John Milton: A

Revolutionary Poet
Dr. Alan Haffa
Please Silence Cell Phones
 Cambridge: Classics
 Became a Puritan: opposed Biography
Catholics as well as Stuarts 1608-1674
 Latin Secretary to the
Commonwealth Government
& Protectorate
 Imprisoned during
Restoration
 Published Paradise Lost
1667
Classical Epic and Christian Epic
 Homer’s Achilles  Problem: How to
and Odysseus are reconcile warrior
models ethic and
 Individualistic Hero individualism of
 Proud classical hero with
Christian values?
 Warlike
 Obedience
 Tradition of Christian Epic
 Romance Epic: Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso—
Mad Orlando; imaginary Christian and
Muslim Knights
 Historical: Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata—
Jerusalem Delivered; First Crusdade
 Christian Allegory: Edmund Spenser’s Faerie
Queene; Allegory for Christian Virtues and
Queen Elizabeth
 Choosing an Explicitly Biblical topic was risky
 Thematic Overview
 Plot: Based on the Fall of Man in Genesis
 Satan is cast into Hell; He continues to
disobey and is eternally out cast.
 Adam, though disobedient, after suffering
Penance, can be redeemed
 Obedience to the Will of God is the primary
value
 How to turn a Tragic Story into an Epic?
 Adam and Eve Redeemed
 Hierarchy and Grace
 There is a spatial hierarchy that reflects a
political one
 Heaven: God and Angels
 Earth: mankind (Man/Woman)
 Hell: Fallen Angels and Damned
 Interestingly, Satan, Adam and Eve are all
rebels to this hierarchy
 But Adam and Eve ultimately submit; and,
they suffer because they rebelled.
 Satan as Hero
 William Blake and Percy
Shelley first to Heroize
Satan; “of the Devil’s
party without knowing
it.”
 Satan as an Achilles
 Proud; Willful;
Independent
 Satan as Classical Hero
“To bow and sue for Grace
With suppliant knee, and deifie his power,
Who from the terrour of this Arm so late
Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall;” (I.110-115)
 To supplicate is to submit; it implies weakness
and is an appeal for mercy
 Satan Glories in Hell
“Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n…
Here at least
We shall be free…
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.” (I.250-
263)
 Comments on Satan’s speech
 Reverses Achilles words
to Odysseus in the
Underworld: “better to
be a slave in life than a
King in the underworld.”
 Champions the idea of
Kingdom where the
people are Free. God is
presented as “tyrant,”
not unlike King Charles
 Assembly The Assembly: Free
 Satan is the first Debate of Fallen
among equals Angels
 Satan rules by
virtue of “merit”
 Sheds “tears such
as Angels weep”
before addressing
the Angels;
Recalls tears of
Odysseus and
Achilles
 Resolution of Rebellion
 Satan: “So farewell Hope, and with Hope
farewell Fear, Farewell Remorse: all Good
to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good; by
thee at least Divided Empire with Heav’ns
King I hold By thee, and more than half
perhaps will reigne; As Man ere long, and
this new World shall know.”
 Gender and Paradise Lost
 Eve is supposed to be subservient to Adam (for
nothing lovelier can be found/in Woman, then
to studie household good,/And good works in
her Husband to promote.”) IX.232
 Adam fails her by being weak; allowing her to
seek out ‘epic trials’ to prove her worth, when
he should protect her (ie., shelter her); “O
much deceav’d, much failing, hapless Eve.”
 Eve’s Beauty Disarms Satan momentarily
 Adam and Eve’s Supplicatons
“ prostrate fell
Before him reverent, and both
confess’d
Humbly thir faults, and pardon
beg’d, with tears watering the
ground, and with thir sighs the
Air
Frequenting, sent from hearts
contrite, in sign
Of Sorrow unfeign’d, and
 Optimistic End: Epic Resolution
“They looking back, all th’ Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav’d over by that Flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng’d and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop’d, but wip’d them
soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.” (XII.640)
 Conclusions
 In Paradise Lost, Satan is the Classical Hero;
Adam the Christian Anti-Hero
 Milton reveals a natural affiliation with; but,
these rebels have no just cause for rebellion
other than pride or vanity or delusion
 The Classical Hero must be rejecteded because
he is too egoistical
 In the end, God’s hierarchy is upheld and
Obedience is shown to be the proper value
 Despite The Fall, Milton succeeds in presenting
the Optimism of Christianity