Surprised by Sin

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

John Skelton's Poetry

Surprised by Sin:
the Reader in Paradise Lost

STANLEY EUGENE FISH

'Let us search and try our ways,

and turn again to the Lord.'
LAMENTATIONS

Palgrave Macmillan
 ISBN 978-1-349-00148-4 ISBN 978-1-349-00146-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00146-0

© Stanley Eug6n6 Fis" 1967

Softcover reprint of the hardcover ISt edition 1967 978-0-333-02109-5

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 TO

MY STUDENTS

AT THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

BERKELEY
 Contents
PREFACE IX

I Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling I

2 The Milk of the Pure Word 57

3 Man's Polluting Sin 92

4 Standing Only : Christian Heroism IS8

s The Interpretative Choice 208

6 What Cause?: Faith and Reason 241

7 So God with Man Unites 286

APPENDIX

Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 332

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES 341
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 343
 Preface
There are currently two strains in criticism of Paradise Lost,
one concerned with providing a complete reading of the
poem (in so far as that is possible), the other emphasizing
a single aspect of it, or a single tradition in the light of
which the whole can be better understood. Somewhat
uneasily this book attempts to participate in both strains.
My subject is Milton's reader, and my thesis, simply, that
the uniqueness of the poem's theme- man's first dis-
obedience and the fruit thereof- results in the reader's
being simultaneously a participant in the action and a critic
of his own performance. I believe Milton's intention to
differ little from that of so many devotional writers, 'to
discover to us our miserable and wretched estate through
corruption of nature' and to 'shew how a man may come to a
holy reformation and so happily recover himself'. (Richard
Bernard, The Isle of Man.) In the course of the poem, I shall
argue, the reader
(1) is confronted with evidence of his corruption and
becomes aware of his inability to respond adequately
to spiritual conceptions, and
(2) is asked to refine his perceptions so that his under-
standing will be once more proportionable to truth
the object of it.
The following chapters, then, will explore two patterns -
the reader's humiliation and his education- and they will
make the point that the success of the second depends on
the quality of his response to the first. Whenever possible,
the crises of the reading experience will be related to the
crisis at the centre of the narrative, the fall of Adam and Eve.

My debts and obligations are many. I owe much to the

x Preface

Miltonists whose opinions are recorded in the text. They

are the best of Milton's readers. I have been most influenced
(as far as I am aware) by the work of Joseph Summers and
A. J. A. Waldock, although it can be fairly said that every-
one who has written on the poem since I 940 has improved
my understanding of it. I have benefited greatly from the
advice and counsel of George A. Starr and A. E. Dyson.
I have learned much from Mr. Starr's excellent study,
Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography (Princeton, I 96 s), which
I would cite to support the tenability of my general position.
Mr. Dyson provided encouragement, moral and material,
when it was most needed. At different times I have profited
from the cogent criticisms of Paul Alpers, John Coolidge,
Norman Rabkin, Christopher Ricks, and Wayne Shumaker.
Gilbert Robinson and Laurence Jacobs, my research assis-
tants, know how much of their labours have been incor-
porated here.
The students to whom this book is dedicated have con-
tributed materially to it. I have made use of the insights and
suggestions of Edward Pechter, Gilbert Robinson, Roger
Swearingen and Beatrice Weisner. Others are no doubt rep-
resented, but unacknowledged. No measure of the debt to
my wife is possible : for in addition to the laborious tasks of
typing, editing, and proof-reading, she has borne the burden
of the crises of confidence suffered daily by the author.

The writing of this book was made possible by two grants-

in-aid; one in the form of a Humanities Research Professor-
ship awarded by the University of California at Berkeley,
and the other a fellowship from the American Council of
Learned Societies.
Portions of Chapters I, 2, and 4 have appeared in The
Critical Quarterly and The Southern Review (Australia). I am
grateful for permission to reprint.
 l'rejface Xl

All citations to the poems of Milton are to John Milton:

Complete l'oems and Major l'rose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes
(New York, I 9 57).
S. E. F.
London
September r966
1 Not so much a Teaching
as an lntanglingr
The right thing in speaking really is that we
should be satisfied not to annoy our hearers,
without trying to delight them: we ought in
fairness to light our case with no help beyond
the bare facts: nothing, therefore, should
matter except the proof of those facts. Still,
as has been said, other things affect the result
considerably, owing to the defects of our
hearers. ARISTOTLE, Rlletoric

(i) THE DEFECTS OF OUR HEARERS

I would like to suggest something about Paradise Lost that

is not new except for the literalness with which the point will
be made: ( 1) the poem's centre of reference is its reader who
is also its subject; (2) Milton's purpose is to educate the
reader to an awareness of his position and responsibilities as
a fallen man, and to a sense of the distance which separates
him from the innocence once his; (3) Milton's method is to
re-create in the mind of the reader (which is, finally, the
poem's scene) the drama of the Fall, to make him fall again
exactly as Adam did and with Adam's troubled clarity, that
is to say, 'not deceived'. In a limited sense few would deny
the truth of my first two statements; Milton's concern with
the ethical imperatives of political and social behaviour
would hardly allow him to write an epic which did not
attempt to give his audience a basis for moral action; but I
do not think the third has been accepted in the way that I
intend it.
1 This chapter incorporates, with some additions, two articles published in

the Summer and Autumn issues of The Critical Quarterly (1965).

2 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

A. J. A. Waldock, one of many sensitive readers who have

confronted the poem since I 940, writes : 'Paradise Lost is an
epic poem of singularly hard and definite outline, expressing
itself (or so at least would be our first impressions) with
unmistakable clarity and point.' 1 In the course of his book
Waldock expands the reservation indicated by his paren-
thesis into a reading which predicates a disparity between
Milton's intention and his performance:
In a sense Milton's central theme denied him the full expression
of his deepest interests. It was likely, then, that as his really deep
interests could not find outlet in his poem in the right way they
might find outlet in the wrong way. And to a certain extent they
do; they find vents and safety-valves often in inopportune places.
Adam cannot give Milton much scope to express what he really
feels about life; but Satan is there, Satan gives him scope. And
the result is that the balance is somewhat disturbed; pressures are
I Paradise Lost and its Critics (Cambridge, 1947), P· 15. I consider

Waldock's book to be the most forthright statement of an anti-Miltonism

that can be found in the criticism of Leavis and Eliot, and, more recently, of
Empson, R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, H. R. Swardson and John Peter. Bernard
Bergonzi concludes his analysis of Waldock by saying, 'no attempt has been
made to defend the poem in the same detailed and specific manner in which it
has been attacked' (The Living Milton, ed. Frank Kermode, London, 1960,
p. 171). This essay is such an attempt. Bergonzi goes on to assert that 'a
successful answer to Waldock would have to show that narrative structure of
Paradise Lost does possess the kind of coherence and psychological plausibility
that we have come to expect from the novel. Again there can be no doubt that
it does not' (p. 174). I shall argue that the coherence and psychological
plausibility of the poem are to be found in the relationship between its effects
and the mind of its reader. To some extent my reading has been anticipated
by Joseph Summers in his brilliant study, The Muse's Method (Harvard, 1962 ).
See especially pp. 3o-3 I : 'Milton anticipated ... the technique of the
"guilty reader" .... The readers as well as the characters have been involved
in the evil and have been forced to recognize and to judge their involvement.'
See also Anne Ferry's Milton's Epic Voice: The Narrator in Paradise Lost
(Harvard, 1963), pp. 44-66: 'We are meant to remember that the events of
the poem have already occurred ... and that it is because of what happens in
the poem, because we and all men were corrupted by the Fall, that we stand
 The Defects of Our Hearers 3

set up that are at times disquieting, that seem to threaten more

than once, indeed, the equilibri urn of the poem. 1
The 'unconscious meaning' portion of Waldock's thesis is,
I think, as wrong as his description of the reading experience
as 'disquieting' is right. If we transfer the emphasis from
Milton's interests and intentions which are available to us
only from a distance, to our responses which are available
directly, the disparity between intention and execution
becomes a disparity between reader expectation and reading
experience; and the resulting 'pressures' can be seen as part
of an intelligible pattern. In this way we are led to consider
our own experience as a part of the poem's subject.
By 'hard and definite outline' I take Waldock to mean the
sense of continuity and direction evoked by the simultaneous
introduction of the epic tradition and Christian myth. The
'definiteness' of a genre classification leads the reader to
expect a series of formal stimuli - martial encounters,
complex similes, an epic voice - to which his response is
more or less automatic ; the hardness of the Christian myth
predetermines his sympathies; the union of the two allows
the assumption of a comfortable reading experience in
which conveniently labelled protagonists act out rather
in need of a guide to correct our reading of it. The narrative voice is our guide'
(p. 47). Finally I refer the reader to Douglas Knight's excellent article, 'The
Dramatic Center of Paradiu Lost', South Atlantic Quarterly (1964), pp.
44-59, which reached me only after this manuscript was substantially com-
pleted. Mr. Knight argues, as I do, for the analytic nature of the reading
experience. Our emphases are different (he focuses mainly on the similes)
but our general conclusions accord perfectly: 'The poem's material and
structure fuse as they put pressure on the reader to assess and estimate the
place where he is to stand; Adam and Eve can almost be said to dramatize for
him a mode of action which is his own if he reads the poem properly. For
Paradise Lost is a work of art whose full achievement is one of mediation and
interactivity among three things: a way of reading the poem, an estimate of it
as a whole work, and a reader's proper conduct of his life' (pp. 56-57).
1 Paradise Lost and its Critics, p. 24.
4 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

simple roles in a succession of familiar situations. The

reader is prepared to hiss the devil off the stage and applaud
the pronouncements of a partisan and somewhat human
deity who is not unlike Tasso's 'il Padre eterno'. But of
course this is not the case; no sensitive reading of Paradise
Lost tallies with these expectations, and it is my contention
that Milton ostentatiously calls them up in order to provide
his reader with the shock of their disappointment. This is
not to say merely that Milton communicates a part of his
meaning by a calculated departure from convention ; every
poet does that ; but that Milton consciously wants to worry
his reader, to force him to doubt the correctness of his
responses, and to bring him to the realization that his in-
ability to read the poem with any confidence in his own
perception is its focus.
Milton's programme of reader harassment begins in the
opening lines ; the reader, however, may not be aware of it
until line 84 when Satan speaks for the first time. The
speech is a powerful one, moving smoothly from the
exclamatio of 'But 0 how fall'n' (84) to the regret and ap-
parent logic of 'till then who knew I The force of those dire
Arms' (93-94), the determination of 'courage never to sub-
mit or yield' (ro8) and the grand defiance of 'Irreconcilable
to our grand Foe, I Who now triumphs, and in th' excess
of joy I Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n' (122-
I 24). This is our first view of Satan and the impression given,
reinforced by a succession of speeches in Book I, is described
by Waldock : 'fortitude in adversity, enormous endurance, a
certain splendid recklessness, remarkable powers of rising to
an occasion, extraordinary qualities ofleadership (shown not
least in his salutary taunts)'. 1 But in each case Milton follows
the voice of Satan with a comment which complicates, and
according to some, falsifies, our reaction to it :
1 Ibid., p. 77.
 The Defects of Our Hearers 5

