for that passage you quote beginning at line 508: I’m a Catholic, and I see Milton attacking the Catholic Church here! Rome’s “superstitions and traditions” have effectively joined “secular power” with spiritual, and obscured what is “in those written records pure”—i.e., sola scriptura.
Thank you so much, Matt. It has been quite a journey and all of you readers gave me so much along the way.
And that phrase jumped out at me as well as being anti-Catholic. Interestingly, though, the Riverside edition notes not only that but Milton may have been including his criticism (published in other works) of “the English church’s quest for secular political power” and includes a quotation from one of his tracts as evidence.
Karen, thank you so much for this reflection on that last chapter. I agree that it is a bit odd to have so much history shared with Adam, and not entirely to a purpose? However, I appreciate your pointing out that idea of types. One way to read this chapter is that the angel is saying, “These are the kinds of things that will happen,” and indeed they have, and I remind myself not to be surprised that they still do.
I was aware in this book, as I have been throughout this reading, of the different ways in which Adam and Eve are involved. In this book, Adam hears the warnings and the historywhile Eve sleeps. And part of the history that he hears is about how women will continue to be the cause of many of man’s struggles. I would love to explore various modern feminist readings of Paradise Lost. Are there works you would recommend that explore how Milton‘s personal and cultural context affected these aspects of the book? And how the book itself has influenced Christian thought about gender roles?
Oh, and I am not familiar with much feminist criticism of Milton, but I’m sure it abounds! I wonder if Dr. @manuelcardenas might point us in that direction?
Hi! Sorry, I didn't get a notification! There is a great deal of feminist scholarship on PL. Some folks see M as doing interesting things with marriage and with Eve in ways that show a willingness to look beyond cultural prejudice and simplistic archetypes; others see him as elevating hierarchy as the basis of the relationship between genders.
Two representative articles would be Diane K. McColley, "Milton and the Sexes", in The Cambridge Companion to Milton, 2nd edition (1999), and Mary Nyquist, "The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity in the Divorce Tracts and Paradise Lost," originally published in "Re-membering Milton: Essays on the Texts and Traditions," ed. Mary Nyquist and Margaret W. Ferguson (1988, but republished elsewhere). My friend and colleague Elizabeth Hodgson recently published a scathing but beautifully written book on "The Masculinities of John Milton" (Cambridge, 2022) that gets at gendered perspectives by focusing on Milton's men.
I read Milton as a poet first and foremost and thus am convinced by McColley's readings of Eve as a character aligned with Milton's fundamental views of the world. Still, I think Nyquist is right to question whether M's emphasis on mutuality is the same thing as sexual equality.
I’m glad the consideration of types helped you. There was something I wanted to say about that to expand the point in exactly this direction, but it was one of those thoughts that escaped me when I was finalizing this post. But I think it was along the lines of how Milton’s audience would have been very familiar with the biblical narrative and may have read Milton’s retelling with a more (helpfully) typological lens than most of us do today.
The Riverside Milton connects this line with that verse in the footnote. Then the note cites a critic who observes, “So that the Author makes Woman’s Paradise to be in company with her husband, but Man’s is to be in himself.”
It is kind of sad, because Ruth's line is spoken to Naomi, when they are both widows, and when Naomi had released her daughters in-law from the cultural customary service. Ruth is voluntarily taking on that service again, like the slave in the law of Moses, who, when his period of service is complete, announces his intention of remaining with his master and receives the awl mark through his ear.
Thanks for all your guidance as we journeyed through Paradise, Karen! April 16 works for me, but not the 15th.
I am a bit with C.S.Lewis on books XI and XII. What is the point of recounting all of biblical history to Adam? Does he really need to know? And -really?- would knowing all this really be comforting? Adam says, “my heart much eased” (274) but I would think knowing all this would overwhelm him.
But then I think - I wish Adam had been taking notes. Then maybe some of the poor decisions by his descendants could have been averted.
Book XII has one of my favorite quotes: “Favor [Christ’s perfect sacrifice] unmerited by me, who sought
I suppose including all that makes the epic all that more epic. And that was what Milton was writing. Milton lived and breathed the Bible and biblical languages. He could just sit down and spit this stuff off. Which he largely did, given his blindness. It also helps explain some of the little errors and inconsistencies that are bound to happen that way. For example, the opening argument of book 12 says that Adam wakes up at the end. But in the poem, he finds her awake. Details, shmetails!
