Milton's Paradise Lost

by David Daiches

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.

He was born in Sunderland, into a Jewish family with a Lithuanian background - the subject of his 1956 memoir, Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood. He moved to Edinburgh while still a young child, about the end of World War I, where his father, Rev. Dr. Salis Daiches was rabbi to Edinburgh's Jewish community. He studied at George Watson's College and won a scholarship to University of Edinburgh where he won the Elliot prize. He went to Oxford where he became the Elton exhibitioner, and was elected Fellow of Balliol College in 1936.

During World War II, he worked for the British Embassy in Washington, DC, producing pamphlets for the British Information Service and drafting speeches on British institutions and foreign policy.

Daiches' first published work was The Place of Meaning in Poetry, published in 1935. He was a prolific writer, producing works on English literature, Scottish literature, literary history and criticism as well as the broader role of literature in society and culture.

Daiches was the father of Jenni Calder, also a Scottish literary historian.

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

General Preface
5: "In one sense all critical interpretation can be regarded as foisting opinions on readers"; "hope[s] of stimulating the reader into developing further his own insights"

Preface
8-11: three major difficulties in reading Paradise Lost: 1) Milton's Christian Humanism (familiarity with biblical and classical texts); 2) intense subject matter (justifying God's ways to men); 3) rich genre (epic)
12: original topic was King Arthur; original genre was drama; dictated the poem (he was blind) between 1658-63

The Beginning
13: Milton rejected rhyme for this epic
13-14: 26-line prologue
14: opening parallels other epics (e.g., Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid); first four words go against the (later-to-be-established) stress pattern
15: Mt. Horeb = Mt. Sinai; Moses is "That Shepherd" (best poets were shepherds, prophets, and priests); "In the beginning" in l. 9 (Gen. 1:1 in Moses's Pentateuch; cf. John 1:1)
18: Milton compares the creation of Paradise Lost with the actual creation; poet = maker
19: Milton has to describe Heaven and Hell in terms that humans can understand
21-22: demonic rhetoric is supposed to be attractive (it adds credibility to the story of Adam's temptation and fall); reference to Lewis's Preface
23: Satan as monstrous, yet familiar
24: question of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility
24-25: Satan as Faustian and Byronic
26: vanity of medieval chivalry/romance (Paradise Lost is better)—see pp. 27-28
27: certain kinds of virtues are possible only after the Fall; is the Fall necessary for the arts, or are the arts a way of coping with the Fall?; Huxley's Brave New World
27-28: Milton uses references/allusions to Arthur, Roland, and Orlando to show the emptiness of medieval romances, despite their many Christian qualities and codes of honor; mingling of good and evil
28: moral ambiguities (see p. 31)
29: Daiches thinks the War in Heaven (Book 6) is pointless
30: demons in conclave conjures images of treasonous Jesuits

Book II
30: Milton is skilfull in depicting evil arguments as persuasive
30-31: Satan, Moloch, Belial, Mammon, Beelzebub
32: compare Satan's offer to journey to Chaos with Christ's offering of Himself; demonic activities mirror vain human activities
34: thou va-vohu = "without form and void"; "It is ominous that we first see the earth through Satan's eyes."

Book III
34: invocation to Light; "most daring part of his epic"
35: Milton was highly conscious of his own blindness
36: "prelapsarian Eden was perpetual spring"; Fall was necessary, not because of the felix culpa, but because it led to the only kind of virtue that makes sense (conditions of struggle against sin)
37: paradox of being solitary together; foreknowledge, necessity, etc.
37-38: Milton's suspicion of rhetoric (view of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian); Christ in Paradise Regained is not rhetorical, but Satan is [cf. Herbert's Jordan poems?]
38: difference between language in Hell, Heaven, and Earth
38-39: Christ isn't the hero as much as Adam is
39: Daiches thinks that Eve and Uriel should be treated the same (innocent because of ignorance), but Uriel didn't disobey a direct command from God
40: we see Paradise first through Satan's eyes (cf. p. 34)

Book IV
41: reference to Gerard Manly Hopkins and recharging words with meaning
43: Adam's speech is not "rhetorical" like Satan's (see p. 38); paradox of knowledge: Satan tempts Adam and Eve to know more, yet they are supposed to grow in knowledge
44: Daiches seems to think that "labor" was a curse (see p. 53); Eve's love for Adam (nature is sweet, but none of it is really sweet if Eve can't be with her lover), and the parallel structure of that passage
44-45: Milton criticizes "the artificial sighings and servitudes of the courtly love tradition"
45: Milton's view of sex shows that stereotypes of English Puritans are just that: stereotypes; Milton seems sad to see Adam and Eve wake from their last peaceful sleep; Milton's use of rhetoric

Books V-VI
46: English Puritans did not like set prayers
47-48: Daiches thinks epic is inadequate for talking about the War in Heaven
48: Adam and Eve wouldn't understand Raphael's war imagery, so Milton is really talking to his readers

Books VII-VIII
48: invocations at the beginning of Books 1, 3 (light), 7 (Urania), and 9; Milton's invocations are personal
48-49: Milton's sense of isolation
49: Milton took the Genesis account literally (see p. 53)
50: Milton's problem is that he tries to be too logical (?); distinction between vain knowledge and proper knowledge; Milton/Raphael doesn't commit himself on universe theories; Adam is commanded not to dream of other worlds; Raphael doesn't know what happened when God created Adam
51: God's teasing of Adam (God's half-humorous anthropomorphism is more attractive than the serious anthropomorphic scenes in Heaven); distinction between true love and irrational passion; Milton treats different kinds of love dramatically, not so much in discussion (reference to Spenser)

Book IX
52: this is the greatest book of Paradise Lost—central scene of his tragic epic; another reference to the superiority of PL to other epics (see p. 28)
54: Eve is different when she finally returns to Adam (see p. 57)
55: Satan's eloquence shows Milton's suspicion of it (see p. 37); moral paradox and the conative theory of virtue (knowing seems necessary, and true virtue involves a struggle); Eve may have fallen by being overly trustful, but Adam fell because of love for Eve; Milton is parodying the Courtly Love tradition (see also pp. 26, 28, 52); we see the most brilliant "Sorry I'm late, but..." speech in history
56: Eve's language is different after the Fall (see p. 59)
57: "Milton's psychological insight . . . goes beyond the theological and logical boundaries of the poem"
58: both logic and rhetoric can lead astray; bad version of the felix culpa (Adam says that sin is so fun that he wishes he would have sinned earlier)

Books X-XII
58: Milton seems obsessive about defending God's wisdom and justice
59-60: changes on Earth and Hell because of the fall; Eve begins the process of recovery, and her speech is full of grace
61: stern Michael is different from affable Raphael
61-62: the story of Christ's success elicits the felix culpa from Adam—the Fall provided a world in which people could struggle meaningfully and prove self-worth

Further Reading
63: C.S. Lewis's A Preface to 'Paradise Lost' (convinced of Milton's theodicy) and William Epson's Milton's God (not convinced)