So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,

Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despair.
(125-6)
Waldock's indignation at this authorial intrusion is in-
structive:
If one observes what is happening one sees that there is hardly a
great speech of Satan's that Milton is not at pains to correct, to
damp down and neutralize. He will put some glorious thing in
Satan's mouth, then, anxious about the effect of it, will pull us
gently by the sleeve, saying (for this is what it amounts to): 'Do
not be carried away by this fellow: he sounds splendid, but take my
word for it... .' Has there been much despair in what we have
just been listening to? The speech would almost seem to be in-
compatible with that. To accept Milton's comment here .•. as
if it had a validity equal to that of the speech itself is surely very
naive critical procedure ... in any work of imaginative literature
at all it is the demonstration, by the very nature of the case, that
has the higher validity; an allegation can possess no comparable
authority. Of course they should agree; but if they do not then
the demonstration must carry the day. (pp. 77-78)
There are several assumptions here:
( 1) There is a disparity between our response to the
speech and the epic voice's evaluation of it.
(2) Ideally, there should be no disparity.
(3) Milton's intention is to correct his error.
(4) He wants us to discount the effect of the speech
through a kind of mathematical cancellation.
(5) The question of relative authority is purely an
aesthetic one. That is, the reader is obliged to hearken
to the most dramatically persuasive of any conflicting
VOICeS.
Of these I can assent only to the first. The comment of the
epic voice unsettles the reader, who sees in it at least a partial
challenge to his own assessment of the speech. The implica-
B F.s.s.
 6 No so much a Teaching as an lntangling

tion is that there is more (or less) here than has met the ear ;
and since the only ear available is the reader's, the further
implication is that he has failed in some way to evaluate
properly what he has heard. One must begin by admitting
with Waldock the impressiveness of the speech, if only as a
performance that commands attention as would any forensic
tour de force ; and attention on that level involves a corre-
sponding inattention on others. It is not enough to analyse,
as Lewis and others have, the speciousness of Satan's
rhetoric. It is the nature of sophistry to lull the reasoning
process ; logic is a safeguard against a rhetorical effect only
after the effect has been noted. The deep distrust, even fear,
of verbal manipulation in the seventeenth century is a
recognition of the fact that there is no adequate defence
against eloquence at the moment of impact. (The appeal of
rhetoric was traditionally associated with the weakness of
the fallen intellect - the defect of our hearers ; its fine
phrases flatter the desires of the cupidinous self and per-
petuate the disorder which has reigned in the soul since the
Fall.) 1 In other words one can analyse the process of deception
1 The tradition begins with Plato's opposition of rhetoric to dialectic.

Socrates' interlocutors discover the truth for themselves, when, in response to

his searching questions, they are led to examine their opinions and, perhaps, to
refute them. The rhetorician, on the other hand, creates a situation in which
his auditors have no choice but to accept the beliefs he urges on them. In
The Testimony of the President, Professors, Tutors, and Hebrew Instructor of
Haroard College in Cambridge, Against the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield,
And his Conduct (Boston, 1744), Whitefield is censured because of 'his
power to raise the People to any Degree of Warmth he pleases, whereby
they stand ready to receive almost any Doctrine he is pleased to broach .. .'
(p. 13). The danger lies in the weakness of the fallen intellect which is more
likely to be swayed by appearances than by the naked presentation of the truth.
In recognition of this danger, the Puritan preacher first sets out the points of
doctrine in the form of a Ramist 'proof' before turning in the 'uses' to the
figures of exhortation. 'For a minister to lure men to an emotional reception
of the creed before their imaginations had conceived it, before their intellects
were convinced of it and their wills had deliberately chosen to live by it, was
 The Defects of Our Hearers 7
fully as immoral as openly to persuade them to wrong doing' (Perry Miller,
The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century, Beacon Press Edition,
Boston, 1961, p. 308). A similar distrust of rhetoric manifests itself in the
writings of the Baconian empiricists. Figurative language is said to be useless
for the description of experiments or the formulation of conclusions, and
rhetorical appeals are disdained because they dull intellects which should be
alertly analytic. Bacon protests against the delivery (presentation) of knowledge
'in such form as may be best believed, and not as may be best examined' and
advises instead 'the method of the mathematiques' (Selected Writings, ed.
H. G. Dick, New York, 1955, p. 304). To Hobbes geometry is 'the only
science that it has pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind', a science which,
as Aristotle said, no one uses fine language in teaching (Leviathan, ed. H. W.
Schneider, New York, I958, p. 4-I). Sprat believes that eloquence, 'this
vicious volubility of Tongue' should be 'banish'd out of all civil Societies'
because the ornaments of speaking 'are in open defiance against Reason' and
hold too much correspondence with the passions, giving the mind 'a motion
too changeable, and bewitching, to consist with right practice' (The History
of the Royal Society of London, I 667, p. II I). (In Chapter 3 I shall have
occasion to examine the philosophical-linguistic objections to rhetoric at
greater length.) Complementing the fear of rhetoric is a faith in the safeguards
provided by the use of analytical method. Where one short-circuits the rational
and panders to the emotions, the other speaks directly to the reason. Where
one compels assent without allowing due deliberation, the other encourages
the auditor or reader to examine the progress of a composition at every point,
whether it be a poem, a sermon, or the report of an experiment. 'Now my
plan', announces Bacon, 'is to proceed regularly and gradually from one
axiom to another.' However complex the experiment, he proposes to 'subjoin
a clear account of the manner in which I made it; that men knowing exactly
how each point was made out, may see whether there be any error connected
with it' (Preface to the Great Instauration, in The English Philosophers From
Bacon to Mill, ed. E. A. Burtt, New York, 1939, p. 2I). Puritan preachers
dispose their texts with the same care so that their auditors can receive the
discourse according to the manner of its composition. The focus is always on
the mind, which must be led, step by step, and with a consciousness of an
answering obligation, to a clear understanding of conceptual content. (Again
we see the similarity to Platonic dialectic.) In writing Paradise Lost, then,
Milton is able to draw upon a tradition of didacticism which finds its expres-
sion in a distrust of the affective and an insistence on the intellectual involve-
ment of the listener-pupil; in addition he could rely on his readers to associate
logic and the capacity for logical reasoning with the godly instinct in man, and
the passions, to which rhetoric appeals, with his carnal instincts.
8 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

only after it is successful. The reader who is stopped short

by Milton's rebuke (for so it is) will, perhaps, retrace
his steps and note more carefully the inconsistency of a
Tyranny that involves an excess of joy, the perversity of
'study of revenge, immortal hate' (a line that had slipped
past him sandwiched respectably between will and courage),
the sophistry of the transfer of power from the 'Potent
Victor' of 9 5 to the 'Fate' of I I 6, and the irony, in the larger
picture, of 'that were low indeed' and 'in foresight much
advanc't'. The fit reader Milton has in mind would go
further and recognize in Satan's finest moment- 'And
courage never to submit or yield' - an almost literal trans-
lation of Georgie IV. 84, 'usque adeo obnixi non cedere'.
Virgil's 'praise' is for his bees whose heroic posturing is
presented in terms that are at least ambiguous:
ipsi per medias acies insignibus alis
ingentes animos angusto in pectore versant,
usque adeo obnixi non cedere, dum gravis aut hos
aut hos versa fuga victor dare terga subegit.
hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta
pulveris exigui iactu compressa quiescunt.
(82-87) 1
If we apply these verses to Satan, the line in question mocks
him and in the unique time scheme of Paradise Lost looks
1 As Davis Harding points out (Tize Club of Hercules, Urbana, Ill., 1962,

pp. 103-8), this passage is also the basis of the bee simile at line 768. The
reader who catches the allusion here at line ro8 will carry it with him to the
end of the book and to the simile. One should also note the parallel between
the epic voice's comment at I 26 and Virgil's comment on Aeneas' first speech
(as Milton's early editors noted it}: 'Talia voce refert, curisque ingentibus
aegerfspem voltu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem'. But as is always the
case in such comparisons, Satan suffers by it, since his deception is self-deception
and involves an attempt to deny (to himself} the reality of an authority
greater than his, while Aeneas' deception is, in context, an evidence of his
faith in the promise of a higher authority. The hope he feigns is only partially
a pretence; if it were all pretence, he would not bother.
 The Defects of Our Hearers 9

both backward (the Victor has already driven the rebel host
to flight) and forward (in terms of the reading experience,
the event is yet to come). I believe that all this and more is
there, but that the complexities of the passage will be ap-
parent only when the reader has been led to them by the
necessity of accounting for the distance between his initial
response and the obiter dictum of the epic voice. When he
is so led, the reader is made aware that Milton is correcting
not a mistake of composition, but the weakness all men
evince in the face of eloquence. The error is his, not Milton's;
and when Waldock invokes some unidentified critical
principle ('they should agree') he objects to an effect Milton
anticipates and desires.
But this is more than a stylistic trick to ensure the per-
ception of irony. For, as Waldock points out, this first epic
interjection introduces a pattern that is operative throughout.
In Books I and II these 'correctives' are particularly
numerous and, if the word can be used here, tactless.
Waldock falsifies his experience of the poem, I think, when
he characterizes Milton's countermands as gentle; we are
not warned ('Do not be carried away by this fellow'), but
accused, taunted by an imperious voice which says with
no consideration of our feelings, 'I know that you have been
carried away by what you have just heard ; you should not
have been ; you have made a mistake, just as I knew you
would' ; and we resent this rebuke, not, as Waldock suggests,
because our aesthetic sense balks at a clumsy attempt to
neutralize an unintentional effect, but because a failing has
been exposed in a context that forces us to acknowledge it.
We are angry at the epic voice, not for fudging, but for
being right, for insisting that we become our own critics.
There is little in the human situation more humiliating in
both senses of the word, than the public acceptance of a
deserved rebuke.
10 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

Not that the reader falls and becomes one of Satan's

party. His involvement in the speech does not directly com-
promise his position in a God-centred universe, since his
response (somewhat unconscious) is to a performance rather
than to a point of view that he might be led to adopt as his
own. As Michael Krouse notes, 'the readers for whom
Milton wrote ... were prepared for a Devil equipped with
what appear on the surface to be the best of arguments'.
(Milton's Samson and the Christian Tradition, p. 102). As a
Christian who has been taught every day to steel himself
against diabolical wiles, the reader is more than prepared to
admit the justness of the epic voice's judgment on Satan. It
is the phrase 'vaunting aloud' that troubles, since it seems to
deny even the academic admiration one might have for
Satan's art as apart from his morality and to suggest that
such admiration can never really be detached from the
possibility of involvement (if only passive) in that morality.
The sneer in 'vaunting' is aimed equally at the performance
and anyone who lingers to appreciate it. (Satan himself
delivers the final judgment on this and on all his speeches
at IV. 8 3 : 'Whom I seduc' d / With other promises and other
vaunts'.) The danger is not so much that Satan's argument
will persuade (one does not accord the father of lies an
impartial hearing), but that its intricacy will engage the
reader's attention and lead him into an error of omission.
That is to say, in the attempt to follow and analyse Satan's
soliloquy, the larger contexts in which it exists will be for-
gotten. The immediate experience of the poetry will not be
qualified by the perspective of the poem's doctrinal assump-
tions. Arnold Stein writes, 'the formal perspective does not
force itself upon Satan's speech, does not label and edito-
rialize the impressive wilfulness out of existence; but
rather sets up a dramatic conflict between the local context
of the immediate utterance and the larger context of which
 The Defects of Our Hearers I I

the formal perspective is expression. This conflict marks

... the tormented relationship between the external boast
and the internal despair.' 1 Stein's comment is valuable, but
it ignores the way the reader is drawn into the poem, not as
an observer who coolly notes the interaction of patterns
(this is the mode of Jonsonian comedy and masque), but as a
participant whose mind is the locus of that interaction;
I Answerable Style: Essays on Paradise Lost (Minneapolis, 1953), p. 124.