Also, for anyone listening to the recording, you may have heard Ruby enjoying herself rolling around next to me on the couch. Not sure if that sound came through but I meant to explain what it was in case it did. 😂
The algorithms know all, so this article popped up in my feed. I thought it was pretty detailed and helpful about Milton overall so thought I’d share it with you. The part about how his blindness made him prefer night and darkness to day was moving.
Reading Paradise Lost reminds me of listening to Tristan and Isolde , there are many many parts where my mind wanders and then I am caught up with transcendent beauty and I am not sure that I would have appreciated the final lines so much if I had not slogged through so many passages before.
And yes, dear writer, I did fill in the blanks …
Oh, that is a beautiful description. There is indeed slogging. But that is what creates something sublime rather than mere saccharine.
Such an apt description! Now I need to listen to Tristan and Isolde - it's been a while.
Have a good long drink, lie back on the sofa, close your eyes and drift off to the music and remember to set your alarm for five hours and you will wake in time for the wonderful final aria.
I knew an opera singer who was the lead in Parsifal and she said it was really annoying in the second act as she was singing her bloody socks off and could just hear the audience settling down for a nice doze.
Thank you for your guidance through this epic. So much to think about. I am in the process of writing my annual Christmas poem as well as compiling about 300 others. I have learned much about poetry from this series - how poetry circles the truth and provides avenues into truth even while entrancing us with the delight of words and rhythm. In my poem God’s angel who is commissioned to announce the birth of Christ searches for just the right people to whom to deliver this message. It turns out is has to be only the shepherds who would intrinsically understand Christ’s role as the good shepherd.
This is music to my ears, Jack (poetry, even!). I love how you put it: “poetry circles the truth and provides avenues into truth even while entrancing us with the delight of words and rhythm.”
Yes! So glad you are being enriched in this space as am I.
I was reading a sermon delivered by an Anglican in the presence of King James I in which he talks of the congruence of Scripture - the ability of God’s Word to fit into our circumstances no matter the time or place. I marvel at how African slaves saw themselves in the Bible at the same time their masters thought they saw themselves in the Bible. In 508 ff. it is clear that these wolves are ever present in Scripture, in Milton’s day, and in our day. Although my sense is that they have found ways to be moe persuasive given the chaos that rile our churches. The only thing Milton has left out is the chain saw.
That is really a word, Jack — from you and from the priest.
I can certainly see where C.S. Lewis is coming from with his “lump” comment. So far in life nothing we have experienced as believers can surpass the Edenic experience. To say the fall was necessary simply denies God’s ability to transform our lives once we are caught up to be with him in the new heaven and the new earth. Sin isn’t needed for that. But in a sense, the innocence of Eden means to live without the knowledge of what depths sin can plunge us into. Would we be better off without that knowledge? I don’t know. God’s mind is ever beyond our ken and we must humbly bow to his wisdom in all things.
Really insightful. I do think this is what Milton was trying to show: that our sin can lead us to greater knowledge (in Christ) than mere innocence.
OK, I'm back for now. Yet another storm threatens but at least we now have some generator backup - power is not yet restored.
I agree with Lewis. This last section was mostly telling, not showing. I have said earlier that Milton did not seem to understand the deep truths. His giving Adam a bird's eye view of history shows that lack of depth. As beautiful as Milton's can be, the words of Hebrews (11:13) about those who lived before Jesus Christ came are more beautiful, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."
The deep mystery of faith lies in not fully knowing or understanding, yet still hoping in the goodness of God.
Milton's theological views seem to have developed between PL and PR, as Regained sees the reversal of Adam and Eve's Fall, not in the Cross and Resurrection, but in Christ resisting the temptation Adam and Eve fell prey too and only depicts the exchange between Satan and Jesus in the wilderness.
That’s a good contrast between Milton and Hebrews. But I think Milton was “showing” in the conventional sense of that word when used about narration, and Hebrews is telling (giving the meaning).
Hebrews is summarizing in retrospect the Biblical narrative which shows how the people of faith in the Old Testament lived out the hope. Milton's Michael is foretelling to Adam what will happen, instead of letting Adam live out his faith with the simple knowledge of God's one promise, that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. The Biblical Adam and Eve are far more courageous, for they both leave Eden with only that promise, and it is enough to carry on.
Yeah, that contrast is striking. I think you are helpfully fleshing out the criticism Lewis offered in an offhand way. Your point gets at the real issues better.
Ah! I see what you mean. Yes. I think the real “audience” Milton intends for Michael’s story is the reader more than Adam and Eve. Such as it is.
