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For Milton, the poet was polemicist, patriot, pastor, and priest. His audience was the nation, and his muse nothing less than almighty God. If he knew he must prepare for his calling by “industrious and select reading, steddy observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affaires,” he knew also that such preparation could not in itself be enough. The complex role demanded something more: “devout prayer to that eternall Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallow’d fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he
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This harks back to Dante and his similar appraisal of poetry in the Divine Comedy, if I recall correctly.
What needs justification is God’s relation to the evil that is so manifestly present in the world,
Unde malum, “whence evil?” was the famous question of the early third-century Church father, Tertullian.19 Where does evil come from? If it is part of God’s creation, God becomes responsible for evil and its effects. If it is not, God is not supreme, but only one half of a dualistic principle in the universe. Put differently, if God creates evil, he is not good; if he doesn’t, he is not God.
Milton’s way out of the conundrum is to insist that evil is not of the same order of being as good. God does not create evil, but evil comes into being when free creatures turn away from the good.
Still it would be foolish to deny how deeply the poem is marked by patriarchal, sometimes even misogynist, sentiments, though it is important also to remember that statements made by characters need not represent Milton’s own views, or even honestly their own.
Criticism of Paradise Lost has tended to concentrate more upon the political and theological issues it engages rather than directly focusing on its stylistic achievement.
How huge Lucifer seems as he rises up armed in the heavens, hardly inferior to Michael himself!
rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame meter;
To do aught good never will be our task, [160] But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist.
If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labor must be to pervert that end [165] And out of good still to find means of evil,
disturb° His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
The mind is its own place and in itself [255] Can make a Heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven.
To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.
“Leader of those armies bright, Which but the omnipotent none could have foiled,
For spirits when they please Can either sex assume or both, so soft [425] And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous° flesh, but in what shape they choose
What can be worse Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe, Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us without hope of end [90] The vassals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus We should be quite abolished and expire. What fear we then? What doubt we to incense [95] His utmost ire, which to the height enraged Will either quite consume us and reduce To nothing this essential, happier far Than miserable to have eternal being?
There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven Err not), another world, the happy seat Of some new race called man, about this time To be created like to us, though less [350] In power and excellence but favored more Of him who rules above; so was his will Pronounced among the gods and by an oath, That shook Heaven’s whole circumference, confirmed. Thither let us bend all our thoughts to learn What creatures there inhabit, of what mold Or substance, how endued, and what their power, And where their weakness, how attempted best, By force or subtlety.
But what owe I to his commands above Who hates me and hath hither thrust me down Into this gloom of Tartarus profound To sit in hateful office° here confined, [860] Inhabitant of Heaven and heavenly born, Here in perpetual agony and pain, With terrors and with clamors compassed round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?
on his right The radiant image of his glory sat, His only Son
For man will hearken to his glozing lies And easily transgress the sole command, [95] Sole pledge of his obedience; so will fall, He and his faithless progeny.
he had of me All he could have; I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood though free to fall.
Freely they stood who stood and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, [105] Where only what they needs must do appeared, Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will, Yet not of will in him but grace in me Freely vouchsafed;° once more I will renew His lapsed powers, though forfeit and enthralled By sin to foul exorbitant° desires; Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand On even ground against his mortal° foe, [180] By me upheld that he may know how frail His fallen condition is and to me owe All his deliverance, and to none but me.
And I will place within them as a guide [195] My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain And, to the end persisting, safe arrive.
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Holy Ghost?
Against the high supremacy of Heaven, Affecting godhead, and so, losing all, To expiate his treason hath naught left, But, to destruction sacred and devote, He with his whole posterity must die; [210] Die he or justice must, unless for him Some other, able and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. Say heavenly powers, where shall we find such love, Which of ye will be mortal to redeem [215] Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save? Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear
Behold me, then: me for him, life for life I offer; on me let thine anger fall; Account me man; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee [240] Freely put off, and for him lastly die Well pleased; on me let death wreak all his rage. Under his gloomy power I shall not long Lie vanquished; thou hast given me to possess Life in myself forever; by thee I live, [245] Though now to death I yield and am his due, All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid, Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul Forever with corruption there to
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man, His chief delight and favor,
For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone,
Each had his place appointed, each his course; The rest in circuit walls this universe.
Me miserable! Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? [75] Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell, And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
But say I could repent and could obtain By act of grace my former state: how soon [95] Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned submission swore; ease would recant Vows made in pain as violent and void, For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep, [100] Which would but lead me to a worse relapse And heavier fall.
So farewell hope and, with hope, farewell fear; Farewell remorse. All good to me is lost. [110] Evil be thou my good
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing
The image of their glorious maker shone: Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe° and pure, Severe,
Whence true authority in men, though both Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed: For contemplation he and valor formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him.
God hath pronounced it death to taste that tree,
Which, were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.”
beauty and submissive charms
Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death? And do they only stand By ignorance? Is that their happy state, [520] The proof of their obedience and their faith?
[895] To thee no reason, who know’st only good But evil hast not tried.
“Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know’st mine: Neither our own but given.
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He plucked; he tasted. Me damp horror chilled At such bold words vouched° with a deed so bold, But he thus, overjoyed: ‘O fruit divine, Sweet of thyself, but much more sweet thus cropped, Forbidden here, it seems, as only fit [70] For gods, yet able to make gods of men— And why not gods of men, since good the more Communicated° more abundant grows, The author not impaired but honored more? Here, happy creature, fair angelic Eve, [75] Partake thou also; happy though thou art, Happier thou mayst be, worthier canst not be. Taste this and be henceforth among the gods Thyself a goddess, not to
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his will though free Yet mutable;
tell him withal His danger and from whom, what enemy, [240] Late-fallen himself from Heaven, is plotting now The fall of others from like state of bliss: By violence, no, for that shall be withstood, But by deceit and lies; this let him know, Lest willfully transgressing he pretend [245] Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned.”
here on earth [330] God hath dispensed his bounties as in Heaven.”
On whom the angel “hail” Bestowed, the holy salutation used Long after to blessed Mary, second Eve
happiness this happy state Can comprehend,° incapable of more.”
God made thee perfect, not immutable, [525] And good he made thee; but to persevere He left it in thy power, ordained thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable or strict necessity;
Satan, so call him now; his former name Is heard no more in Heaven; he, of the first, [660] If not the first archangel, great in power, In favor and preeminence, yet fraught With envy against the Son of God,
could not bear, [665] Through pride, that sight and thought himself impaired