Frank Kermode's analysis in The Living Milton (p. 106) supports my position:
'He uses the epic poet's privilege of intervening in his own voice, and he does
this to regulate the reader's reaction; but some of the effects he gets from this
device are far more complicated than is sometimes supposed. The corrective
comments inserted after Satan has been making out a good case for himself
are not to be lightly attributed to a crude didacticism; naturally they are
meant to keep the reader on the right track, but they also allow Milton to
preserve the energy of the myth. While we are hearing Satan we are not
hearing the comment; for the benefit of a fallen audience the moral correction
is then applied, but its force is calculatedly lower; and the long-established
custom of claiming that one understands Satan better than Milton did is
strong testimony to the tact with which it is done.' Anne Ferry (Milton's
Epic Yoice) is closer to Stein: 'The speech is meant to belie the inner ex-
perience and the comment to point out the power of the contradiction.
Satan's words do not sound despairing precisely because the division within
him is so serious. Only the inspired narrator can penetrate the appearance to
discover the reality' (p. 120). Mrs. Ferry's discussion of this pattern focuses
on her conception of the narrator as a divided being: 'These didactic comments
remind us of the narrator's presence and his special vision in order that we
may accept his moral interpretation of the story•... They are not opposed
to the action of the poem, but are part of the total pattern of that action, not
checks upon our immediate responses to drama, but a means of expressing the
speaker's double point of view, his fallen knowledge and his inspired vision'
(p. 56). It seems to me that the didactic comments are checks upon our
immediate responses; nor do I believe it an oversimplification 'to make the
speaker' a judge 'who lectures us like a prig just when we are most involved
in the story'. I agree whole-heartedly, however, with Mrs. Ferry's arranging of
interpretative hierarchies: 'So that when we find complexity in our response
to the behavior or speech of a character and to the statement of the narrator
which interprets it, we must judge the character by the interpretation, not
the interpretation by the character's words or acts' (p. 16). I would add (and
this is the heart of my thesis) that we must judge ourselves in the same way.
I z Not so much a Teaching as an lntang/ing

Milton insists on this since his concern with the reader is

necessarily more direct than it might be in any other poem ;
and to grant the reader the status of the slightly arrogant
perceiver-of-ironies Stein invents would be to deny him the
full benefit (I use the word deliberately, confident that
Milton would approve) of the reading experience. Stein's
'dramatic conflict' is there, as are his various perspectives,
but they are actualized, that is translated into felt meaning,
only through the more pervasive drama (between reader and
poem) I hope to describe.
A Christian failure need not be dramatic ; if the reader
loses himself in the workings of the speech even for a
moment, he places himself in a compromising position. He
has taken his eye from its proper object - the glory of God,
and the state of his own soul- and is at least in danger.
Sin is a matter of degrees. To think 'how fine this all sounds,
even though it is Satan's', is to be but a few steps from
thinking, 'how fine this all sounds' -and no conscious
qualification. One begins by simultaneously admitting the
effectiveness of Satan's rhetoric and discounting it because
it is Satan's, but at some point a reader trained to analyse
as he reads will allow admiration for a technical skill to push
aside the imperative of Christian watchfulness. To be sure,
this is not sin. But from a disinterested appreciation of
technique one moves easily to a grudging admiration for the
technician and then to a guarded sympathy and finally,
perhaps, to assent. In this case, the failure (if we can call it
that) involves the momentary relaxation of a vigilance that
must indeed be eternal. Richard Baxter (The Saints Ever-
lasting Rest, c. 1 6 50) warns : 'Not only the open profane, the
swearer, the drunkard, and the enemies of godliness, will
prove hurtful companions to us, though these indeed are
chiefly to be avoided : but too frequent society with persons
merely civil and moral, whose conversation is empty and
 The Defects of Our Hearers I 3

unedifying, may much divert our thoughts from heaven.'

In Book IX, Eve is 'yet sinless' when she talks with Satan
and follows him to the forbidden tree ; but Milton indicates
the danger and its vehicle at line 550 :
Into the heart of Eve his words made way,
Though at the voice much marvelling.

Eve (innocently) surrenders her mind to wonderment

('much marvelling') at the technical problem of the seeming-
serpent's voice ('What may this mean? Language of Man
pronounc't I By Tongue of Brute') and forgets Adam's
injunction to 'strictest watch' (363). There is at least one
assertion of Satan's that Eve should challenge, since it con-
tradicts something she herself has said earlier. The proper
response to Satan's salutatory 'Fairest resemblance of thy
Maker fair' (538) has been given, in effect, by Eve when she
recognizes Adam's superior 'fairness' at IV. 490 ('I ... see I
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace I And wisdom, which
alone is truly fair'). Her failure to give that response again is
hardly fatal, but it does involve a deviation (innocent but
dangerous) from the strictness of her watch. Of course to
rebuke the serpent for an excess in courtesy might seem
rude; tact, however, is a social virtue and one which Milton's
heroes are rarely guilty of. Eve is correct when she declares
that the talking serpent's voice 'claims attention due' (566),
but attention due should not mean complete attention. Satan
is the arch-conjurer here, calling his audience's attention to
one hand (the mechanics of his articulation), doing his real
work with the other ('Into the heart of Eve his words made
way'). In Book 1, Milton is the conjurer : by naming Satan
he disarms us, and allows us to feel secure in the identifi-
cation of an enemy who traditionally succeeds through
disguise (serpent, cherub). But as William Haller notes, in
The Rise of Puritanism, nothing is more indicative of a
14 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling
graceless state than a sense of security : 'Thus we live in
danger, our greatest danger being that we should feel no
danger, and our safety lying in the very dread of feeling
safe'. (New York/ London, 1957, p. I 56). Protected from one
error (the possibility of listening sympathetically to a
disguised enemy) we fall easily into another (spiritual
inattentiveness) and fail to read Satan's speech with the
critical acumen it demands. In the opening lines of Book x,
Milton comments brusquely on Adam's and Eve's fall:
For still they knew, and ought to have still remember'd. (12)
Paradise Lost is full of little moments of forgetfulness- for
Satan, for Adam and Eve, and, most important, for the
reader. At I. I 2 s-6, the epic voice enters to point out to us
the first of these moments and to say in effect, '"For still you
knew and ought to have still remembered," remembered
who you are (Paradise has already been lost), where you are
("So spake th' Apostate Angel")', and what the issues are
(salvation, justification). In this poem the isolation of an
immediate poetic effect involves a surrender to that effect,
and is a prelude to error, and possibly to sin. Milton chal-
lenges his reader in order to protect him from a mistake he
must make before the challenge can be discerned. If this
seems circular and even unfair, it is also, as I shall argue
later, necessary and inevitable.
The result of such encounters is the adoption of a new
way of reading. After I. I 2 s-6 the reader proceeds deter-
mined not to be caught out again ; but invariably he is. If
Satanic pronouncements are now met with a certain caution,
if there is a new willingness to search for complexities and
ironies beneath simple surfaces, this mental armour is never
quite strong enough to resist the insidious attack of verbal
power ; and always the irritatingly omniscient epic voice is
there to point out a deception even as it succeeds. As the
poem proceeds and this little drama is repeated, the reader's
 The Defects of Our Hearers I 5

only gain is an awareness of what is happening to him; he

understands that his responses are being controlled and
mocked by the same authority, and realizes that while his
efforts to extricate himself from this sequence are futile, that
very futility becomes a way to self-knowledge. Control is the
important concept here, for my claim is not merely that this
pattern is in the poem (it would be difficult to find one that
is not), but that Milton (a) consciously put it there and (b)
expected his reader to notice it. Belial's speech in Book II
is a case in point. It is the only speech that merits an intro-
ductory warning :
On th'other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
A fairer person lost not Hea v'n ; he seem' d
For dignity compos'd and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue
Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason to perplex and dash
Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began.
(n. I08-r8)
The intensity of the warning indicates the extent of the
danger: Belial's apparent solidity, which is visible, must be
contrasted to his hollowness, which is not, the manna of his
tongue to the lowness of mind it obscures ; and the 'yet' in
'yet he pleas'd the ear', more than a final admonition before
the reader is to be left to his own resources, is an admission
of wonder by the epic voice itself (yet he pleased ...) and
one of the early cracks in its fac;ade of omniscience. Belial's
appeal is a skilful union of logical machinery ('First, what
Revenge?') and rhetorical insinuation. The easy roll of his
periods literally cuts through the contortions of Moloch's
I 6 Not so mNch a Teaching as an lntangling

bluster, and the series of traductiones around the word

'worse' is an indirect comment on the 'what can be worse'
of the 'Sceptr'd King's' desperation. The ploys are effective,
and since in the attempt to measure the relative merits of
the two devils we forget that their entire counsel is baseless,
the return of the epic voice yields one more slight shock at
this new evidence of our susceptibility. Again we are led to
forget what we know ; again we take our eye from the object
(the centrality of God) ; again we are returned to it with an
abruptness that is (designedly) disconcerting:
Thus Belial with words cloth'd in reason's garb
Counsell'd ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth,
Not Peace:
(226-8)
Waldock complains, 'Belial's words are not only "cloath'd
in reason's garb": they are reasonable.' 1 Belial's words are
not reasonable, although a single uncritical reading will yield
the appearance of reason rather than the reality of his
ignoble ease. Again the flaw in the speech is to be located
precisely at its strongest point. Belial cries at line I 46 : 'for
who would lose, I Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
I Those thoughts that wander through Eternity, I To perish
rather, swallow'd up and lost I In the wide womb of un-
created night.' In other words, do we wish to give up our
nature, our sense of identity? The rhetorical question
evokes an emphatic 'no' from the assembled devils and the
reader. Yet at line 2 I 5 Belial offers his final argument, the
possibility of adapting to their now noxious environment:
'Our purer essence then will overcome I Thir noxious
vapor, or enur'd not feel, I Or chang'd at length, and to the
1 Paradise Lost and its Critics, p. 79· Cf. John Peter, A Crititfue of Paradise