Yes, I realize that, but the device of showing it to Adam makes Adam more of a passive than active character in the narrative. Also, the compressed summary of the rest of the Bible doesn't match the previous leisurely pace of the rest of the narrative. Milton spends pages in just describing a scene and more in playing out a drama, like his battle in Heaven or the Pandemonium in Hell. Now, all of a sudden he is squishing multiple high dramas into a couple of lines each.
It isn't that he needed to rewrite all the Bible at as much length as he did the first three chapters of Genesis. Rather he could have just stopped where Genesis 3 did, with the expulsion from Paradise, and the poem would have been as effective. As I remarked about an earlier superfluous passage, an editor would have made him cut it. I do wonder if him compressing the rest of the Bible was actually to ward off criticism. The Puritan mindset didn't like going outside of Scripture at all - there was still considerable opposition when hymns were introduced in the next century - so Milton may be trying to demonstrate he isn't trying to rewrite Scripture with his summary.
I have to disagree with C.S. Lewis here. I’m wondering if Milton was thinking of the unbeliever. Christian readers familiar with the Bible who already know the stories may not recognize the uniqueness of them as much someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to read the Bible. I think perhaps it’s not for us but for someone else, maybe he wrote it with a specific person or group in mind.
He wrote so succinctly and clearly and then ties it in with Jesus Christ so beautifully that perhaps the last two chapters aren’t for believers, but for unbelievers.
I think what the angel is doing in the last two books with Adam is giving him hope by sharing the gospel story throughout the Bible, which is incredible. To me it’s unique how Milton portrays Adam and Eve in need of the gospel message to sustain them. I think it’s very generous minded on Milton’s part to write it in this way.
On another note, Tuesdays are out for me because of an online class I need to attend, so I would prefer Wednesday.
The time I’ve spent with Paradise Lost will stay with me for a lifetime. Thanks friend.
You raise a very interesting point, Mel. And let me contextualize your idea a little bit. 17th century Puritans of the political and clerical class like Milton didn’t “evangelize” the way we do today. In fact, when the evangelical revival arose in the 18th century, that is one of the reasons it arose. Because there was little evangelism going on. So I don’t think Milton would have necessarily been writing for unbelievers. However, your point raises another interesting angle and that is that Milton was writing in a time when not many had access to or had even read the Bible or much of it. Now such people were not necessarily his target audience. His target audience would’ve been very learned and erudite. But still the assumption that every Christian knew the Bible inside out, and had read through it in a year every year of their lives, certainly didn’t exist. So even in writing for an educated and elite audience, Milton could’ve safely assumed some of that audience was not intimately familiar with the entire biblical narrative the way we expect believers be today. I hope that makes sense. Those are my rambling thoughts in response to your excellent comment.
Noted on the day!
I had a feeling that you would be able to shed some light on my thoughts. Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. There are certain things I’d like to think Milton was thinking about and then the reality 😆. I didn’t know if I could forgive him for putting Eve to sleep during that conversation😆, but what a lovely ending, so he made up for it. Ha!
He did. I think he really did.
Karen, this has been just great, and your guidance and teaching have been so helpful. Now, as for that passage you quote beginning at line 508: I’m a Catholic, and I see Milton attacking the Catholic Church here! Rome’s “superstitions and traditions” have effectively joined “secular power” with spiritual, and obscured what is “in those written records pure”—i.e., sola scriptura.
Yes, I recognized line 508 and following as an anti-Catholic swipe.
Thank you so much, Matt. It has been quite a journey and all of you readers gave me so much along the way.
And that phrase jumped out at me as well as being anti-Catholic. Interestingly, though, the Riverside edition notes not only that but Milton may have been including his criticism (published in other works) of “the English church’s quest for secular political power” and includes a quotation from one of his tracts as evidence.
Karen, thank you so much for this reflection on that last chapter. I agree that it is a bit odd to have so much history shared with Adam, and not entirely to a purpose? However, I appreciate your pointing out that idea of types. One way to read this chapter is that the angel is saying, “These are the kinds of things that will happen,” and indeed they have, and I remind myself not to be surprised that they still do.
I was aware in this book, as I have been throughout this reading, of the different ways in which Adam and Eve are involved. In this book, Adam hears the warnings and the historywhile Eve sleeps. And part of the history that he hears is about how women will continue to be the cause of many of man’s struggles. I would love to explore various modern feminist readings of Paradise Lost. Are there works you would recommend that explore how Milton‘s personal and cultural context affected these aspects of the book? And how the book itself has influenced Christian thought about gender roles?