Loit (London, 1960), p. 44: 'the comments [of the epic voice] seem simply
biased .... His premises are correct and he deduces from them a perfectly
feasible plan.'
 The Defects of Our Hearers I 7

place conform'd / In temper and in nature, will receive /

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain.' If this is less
spectacular than the question posed at 146, it is still a direct
answer to that question. Belial is willing to lose 'this intel-
lectual being'. The choice is not, as he suggests, between
annihilation and continued existence, but between different
kinds of annihilation - Moloch's suicidal thrust at the
Almighty or his own gradual surrender of identity, no less
suicidal, much less honest. This will be obvious on a second
reading. My intention is not to refute Waldock, but to
suggest that while his reaction to the epic voice ('they are
reasonable') is the correct one, Milton expects his reader to go
beyond it, to see in the explicitness of the before and after
warnings a comment on his own evaluation of the speech.
Satan and his host need not speak in order to betray us to
ourselves. When Satan and Beelzebub move from the lake
of fire to dry land, 'if it were Land that ever burn'd', their
actions become their rhetoric. Milton's introductory stage
direction (or is it a marginal note) 'nor ever thence / Had
ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will/ And high per-
mission of all-ruling Heaven' (1. 2 I o- 1 2) parallels the
warning against Belial ; and again the experience of the
verse leads us (literally) to lose sight of the warning. If
Belial's words seem reasonable, Satan's act certainly seems
autonomous. He rears himself 'from off the Pool', and the
sense of directed force communicated by the verb is chan-
nelled into an image that suggests the rocket thrust of
modern propeliants: 'on each hand the flames/ Driv'n back-
ward slope their pointing spires.' Do the flames move
upward ('pointing') or downward ('backward')? The
answer is both; and the impression is one of great move-
ment, Satan's movement. He steers 'incumbent' and while
his cumbrousness is introduced to impress us with the
strain his unusual weight places on 'the dusky air', we are
I 8 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

finally impressed by his ability to manage that weight; Satan

rather than the air is the hero of these lines. The 'force' that
'transports a Hill I Torn from Pelorus' is not identified, but
since the 'Archfiend' is the nearest available agent, it is
attached to him, as is the entire image. Carried forward by
the sequence that began at 'Forthwith upright he rears' (a
second reading will emphasize the irony in 'upright'), the
reader accepts 'Both glorying to have scap't the Stygian
flood' (239) as an accurate summary of the scene presented
to him. Not that Satan and Beelzebub are consciously
granted the status of self-sufficient agents ; rather, the
question of self-sufficiency does not seem at this point to be
relevant to the reading experience. But of course it is the
central question, or at least it was at 2 1 o when the epic voice
introduced the action ; and is again as that same voice
returns us to i t - in stages: 'Both glorying to have scap't
the Stygian flood I As Gods, and by thir own recover' d
strength, I Not by the sufferance of Supernal Power' (239-
41). First, the words 'As Gods' recall 'the high permission of
all-ruling Heaven' and indicate the blasphemy of 'glory-
ing'. To the reader, 'As Gods' is less a continuation of line
239 than a qualification of the line's literal assertion that
protects him (a half-second too late) against accepting it as
true. 'By thir own recover'd strength' changes as we read it,
from an extension of the momentarily neutral 'scap't the
Stygian flood' to the ironic complement of 'nor ever thence I
Had ris'n ... '. 'Not by the sufferance of Supernal Power' is
a flat statement that disdains irony for the simple declarative
of truth ; the passage is suddenly and firmly placed in the
larger perspective which the reader again enjoys after a
defection to Satan's. Milton's point here is one he will make
again and again; all acts are performed in God's service;
what is left to any agent is a choice between service freely
rendered and service exacted against his will. Satan con-
 The Defects of Our Hearers I 9

tinually deludes himself by supposing that he can act apart

from God, and in this passage we come to understand that
delusion by (momentarily) sharing it. The lesson will be
repeated on a larger scale when the contrition Adam and Eve
evidence at the close of the tenth book is attributed by the
poet to 'Prevenient Grace descending' (xr. 3) and by God
himself to the result of 'My motions in him' (xr. 9 1).
Thomas Greene observes that 'it is a little anti-climactic for
the reader after following tremulously the fallen couple's
gropings toward redemption ... to hear from the Father's
lips that he has decreed it - that all of this tenderly human
scene, this triumph of conjugal affection and tentative moral
searching, occurred only by divine fiat', 1 while John Peter
thinks God's claim 'downright unfair'. 2 By encouraging the
reader to follow the 'fallen couple's gropings' and by refrain-
ing all the while from direct references to grace or to heavenly
powers, Milton allows the illusion of independent action on
the human level ; and when the reader has (predictably)
acquiesced in the illusion, if only by failing to struggle
against it, he then reminds him of the truth he ought to have
remembered, but somehow, in the isolating persuasiveness of
a seemingly self-contained experience, forgot. 3 (Life lived
1 Tlu Dcscent from Heaven: A Study in Epic Continuity (New Haven,
I96J),p.407.
2 A Critique of Paradise Lost, p. I 4 5.
3 Cf. The Pilgrim's Progress, ed. J. B. Wharey, rev. R. Sharrock (Oxford,
I96o), p. I 34· 'He asked them then, If they had not of them Shepherds a note of
direction for the way? They answered; Yes. But did you, said he, when you
was at a stand, pluck out and read your note? They answered, No. He asked
them why? They said they forgot. He asked moreover, If the Shepherds did
not bid them beware of the Flatterer? They answered, Yes: But we did not
imagine, said they, that this fine-speaking man had been he ... So they ...
went softly along in the right way, Singing. Come hither, you that walk along
the way ;fSee how the Pilgrims fare, that go a stray !/They catched are in an
intangling Net,f'Cause they good Counsel lightly did forget:/ . .. Let this your
caution be.'
20 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

or viewed on the human level alone is itself a rhetorical

deception.)
These are almost laboratory experiments, tests insulated
by rigid controls, obviously didactic. The pattern that unites
them is reminiscent of Spenser's technique in The Faerie
Queene, I. ix. There the approach to Despair's cave is
pointedly detailed and the detail is calculated to repel ; the
man himself is more terrible than the Blatant Beast or the
dragon of I. xii, for his ugliness is something we recognize.
Spenser's test of his reader is less stringent than Milton's;
he makes his warning the experience of this description
rather than an abstract statement of disapproval. It is, of
course, not enough. Despair's adaptation of Christian
rhetoric (guilt, grace) is masterful and the Red cross Knight
(along with the reader) allows the impression of one set of
appearances (the old man's ugliness) to be effaced by
another (the Circean lure of his rhetoric): 'Sleepe after
toyle, port after stormie seas, / Ease after warre, death after
life does greatly please' (40). Spenser eases us along by
making it impossible to assign stanza 42 to either the knight
or Despair. At that point the syntactical ambiguity is telling;
the dialogue is over, and we have joined them both in a
three-part unanimity that leads inexorably to the decision
of 51 :
At last, resolv'd to worke his finall smart
He lifted up his hand that backe again did start.

Una's exhortation and accusation-'Come,comeaway,fraile,

feeble, fleshly wight' (53)- is for us as well as her St. George,
and we need the reminder that she brings to us from a con-
text outside the experience of the poem: 'In heavenly mercies
has thou not a part?' Without this deus ex machina we could
not escape; without Milton's 'snubs' we could not be jolted
out of a perspective that is after all ours. The lesson in both
 The Defects of Our Hearers 21

poems is that the only defence against verbal manipulation

(or appearances) is a commitment that stands above the
evidence of things that are seen, and the method of both
poems is to lead us beyond our perspective by making us feel its
inadequacies and the necessity of accepting something which
baldly contradicts it. The result is instruction, and instruction
is possible only because the reader is asked to observe,
analyse, and place his experience, that is, to think about it.
In the divorce tracts Milton reveals the source of this
poetic technique when he analyses the teaching of Christ,
'not so much a teaching, as an in tangling'. I Christ is found
'not so much interpreting the Law with his words, as refer-
ring his owne words to be interpreted by the Law'. 2 Those
who would understand him must themselves decipher the
obscurities of his sayings, 'for Christ gives no full comments
or continu'd discourses ... scattering the heavenly grain
of his doctrin like pearle heer and there, which requires a
skilfull and laborious gatherer.' 3 In order better to instruct
his disciples, who 'yet retain'd the infection of loving old
licentious customs', he does not scruple to mislead them,
temporarily : 'But why did not Christ seeing their error
informe them? for good cause ; it was his profest method not
to teach them all things at all times, but each thing in due
place and season ... the Disciples took it [one of his gnomic
utterances] in a manifest wrong sense, yet our Saviour did
not there informe them better.... Yet did he not omitt to
sow within them the seeds of sufficient determining, agen
the time that his promis'd spirit should bring all things to
their memory.' 4 'Due season' means when they are ready for
it, and they will be ready for it when the seeds he has sown
obliquely have brought them to the point where a more
direct revelation of the truth will be efficacious ; until then
I Complete Prose Works of John Milton, vol. ii, ed. Ernest Sirluck (New

Haven, 1959), p. 642. 2Jbid., p. 301. 3lbid., p. 338. 4Jbid., pp. 678-9.
c P.s.s.
22 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

they are allowed to linger in error or at least in partial

ignorance. Recently H. R. MacCallum has shown how
Michael uses just this strategy of indirection and mis-
direction to lead Adam from the sickness of despair to faith
and spiritual health. 1 Michael's strategy in Book xx is
Milton's strategy in the entire poem, whereby his reader
becomes his pupil, taught according to his present capa-
cities in the hope that he can be educated, in tract of time, to
enlarge them. By first 'intangling' us in the folds of Satan's
rhetoric, and then 'informing us better' in 'due season',
Milton forces us to acknowledge the personal relevance of
the Arch-fiend's existence; and, in the process, he validates
dramatically one of western man's most durable common-
places, the equation of the rhetorical appeal (representative
of the world of appearances) with the weakness of the
'natural man', that is, with the 'defects of our hearers'.

(ii) YET NEVER SAW

The wariness these encounters with demonic attraction make

us feel is part of a larger pattern in which we are taught the
hardest of all lessons, distrust of our own abilities and per-
ceptions. This distrust extends to all the conventional ways
of knowing that might enable a reader to locate himself in
the world of any poem. The questions we ask of our reading
experience are in large part the questions we ask of our day-
to-day experience. Where are we, what are the physical
components of our surroundings, what time is it? And
while the hard and clear outline of Paradise Lost suggests
1 'Milton and Sacred History: Books XI and XII of Paradise Lost', in

Essays in English Literature from the Renaissance to the Victorian Age,

Presented to A. 8. P. Woodhouse, ed. Millar MacLure and F. W. Watt
(Toronto, 1964), pp. 149-68.
 Yet Never Saw 23

that the answers to these questions are readily available to us,

immediate contexts repeatedly tell us that they are not.
Consider, for example, the case of Satan's spear. I have seen
responsible critics affirm, casually, that Satan's spear is as
large as the mast of a ship; the poem of course affirms
nothing of the kind, but more important, it deliberately
encourages such an affirmation, at least temporarily :
His spear, to equal which the tallest Pine
Hewn on Norwegian Hills to be the Mast
Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand.
(r. 292-4)
Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton relies on the operation of
three truths so obvious that many critics fail to take them
into account : ( 1) the reading experience takes place in time,
that is, we necessarily read one word after another ; ( 2) the
childish habit of moving the eyes along a page and back
again is never really abandoned although in maturity the
movement is more mental than physical, and defies measure-
ment ; therefore the line as a unit is a resting place even when
rhyme is absent ; (3) a mind asked to order a succession of
rapidly given bits of detail (mental or physical) seizes on the
simplest scheme of organization which offers itself. In this
simile, the first line supplies that scheme in the overt com-
parison between the spear and the tallest pine, and the
impression given is one of equality. This is not necessarily
so, since logically the following lines could assert any
number of things about the relationship between the two
objects ; but because they are objects, offering the mind the
convenience of focal points that are concrete, and because
they are linked in the reading sequence by an abstract term
of relationship (equal), the reader is encouraged to take
from the line an image, however faint and wavering, of
the two side by side. As he proceeds that image will be re-
24 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

inforced, since Milton demands that he attach to it the infor-

mation given in 2 9 3 and the first half of 2 94 ; that is, in
order to maintain the control over the text that a long syn-
tactical unit tends to diminish, the reader will accept 'hewn
on Norwegian hills' as an adjunct of the tallest pine in a very
real way. By providing a scene or background (memoria) the
phrase allows him to strengthen his hold on what now
promises to be an increasingly complex statement of relation-
ships. And in the construction of that background the pine
frees itself from the hypothetical blur of the first line ; it is
now real, and through an unavoidable process of association
the spear which stood in an undefined relationship to an
undefined pine is seen (and I mean the word literally) in
a kind of apposition to a conveniently visual pine. (This all
happens very quickly in the mind of the reader who does not
have time to analyse the cerebral adjustments forced upon
him by the simile.) In short, the equation (in size) of the two
objects, in 292 only a possibility, is posited by the reader in
292-4 because it simplifies his task; and this movement
towards simplification will be encouraged, for Milton's fit
reader, by the obvious reference in 'to be the Mast f Of
some great Ammiral' to the staff of the Cyclops Poly-
phemus, identified in the Aeneid as a lopped pine 1 and
likened in the Odyssey to 'the mast of some black ship of
twenty oars'. 2
The construction of the image and the formulation of the
relationship between its components are blocked by the
second half of line 2 94, 'were but a wand'. This does
1 iii. 659· Harding insists that 'if this passage does not conjure up a mental

picture of Polyphemus on the mountaintop, steadying his footsteps with a

lopped pine ... it has not communicated its full meaning to us' (The Club of
Hercules, p. 63). In my reading a 'full reading' of the passage involves the
recognition of the inadequacy of the mental picture so conjured up.
2 The translation is E. V. Rieu's in the Penguin Classic Edition (Baltimore,

1946), p. 148.
 Yet Never Saw 25
ieveral things, and I must resort to the mechanical aid of
enumeration :
( 1) In the confusion that follows this rupture of the
reading sequence, the reader loses his hold on the visual
focal points, and is unable to associate firmly the wand with
either of them. The result is the momentary diminution of
Satan's spear as well as the pine, although a second, and
more wary reading, will correct this ; but corrected, the
impression remains (in line 29 5 a miniature Satan supports
himself on a wand-like spear) and in the larger perspective, this
aspect of the simile is one of many instances in the poem where
Milton's praise of Satan is qualified even as it is bestowed.
(2) The simile illustrates Milton's solution of an
apparently insoluble problem. How does a poet provide for
his audience a perspective that is beyond the field of its
perception? To put the case in terms of Paradise Lost, the
simile as it functions in other poems will not do here. A
simile, especially an epic simile, is an attempt to place
persons andfor things, perceived in a time and a space, in
the larger perspective from which their significance must
finally be determined. This is possible because the com-
ponents of the simile have a point of contact - their
existence in the larger perspective - which allows the poem
to yoke them together without identifying them. Often, part
of the statement a simile makes concerns the relationship
between the components and the larger perspective in
addition to the more obvious relationship between the com-
ponents themselves ; poets suggest this perspective with
words like smaller and greater. Thus a trapped hero is at
once like and unlike a trapped wolf, and the difference
involves their respective positions in a hierarchy that includes
more than the physical comparison. A complex and 'tight'
simile then can be an almost scientific description of a bit of
the world in which for 'the immediate relations of the crude
26 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

data of experience' are substituted 'more refined logical

entities, such as relations between relations, or classes of
relations, or classes of classes of relations'! In Milton's
poem, however, the components of a simile often do not
have a point of contact that makes their comparison possible
in a meaningful (relatable or comprehensible) way. A man
exists and a wolf exists and if categories are enlarged
sufficiently it can be said without distortion that they exist
on a comparable level; a man exists and Satan (or God)
exists, but any statement that considers their respective
existences from a human perspective, however inclusive, is
necessarily reductive, and is liable to falsify rather than
clarify ; and of course the human perspective is the only one
available. To return to Book r, had Milton asserted the
identity of Satan's spear and the tallest pine, he would not
only have sacrificed the awe that attends incomprehensibility;
he would also have lied, since clearly the personae of his
extra-terrestrial drama are not confined within the limita-
tions of our time and space. On the other hand, had he said
that the spear is larger than one can imagine, he would have
sacrificed the concreteness so necessary to the formulation
of an effective image. What he does instead is grant the
reader the convenience of concreteness (indeed fill his mind
with it) and then tell him that what he sees is not what is
there ('there' is never located). The result is almost a feat of
prestidigitation : for the rhetorical negation of the scene so
painstakingly constructed does not erase it ; we are relieved
of the necessity of believing the image true, but permitted to
retain the solidity it offers our straining imaginations.
1 A. N. Whitehead in The Limits of Language, ed. Walker Gibson (New

York, 1962), pp. 13-14. In classical theory, metaphor is the figure of speech
whose operation bears the closest resemblance to the operations of dialectic
and logic. Aristotle defines it in the Poetics as 'a transference either from genus
to species or from species to genus, or from species to species'.
 Yet Never Saw 27

Paradoxically, our awareness of the inadequacy of what is

described and what we can apprehend provides, if only
negatively, a sense of what cannot be described and what we
cannot apprehend. Thus Milton is able to suggest a reality
beyond this one by forcing us to feel, dramatically, its
unavailability.
(3) Finally, the experience of reading the simile tells us a
great deal about ourselves. How large is Satan's spear? The
answer is, we don't know, although it is important that for a
moment we think we do. Of course, one can construct, as
James Whaler does, a statement of relative magnitudes
(Spear is to pine as pine is to wand) 1 but while this may be
logical, it is not encouraged by the logic of the reading
experience which says to us: If one were to compare Satan's
spear with the tallest pine the comparison would be inade-
quate. I submit that any attempt either to search out masts
of Norwegian ships or to determine the mean length of wands
is irrelevant.
Another instance may make the case clearer. In Book III,
Satan lands on the Sun :

There lands the Fiend, a spot like which perhaps

Astronomer in the Sun's lucent Orb
Through his glaz'd optic Tube yet never saw.
(588-90)
Again in the first line two focal points (spot and fiend) are
offered the reader who sets them side by side in his mind ;
again the detail of the next one and one half lines is attached
to the image, and a scene is formed, strengthening the
implied equality of spot and fiend; indeed the physicality
of the impression is so persuasive that the reader is led to
join the astronomer and looks with him through a re-
assuringly specific telescope ('glaz'd optic Tube') to see-
1 'The Miltonic Simile', PMLA, xlvi (193 r), ro64.
28 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

nothing at all ('yet never saw'). In both similes the reader is

encouraged to assume that his perceptions extend to the
object the poet would present, only to be informed that he is
in error ; and both similes are constructed in such a way that
the error must be made before it can be acknowledged by a
surprised reader. (The parallel to the rhetorical drama
between demonic attraction and authorial rebuke should be
obvious.) For, however many times the simile is re-read, the
'yet never saw' is unexpected. The mind cannot perform
two operations at the same time, and one can either cling to
the imminence of the disclaimer and repeat, silently, ' "yet
never saw" is coming, "yet never saw" is coming', or yield
to the demands of the image and attend to its construction ;
and since the choice is really no choice at all - after each
reading the negative is only a memory and cannot compete
with the immediacy of the sensory evocation - the tail-
like half line always surprises.
Of course Milton wants the reader to pull himself up
and re-read, for this provides a controlled framework
within which he is able to realize the extent and implication
of his difficulty, much like the framework provided by the
before and after warnings surrounding Belial's speech. The
implication is personal ; the similes and many other effects
say to the reader: 'I know that you rely upon your senses for
your apprehension of reality, but they are unreliable and
hopelessly limited.' Significantly, Galileo is introduced in
both similes; the Tuscan artist's glass represents the furthest
extension of human perception, and that is not enough. The
entire pattern, of which the instances I analyse here are the
smallest part, is, among other things, a preparation for the
moment in Book vm when Adam responds to Raphael's
astronomical dissertation: 'To whom thus Adam clear'd
of doubt'. Reader reaction is involuntary : cleared of doubt?
by that impossibly tortuous and equivocal description of
 Yet Never Saw 29

two all too probable universes?' By this point, however, we

are able to place our reaction, since Adam's experience here
parallels ours in so many places (and a large part of the
poem's meaning is communicated by our awareness of the
relationship between Adam and ourselves). He is cleared of
doubt, not because he now knows how the universe is con-
structed, but because he knows that he cannot know ; what
clears him of doubt is the certainty of self-doubt, and as with
us this certainty is the result of a superior's willingness to
grant him, momentarily, the security of his perspective.
Milton's lesson is one that twentieth-century science is just
now beginning to learn :
Finally, I come to what it seems to me may well be from the
long-range point of view the most revolutionary of the insights to
be derived from our recent experiences in physics, more
revolutionary than the insights afforded by the discoveries of
Galileo and Newton, or of Darwin. This is the insight that it is
impossible to transcend the human reference point.... The new
insight comes from a realization that the structure of nature may
1 Milton clearly anticipates this reaction when he describes the dialogue in