Either day works for me to chat.
Oh, and I am not familiar with much feminist criticism of Milton, but I’m sure it abounds! I wonder if Dr. @manuelcardenas might point us in that direction?
Hi! Sorry, I didn't get a notification! There is a great deal of feminist scholarship on PL. Some folks see M as doing interesting things with marriage and with Eve in ways that show a willingness to look beyond cultural prejudice and simplistic archetypes; others see him as elevating hierarchy as the basis of the relationship between genders.
Two representative articles would be Diane K. McColley, "Milton and the Sexes", in The Cambridge Companion to Milton, 2nd edition (1999), and Mary Nyquist, "The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity in the Divorce Tracts and Paradise Lost," originally published in "Re-membering Milton: Essays on the Texts and Traditions," ed. Mary Nyquist and Margaret W. Ferguson (1988, but republished elsewhere). My friend and colleague Elizabeth Hodgson recently published a scathing but beautifully written book on "The Masculinities of John Milton" (Cambridge, 2022) that gets at gendered perspectives by focusing on Milton's men.
I read Milton as a poet first and foremost and thus am convinced by McColley's readings of Eve as a character aligned with Milton's fundamental views of the world. Still, I think Nyquist is right to question whether M's emphasis on mutuality is the same thing as sexual equality.
Thank you so much, Dr. Cardenas! I knew you'd be a wealth of resources.
@thereplanteyes
I’m glad the consideration of types helped you. There was something I wanted to say about that to expand the point in exactly this direction, but it was one of those thoughts that escaped me when I was finalizing this post. But I think it was along the lines of how Milton’s audience would have been very familiar with the biblical narrative and may have read Milton’s retelling with a more (helpfully) typological lens than most of us do today.
Thanks for the note about the dates!
I was uncomfortable with Eve telling Adam, in the final speech, "thou to mee
Art all things under Heav’n". It reminds me of how Ruth's words to Naomi "Wither thou goest, I will go" is read out of context at marriage ceremonies.
The Riverside Milton connects this line with that verse in the footnote. Then the note cites a critic who observes, “So that the Author makes Woman’s Paradise to be in company with her husband, but Man’s is to be in himself.”
Yup.
It is kind of sad, because Ruth's line is spoken to Naomi, when they are both widows, and when Naomi had released her daughters in-law from the cultural customary service. Ruth is voluntarily taking on that service again, like the slave in the law of Moses, who, when his period of service is complete, announces his intention of remaining with his master and receives the awl mark through his ear.
Karen, we are on day three of a hydro outage due to an ice storm, so I will have read and comment later.
Holly, praying for your safety, comfort, and speedy power return!
Thank you. Not out of the woods yet. Communications line back, but still awaiting power restoration.
There has been some crazy weather this week. Be safe! Glad you are partway back.
Power returned in the middle of the night!
Wonderful!
Thanks for all your guidance as we journeyed through Paradise, Karen! April 16 works for me, but not the 15th.
I am a bit with C.S.Lewis on books XI and XII. What is the point of recounting all of biblical history to Adam? Does he really need to know? And -really?- would knowing all this really be comforting? Adam says, “my heart much eased” (274) but I would think knowing all this would overwhelm him.
But then I think - I wish Adam had been taking notes. Then maybe some of the poor decisions by his descendants could have been averted.
Book XII has one of my favorite quotes: “Favor [Christ’s perfect sacrifice] unmerited by me, who sought
Forbidden knowledge by forbidden means.” (278-9)
I also like that Eve gets the last word!
I suppose including all that makes the epic all that more epic. And that was what Milton was writing. Milton lived and breathed the Bible and biblical languages. He could just sit down and spit this stuff off. Which he largely did, given his blindness. It also helps explain some of the little errors and inconsistencies that are bound to happen that way. For example, the opening argument of book 12 says that Adam wakes up at the end. But in the poem, he finds her awake. Details, shmetails!
Thank you for sharing this, Christina!
https://substack.com/@crumbsfromhistable/note/c-130239689?r=90e4e&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Also, for anyone listening to the recording, you may have heard Ruby enjoying herself rolling around next to me on the couch. Not sure if that sound came through but I meant to explain what it was in case it did. 😂
The algorithms know all, so this article popped up in my feed. I thought it was pretty detailed and helpful about Milton overall so thought I’d share it with you. The part about how his blindness made him prefer night and darkness to day was moving.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/john-milton-life-guide-paradise-lost/