the 'argument'; 'Adam inquires concerning celestial Motions, is doubtfully

answer'd' (emphasis mine). See also v. z6r-6: 'As when by night the Glass/of
Gali/eo, less assur'd, observesflmagin'd Lands and Regions in the Moon:
fOr Pilot from amidst the Cyc/adesfDdos or Samos first appearing kens/A
cloudy spot.' It should be noted that in all these passages certain details form a
consistent pattern: Galileo, the moon, spots (representing an unclear vision),
etc. The pattern is fulfilled in Raphael's disquisition on the possible arrange-
ment of the heavens. See Greene's excellent reading of Raphael's descent
(The Descent from Heaven, p. 387): 'The fallen reader's imperfect reason
must strain to make out relations as the pilot strains with his physical eyes, as
Galileo strains with his telescope, as the fowls gaze with mistaken recognition
on the angel, as Adam and Eve will fail to strain and so blur our vision.' See
also Northrop Frye, The Return of Eden (Toronto, 1965), p. 58: 'Galileo
thus appears to symbolize, for Milton, the gaze outward on physical nature,
as opposed to the concentration inward on human nature, the speculative
reason that searches for new places, rather than the moral reason that tries to
create a new state of mind.'
30 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

eventually be such that our processes of thought do not corres-

pond to it sufficiently to permit us to think about it at all. I
In Paradise Lost, our sense of time proves as illusory as
our sense of space and physicality. Jackson Cope quotes with
approval Sigfried Giedion and Joseph Frank, who :find in
modern literature a new way of thinking about time :
The flow of time which has its literary reflection in the
Aristotelian development of an action having beginning, middle
and end is ... frozen into the labyrinthine planes of a spatial
block which ... can only be perceived by travelling both
temporally and physically from point to point, but whose form
has neither beginning, middle, end nor center, and must be
effectively conceived as a simultaneity of multiple views. 2
And Mrs. Isabel MacCaffrey identifies the 'simultaneity of
multiple views' with the eternal moment of God, a moment,
she argues, that Milton makes ours :
The long view of time as illusory, telescoped into a single vision,
had been often adopted in fancy by Christian writers.... Writing of
Heaven and the little heaven of Paradise, Milton by a powerful
releasing act of the imagination transposed the intuitive single
glance of God into the poem's mythical structure. Our vision of
history becomes for the time being that of the Creator 'whose
eye Views all things at one view' (ii. I 89-90); like him, we are
stationed on a 'prospect high Wherin past, present, future he
beholds.' (iii. n-78)3
The experience of every reader, I think, affirms the truth
of these statements ; Milton does convince us that the world
of his poem is a static one which 'slights chronology in favor
of a folded structure which continually returns upon itself,
or a spiral that circles about a single center' .4 The question I
I P. W. Bridgman, quoted in The Limits of Language, p. 21.
2 The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise Lost (Baltimore, 1962), pp. 14-1 5·
J Paradise Lost as 'Myth' (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 53·
41bid., p. 45·
 Tet Never Saw 31

would ask is how does he so convince us? His insistence on

simultaneity is easily documented. How many times do we
see Christ ascend, after the war in Heaven, after the passion,
after Harrowing Hell, after giving Satan his death wound,
after the creation, after the final conflagration, at the day of
final judgment? How many times do our first parents fall,
and how many times are they accorded grace? The answer to
all these questions is, 'many times' or is it all the time (at
each point of time) or perhaps at one, and the same, time.
My difficulty with the preceding sentence is a part of my
point : I cannot let go of the word 'time' and the idea of
sequence ; timelessness (I am forced to resort to a question-
begging negative) is an interesting concept, but we are all
of us trapped in the necessity of experiencing in time, and
the attempt even to conceive of a state where words like day
and evening measure space rather than duration is a difficult
one; Chaucer's Troilus, among others, is defeated by it.
Mrs. MacCaffrey asserts that 'spatial imagining' is part of
Milton's 'mental climate' and the researches of Walter Ong,
among others, support her; but if Milton has implanted the
eternal moment 'into the poem's mythical structure', how
does the reader, who, in Cope's words, must travel 'tem-
porally and physically from point to point', root it out?
Obviously many readers do not; witness the critics who are
troubled by contradictory or 'impossible' sequences and
inartistic repetitions. Again the reactions of these anti-
Miltonists are the surest guide to the poet's method; for it is
only by encouraging and then 'breaking' conventional
responses and expectations that Milton can point his reader
beyond them. To return to Waldock, part of the poem's
apparently 'hard and definite' outline is the easy chronology
it seems to offer ; but the pressures of innumerable local
contexts demand adjustments that give the lie to the illusion
of sequence and reveal in still another way the inability
32 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

of the reader to consider this poem as he would any other.

In the opening lines of Book I, chronology and sequence
are suggested at once in what is almost a plot line : man dis-
obeys, eats fruit, suffers woe and awaits rescue. It is a very
old and simple story, one that promises a comfortable cor-
relation of plot station and emotional response : horror and
fear at the act, sorrow at the result, joy at the happy ending,
the whole bound up in the certain knowledge of cause and
effect. As Milton crowds more history into his invocation
the reader, who likes to know what time it is, will attempt to
locate each detail on the continuum of his story line. The
inspiration of the shepherd, Moses, is easily placed between
the Fall and the restoration ; at this point many readers will
feel the first twinge of complication, for Moses is a type of
Christ who as the second Adam restores the first by per-
severing when he could not ; as one begins to construct
statements of relationship between the three, the clarity of
lines 1-3 fades. Of course there is nothing to force the con-
struction of such statements, and Milton thoughtfully
provides in the very next line the sequence-establishing
phrase, 'In the Beginning'. Reassured both by the ordering
power of'beginning' and by the allusion to Genesis(which is,
after all, the original of all once-upon-a-times), the reader
proceeds with the invocation, noting, no doubt, all the riches
unearthed by generations of critical exegesis, but still firmly
in control of chronology ; and that sense of control is rein-
forced by the two-word introduction to the story proper :
'Say first', for with the first we automatically posit a second
and then a third, and in sum, a neat row of causal statements
leading all the way to an end already known.
The security of sequence, however, is soon taken away.
I have for some time conducted a private poll with a single
question: 'What is your reaction when the second half of
line 54- "for now the thought"- tells you that you are
 Tet Never Saw 33

now with Satan, in Hell?' The unanimous reply is, 'surprise',

and an involuntary question : how did I come to be here?
Upon re-reading, the descent to Hell is again easy and again
unchartable. At line 26 the time scheme is still manageable:
there is (a) poem time, the now in which the reader sits in
his chair and listens, with Milton, to the muse, and (b) the
named point in the past when the story ('our Grand
Parents ... so highly to fall off') and our understanding of it
('say first what cause') is assumed to begin. At 33, the 'first'
is set back to the act of Satan, now suggested but not firmly
identified as the 'cause' of 27, and a third time (c) is intro-
duced, further from (a) than (b), yet still manageable; but
Satan's act also has its antecedent: 'what time his Pride f
Had cast him out from Heav'n' (36-37); by this point,
'what time' is both an assertion and a question as the reader
struggles to maintain an awkward, backward-moving per-
spective. There is now a time (d) and after (that is, before)
that an (e) 'aspiring ... He trusted to have equall'd the most
High' (38, 40). Time (f) breaks the pattern, returning to
(d) and providing, in the extended description of 44-53, a
respite from sudden shifts. To summarize: the reader has
been asked repeatedly to readjust his idea of 'in the begin-
ning' while holding in suspension two plot lines (Adam's and
Eve's and Satan's) that are eventually, he knows, to be
connected. The effort strains the mind to its capacity, and
the relief offered by the vivid and easy picture of Satan
falling is more than welcome! It is at this time, when the
1 The technique is reminiscent of Virgil's 'historical present', which is

used to bring the action of the epic before the reader's eyes. Recently Helen
Gardner has reached conclusions similar to those offered here concerning the
operation of time and space in the poem. See her A Reading of Paradise Lost
(Oxford, 1965), pp. 39-51: 'Milton's poem must move in time, yet he
continually suggests that the time of the poem is an illusion' (39); 'Milton, as
he plays us into his poem, is using our human measurement to convey vastness
sensuously' (4o); 'He continually satisfies and then defeats our powers of
34 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

reader's attention has relaxed, that Milton slips by him the

'now' of 54 and the present tense of 'torments', the first
present in the passage. The effect is to alert the reader both
to his location (Hell) and to his inability to retrace the
journey that brought him there. Re-reading leads him only
to repeat the mental occupations the passage demands, and
while the arrival in Hell is anticipated, it is always a surprise.
The technique is of course the technique of the spot and
spear similes, and of the clash between involuntary response
and authorial rebuke, and again Milton's intention is to
strip from us another of the natural aids we bring to the
task of reading. The passage itself tells us this in lines so-
5I '
although the message may pass unnoted at first : 'Nine times
the Space that measures Day and Night'. Does space measure
day and night? Are day and night space? The line raises
these questions, and the half-line that follows answers them,
not 'to mortal men' who think in terms of duration and
sequence, not to us. In this poem we must, we will, learn a
new time.
The learning process is slow at first ; the reader does not
necessarily draw the inferences I do from this early passage ;
but again it is the frequency of such instances that makes my
case. In Book n, when the fallen Angels disperse, some of
them explore 'on bold adventure' their new home. One of
the landmarks they pass is 'Lethe the River of Oblivion',
and Milton pauses to describe its part in God's future plans:
'At certain revolutions all the damn'd I ... They ferry over
this Lethean Sound I Both to and fro, thir sorrow to
augment, I And wish and struggle, as they pass to reach I
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose I In sweet
forgetfulness all pain and woe, I All in one moment and so
visualization' (p). See also Roy Daniells, Milton, Mannerism and Baroque
(Toronto, 1963), p. 98; W. B. C. Watkins, An Anatomy of Milton's J7erse
(Baton Rouge, 195 5), p. 44; Anne Ferry, Milton's Epic J7oice, pp. 46-47.
 Yet Never Saw 35

near the brink; I But Fate withstands' (597-8, 604-10). At

614 the poet continues with 'Thus roving on I In confus'd
march forlorn', and only the phrase 'advent'rous bands' in
6 1 5 tells the reader that the poet has returned to the fallen
angels. The mistake is a natural one: 'forlorn' describes
perfectly the state of the damned, as does 'Confus'd march'
their movements 'to and fro': indeed a second reflection
suggests no mistake at all ; the fallen angels are the damned,
and one drop of Lethe would allow them to lose their woe
in the oblivion Moloch would welcome. Fate does withstand.
What Milton has done by allowing this momentary con-
fusion is to point to the identity of these damned and all
damned. As they fly past Lethe the fallen angels are all those
who will become them ; they do not stand for their successors
(the word defeats me), they state them. In Paradise Lost,
history and the historical sense are denied and the reader is
forced to see events he necessarily perceives in sequence as
time-identities. Milton cannot recreate the eternal moment,
but by encouraging and then blocking the construction of
sequential relationships he can lead the reader to accept the
necessity of, and perhaps even apprehend, negatively, a time
that is ultimately unavailable to him because of his limita-
tions.
This translation of felt ambiguities, confusions, and
tautologies into a conviction of timelessness in the narrative
is assured partially by the uniqueness of Milton's 'fable'.
'For the Renaissance', notes Mrs. MacCaffrey, 'all myths
are reflections, distorted or mutilated though they may be,
of the one true myth.' 1 For Milton all history is a replay
of the history he is telling, all rebellions one rebellion, all
falls one fall, all heroism the heroism of Christ. And his
readers who share this Christian view of history will be
prepared to make the connection that exists potentially m
I ParadistLostas'Myth',p. 14.
36 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

the detail of the narrative. The similes are particularly

relevant here. The first of these compares Satan to Leviathan,
but the comparison, to the informed reader, is a tautology;
Satan is Leviathan and the simile presents two aspects of one,
rather than the juxtaposition of two, components. This
implies that Satan is, at the moment of the simile, already
deceiving 'The Pilot of some small night-founder' d Skiff' ;
and if the reader has attended to the lesson of his recent
encounter with the epic voice he recognizes himself as that
pilot, moored during the speech of I. 84- I 2 6 by the side of
Leviathan. The contests between Satan and Adam,
Leviathan and the pilot, rhetoric and the reader - the
simile compresses them, and all deceptions, into a single
instant, forever recurring. The celebrated falling-leaves
simile moves from angel-form to leaves to sedge to Busiris
and his Memphian Chivalry, or in typological terms
(Pharaoh and Herod are the most common types of Satan)
from fallen angels to fallen angels. The compression here
is so complex that it defies analysis: the fallen angels as they
lie on the burning lake (the Red Sea) are already pursuing the
Sojourners of Goshen (Adam and Eve, the Israelites, the
reader) who are for the moment standing on the safe shore
(Paradise, the reader's chair). In Book XII. I 9 I, Pharoah
becomes the River-Dragon or Leviathan (Isaiah xxvii. I),
pointing to the ultimate unity of the Leviathan and falling
leaves similes themselves. As similes they are uninformative ;
how numberless are the falling angels? they are as numberless
as Pharaoh's host, that is, as fallen angels, and Pharaoh's host
encompasses all the damned who have been, are, and will be,
all the damned who will fly longingly above Lethe. As
vehicles of perception, however, they tell us a great deal,
about the cosmos as it is in a reality we necessarily distort,
about the ultimate subjectivity of sequential time, about
ourselves.
 Yet Never Saw 37

There are many such instances in the early books and

together they create a sensitivity to the difficulties of writing
and reading this particular poem. When Milton's epic voice
remarks that pagan fablers err relating the story of
Mulciber's ejection from Heaven (1. 74 7), he does not mean
to say that the story is not true, but that it is a distorted
version of the story he is telling, and that any attempt to
apprehend the nature of the angels' fall by comparing it to
the fall of Mulciber or of Hesiod's giants involves another
distortion that cannot be allowed if Paradise Lost is to be
read correctly. On the other hand the attempt is hazarded
(the reader cannot help it), the distortion is acknowledged
along with the unavailability of the correct reading, and
Milton's point is made despite, or rather because of, the
intractability of his material. When Satan's flight from the
judgment of God's scales (1v. 1015) is presented in a line
that paraphrases the last line of the Aeneid, the first impulse
is to translate the allusion into a comparison that might
begin, 'Satan is like Turnus in that .. .'; but of course, the
relationship as it exists in a reality beyond that formed by our
sense of literary history, is quite the opposite. Turnus's
defiance of the fates and his inevitable defeat are significant
and comprehensible only in the light of what Satan did in a
past that our time signatures cannot name and is about to
do in a present (poem time) that is increasingly difficult to
identify. Whatever the allusion adds to the richness of the
poem's texture or to Milton's case for superiority in the
epic genre, it is also one more assault on the confidence of a
reader who is met at every turn with demands his intellect
cannot even consider.

D F.s.s.
38 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

(iii) THE GOOD TEMPTATION

Most poets write for an audience assumed fit. Why is the

fitness of Milton's audience a concern of the poem itself?
One answer to this question has been given in the preceding
pages : only by forcing upon his reader an awareness of his
limited perspective can Milton provide even a negative
intuition of what another would be like ; it is a brilliant
solution to the impossible demands of his subject, enabling
him to avoid the falsification of anthropomorphism and the
ineffectiveness of abstraction. Another answer follows from
this one : the reader who fails repeatedly before the pressures
of the poem soon realizes that his difficulty proves its major
assertions -the fact of the Fall, and his own (that is
Adam's) responsibility for it, and the subsequent woes of the
human situation. The reasoning is circular, but the circularity
is appropriate to the uniqueness of the poem's subject
matter; for while in most poems effects are achieved through
the manipulation of reader response, this poet is telling the
story that created and still creates the responses of its reader
and of all readers. The reader who falls before the lures of
Satanic rhetoric displays again the weakness of Adam, and
his inability to avoid repeating that fall throughout indicates
the extent to which Adam's lapse has made the reassertion
of right reason impossible. Rhetoric is thus simultaneously
the sign of the reader's infirmity and the means by which he
is brought first to self-knowledge, and then to contrition,
and finally, perhaps, to grace and everlasting bliss.
St. Paul articulates the dilemma of fallen man when he
cries, 'For the good that I would I do not: but the evil
which I would not, that I do' (Romans vii. 19). The true
horror of the Fall is to be found here, in the loss of that
happy state in which man's faculties worked in perfect
 The Good Temptation 39

harmony, allowing him accurately to assess his responsi-

bilities and to meet them. Fallen man is hopelessly corrupt
and his corruption resists even the grace freely offered to
him through the intercession of Jesus Christ. Man's soul
becomes the scene of a battle between the carnality of the
first Adam (the old, unregenerate, man) and the righteous-
ness of the second (the new, regenerate, man); and in the
seventeenth century the image of an intestine warfare that is
simultaneously the sign of the Fall and an indication of the
possibility of redemption is to be seen everywhere :
There is in Man, by reason of his general Corruption, such a
distemper wrought, as that there is not onely crookednesse in, but
dissension also, and fighting betweene his parts: And, though the
Light of our Reason be by Man's Fall much dimmed and decayed;
yet the remainders thereof are so adverse to our unruly Appetite,
as that it laboureth against us.
(Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and
Faculties of the Soul of Man, London, 1640)
Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good,
and yet the will of man not incline itself thereunto, as often the
prejudice of sensible experience doth oversway.
(Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, I, vii. 6)
Our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our
infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it.
(Sidney, Apology)

Milton transforms this commonplace into a poetic technique ;

he leads us to feel again and again the conflict between the
poem's assumed morality and our responses, and to locate
the seat of that conflict in our fallen nature and not in any
failure in composition. In short, the reader's difficulty is
the result of the act that is the poem's subject. The reading
experience becomes the felt measure of man's loss and since
Milton always supplies a corrective to the reader's errors
and distortions, what other critics have seen as the 'dis-
 40 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

quieting' aspect of that experience can be placed in a context

that makes sense of it.
When, in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress, Christiana
wonders why she and her companion Mercy were not fore-
warned of the danger lurking 'so near the Kings Palace' or,
better still, provided with a 'Conductor', Reliever answers:
'Had my Lord granted you a Conductor, you would not
neither, so have bewailed that oversight of yours in not
asking for one, as now you have occasion to do. So all
things work for good, and tend to make you more wary' ;1
and Mercy adds, 'by this neglect, we have an occasion
ministred unto us to behold our own imperfections' .2 With
the same compassionate and deliberate neglect, Milton makes
the whole of Paradise Lost just such an occasion, the poet's
version of what the theologian calls a 'good temptation':
A good temptation is that whereby God tempts even the
righteous for the purpose of proving them, not as though he were
ignorant of the disposition of their hearts, but for the purpose of
exercising or manifesting their faith or patience •.. or of
lessening their self confidence, and reproving their weakness, that
... they themselves may become wiser by experience.J
I p. I96.
2 Loc. cit.
J The Works of John Milton, ed. F. A. Patterson ct a/. (New York, I933),
xv. 87-89. Cf. David Parens, quoted in Arnold Williams's The Common
Expositor (Chapel Hill, I948), p. I I 3: 'God is said to try man not that he
may discover what he does not know (he knows even our inmost thoughts),
but that we may discover our weakness, which we do not know' (emphasis
mine). In his 'Apology for his Book' Bunyan defends a method similar to
Milton's: 'You see the ways the Fisher-man doth take I To catch the Fish;
what En gins doth he make? I. . .. Yet Fish there be, that neither Hook,
nor Line, I Nor Snare nor Net, nor Engine can make thine; I They must be
grop'd for, and be tickled too, I Or they will not be catcht, what e're you do'
(p. 3); 'This Book will make a Travailer of thee, I If by its Counsel thou wilt
ruled be; I It will direct thee to the Holy Land, I If thou wilt its Directions
understand; I Yea, it will make the sloathful active be; I The Blind also,
delightful things to see' (pp. 6-7).
 The Good Temptation 4I

The temptation is good because by means of it the secret

corruption within is exposed, and consequently we are better
able to resist the blandishments of less benevolent tempters.
In the struggle against sin, no weapon is more effective than
a knowledge of the areas likely to be under attack :
Thou must be carefull and diligent to finde out the subtilty,
devices, and sleights of the devill, by which he doth assault thee
very cunningly; for he hath a neere conjecture unto what sinnes
thou art most inclined ... and accordingly he fits his temptations.
(A Garden of Spiritual/ Flowers, 1638, p. 285)
There is secret corruption within, which will never be found out
but by searching ... the benefit is great which waysoever things
turn. If upon examination we find that we have not grace in
truth, then the mistake is discovered, and the danger prevented.
If we find that we have grace, we may take the comfort of it.
(Thomas Watson, Christian Soldier; Or, Heaven
Taken By Storm, 1669, p. 52)
I feelingly know the weakness of my own heart, and I am not
ignorant of the Devil's malice and subtilty, and how he will make
the fiercest assaults where I am weakest.
(John Corbet, Self-Imployment in Secret,
1681, pp. 41-42)

The deceitfulness of man's heart is such, writes Daniel

Dyke, that we should welcome 'fit occasions' of trial which
'give a vent to corruption' ; for 'many are inwardly full of
corruption ; but they shew it not, onely for want of occasion'
(The Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving, 1615, p. 329). It is our duty,
insists John Shower, to 'bring [our] Hearts and Ways to a
Trial, but 'most ... are unwilling [becauseJ they are
stupidly secure and see not the necessity of this duty'
(Serious Reflections On Time And Eternity, Glasgow, 1828,
1st ed., I 689, p. 17 5). Milton compels this duty by fitting
temptations to our inclinations and then confronting us
immediately with the evidence of our fallibility. And in the
42 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

process, he fosters the intense self-consciousness which is the

goal of spiritual self-examination:
When on the Sudden, and by Incogitancy I have spoken a Word,
which upon Second Thoughts is doubtful to me, though I had
not such doubt in the speaking of it, I have been much perplexed
about it, and have engaged myself to a greater watchfulness.
(Corbet, op. cit., p. 32)
And when upon this inquiry, we find we have contracted any
sullages or pollutions, then we must cleanse them from that filth,
and take heed to them, that is, keep a continual watch over them,
and be still upon our guard, that we be not surpriz'd by any new
Temptation.
(Edmund Arwaker, Thoughts well Employ'd,
1697, p. 21)
Note the similarity between the sequence of mental actions
described by Corbet - mistake, correction, instruction -
and my description of the reader's experience in Books I
and n.
The long-range result of this technique is the creation
of a 'split reader', one who is continually responding to two
distinct sets of stimuli - the experience of individual poetic
moments and the ever present pressure of the Christian
doctrine- and who attaches these responses to warring
forces within him, and is thus simultaneously the location
and the observer of their struggle. This division in the reader
is nowhere more apparent or more central to Milton's
intention than in Book IX when Adam chooses to disobey.
Waldeck raised a very real question (which he then ans-
wered too quickly) when he argued that at its most crucial
point, 'the poem asks from us, at one and the same time, two
incompatible responses ... that Adam did right, and ...
that he did wrong. The dilemma is as critical as that, and
there is no way of escape' . 1 Almost immediately Paul
I Paradist Lost and its Critics, P· s6. See also Peter, CritifjUt, PP· I 3o-I.
 The Good Temptation +3

Turner replied by pointing out that the poet does not want
us to escape : 'What would happen if ... the reader did not
feel inside himself a strong, almost overwhelming impulse
to do what Adam did. What sort of significance ... would
remain ?' 1 The ambivalence of the response is meaningful
because the reader is able to identify its components with
different parts of his being : one part, faithful to what he has
been taught to believe (his 'erected wit') and responsive to
the unmistakable sentiments of the poem's official voice,
recoils in the presence of what he knows to be wrong ; but
another part, subversive and unbidden (his 'infected will')
surprises and overcomes him and Adam is secretly applauded.
It would be a mistake to deny either of these impulses; they
must be accepted and noted because the self must be
accepted before it can be transformed. The value of the
experience depends on the reader's willingness to participate
in it fully while at the same time standing apart from it. He
must pass judgment on it, at least on that portion of it which
is a reflection of his weakness. So that if we retain Waldock's
formula, a description of the total response would be, Adam
is wrong, no, he's right, but, then, of course he is wrong,
and so am I. This last is not so much a product of the scene
itself as of the moral conditioning the poem has exposed us
to and of the self-consciousness it encourages. In effect the
reader imposes this final certainty on the ambiguity of the
poetic moment (this is the way of escape), but, in doing so,
he does not deny its richness ; indeed he adds to it by
ordering it, by providing another perspective which gives the
ambiguity meaning and renders it edifying; he now supplies
the correcting perspective supplied earlier by the epic voice.
Moreover, the uneasiness he feels at his own reaction to the
fact of sin is a sign that he is not yet lost. The saint is known
not by the absence of sin, but by his hatred of it :
I 'Woman and the FallofMan', English Studies, xxix (1948), 16.
44 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

First, before hee come to doe the sinne, he hath no purpose to doe
it, but his purpose and desire is to doe the will of God, contrary to
that sinne. Secondly, in the act of doing of the sinne, his heart
riseth against it, yet by the force of temptation, and by the mighty
violence of the flesh hee is haled on and pulled to do wickednesse.
Thirdly, after hee hath sinned, he is sore displeased with himself
for it and truly repenteth. 1

In the pattern I discern in the poem, the reader is con-

tinually surprised by sin and in shame, 'sore displeased with
himself,' his heart 'riseth against it'.
One might ask at this point, why read a poem that treats
its reader so badly? Why continue to suffer an experience
that is unpleasant? The answer is simply that for the
seventeenth-century Puritan and indeed for any Christian
in what we might call the Augustinian tradition, the kind of
discomfort I have been describing would be paradoxically a
source of comfort and the unpleasantness a source of pleasure.
Milton did not write for the atheist, but for the 'cold'
Christian (neither saint nor apostate) who cannot help but
allow the press of ordinary life to 'divert his thoughts from
Heav'n'. In the same way, the sense of sin so necessary to a
properly disposed Christian soul, is blunted rather than
reinforced by the familiar recitation of scriptural common-
places in sermons. One may hear every day of the depravity
of natural man and of the inefficacy of unaided human
efforts, but, inevitably, the incantational repetition of a
1 A Garden of Spiritual/ Flowers (1638), p. 212. See also John Preston, Sins

0'lJerthrow or A Godly and Learned Treatise of Mortification (London, 1633),

p. 6o: 'But there is great difference betwixt the slacknesse of the Saints, and
the wicked backsliding: the godly [61) they may slacke, but it is for a time;
he is cold and remisse in the duties of holinesse, but it lasts not, it vanisheth
away: on the other side, the wicked lye and continue in Apostacy unto the
end; in these it is naturall, but unto the other it is but the instigation of the
divell working by some lust upon one of the faculties.' These are of course
commonplace statements, and examples could be multiplied ad infinitum.
 The Good Temptation 4S

truth lessens its immediate and personal force, and the sinner
becomes complacent in a verbal and abstract contrition.
Paradise Lost is immediate and forceful in the communica-
tion of these unflattering truths, again following the example
of Christ who administers to the Pharisees 'not by the
middling temper ... but by the other extreme of antidote •••
a sharp & corrosive sentence against a foul and putrid
licence ; not to eate into the flesh, but into the sore'. I In the
manner of the Old Law, the poem is designed to 'call forth
and develop our natural depravity ; ... that it might
impress us with a slavish fear ... that it might be a school-
master to bring us to the righteousness of Christ' .2 And since
perpetual vexation and self-doubt are signs that the spirit
of the Lord is at work, the reader welcomes an experience
he knows to be salutary to his spiritual health; a 'good
temptation' Milton points out 'is therefore rather to be
desired'. 3 'They whose hearts are pierced by the Ministry
of the word, they are carryed with love and respect to the
Ministers of it' (Thomas Hooker).
It should be noted, in addition, that the reading offered
here is a partial one. I have isolated this pattern in order to
make a precise and rather narrow point about the way the
poem works on one level. In Milton's larger scheme the
conviction that man can do nothing is accompanied by the
conviction that Christ has taken it upon himself to do it all.
As Joseph Summers writes, in another context, 'The essen-
tial "act" is that the individual should abandon the pretence
that he can act in any way pertaining to salvation : he must
experience the full realization that salvation belongs to God,
that nothing he can do either by faith or works can help. The
doctrine is moreover, "comforting", for "all things" are
"more ours by being his" ' (George Herbert, p. 61 ). We are
I Complete Prose Works, ii. 668. z The Works of John Milton, xvi. I 3I.
3 See note 3, p. 40.
46 Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling

told this at the first - 'till one greater Man / Restore us

and regain the blissfull Seat' - but in the course of our
struggles with Books I and n, we forget, as Milton intends us
to, so that we can be reminded dramatically by the glorious
sacrifice of Book m. Milton impresses us with the negativity
and despair of one aspect of Christian doctrine so that he
can send us joyfully to the promise of another.

We shall learn Milton's lessons only if we enter the poem

on his terms. The fifth inference I drew from Waldock's
criticism of the intrusive epic voice was that for him the
question of relative authority is a purely aesthetic one.
'Milton's allegations clash with his demonstrations ... in
any work of imaginative literature at all it is the demonstra-
tion ... that has the higher validity : an allegation can
possess no comparable authority.' In his brilliantly perverse
Milton's God William Empson asserts 'all the characters are
on trial in any civilized narrative'' and Waldock would, I
think, include the epic voice in this statement. The insistence
on the superiority of showing as opposed to telling is, as
Wayne Booth has shown, a modern one, and particularly
unfortunate in this case since it ignores the historical reality
of the genre. 2 When Homer calls Achilles wrathful, do we
search the narrative for proof he is not ; is Odysseus' craft
on trial or do we accept it because we accept the authority
of the epic voice? Do we attempt to make a case for Aeneas'
impiety? There is an obvious retort to all this : the authority
of epic voices in other epics is accepted because their com-
1 Milton's God (Norfolk, 1961), p. 94·
2 The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago, 1961), p. 4· ' ... even Homer writes
scarcely a page without some kind of direct clarification of motives, of ex-
pectations, and of the relative importance of events. And though the gods
themselves are often unreliable, Homer - the Homer we know - is not.
What he tells us usually goes deeper and is more accurate than anything we are
likely to learn about real people and events.'
 The Good Temptation +7
ments either confirm or anticipate the reading experience;
Milton invites us to put his epic voice on trial by allowing
the reading experience to contradict it. (Waldock: 'Of
course they should agree.') I agree that the reader cannot
help but notice the clash of authorities ; his familiarity with
the genre would lead him to look to the epic voice for
guidance and clarification. But I do not think that any fit
reader would resolve the problem, as Waldock does, and
decide immediately and happily for the poem (and for
himself) and against the prescience of its narrator. Milton
assumes a predisposition in favour of the epic voice rather
than a modern eagerness to put that voice on trial ; he expects
his reader to worry about the clash, to place it in a context
that would resolve a troublesome contradiction and allow
him to reunite with an authority who is a natural ally against
the difficulties of the poem.
There is at least a Virgilian precedent: in the fourth book
of the Aeneid, a great deal of Virgil's meaning is communi-
cated through the felt contrast between the persuasiveness of
Dido's appeal to Aeneas and the quiet firmness of his
rejection of her. So successful is the poet that at least one of
his editors becomes angry with him: 'To an appeal which
would move a stone Aeneas replies with the cold and formal
rhetoric of an attorney ... Aeneas is left "stammering and
preparing to say many things" - a hero who had, one would
think, lost his character for ever. But Virgil seems unmoved
by his own genius, and begins the next paragraph quite
placidly 'at pius Aeneas .. .' I How the man who wrote the
lines placed in Dido's mouth could immediately afterwards
speak of "the good Aeneas etc.'' is one of the puzzles of
literature'. I Not so puzzling when one realizes that the scene
is designed to dramatize for the reader exactly what the
I From the introduction ofT. E. Page's edition of the Aeneid, 2 vols.
(London, I 894), pp. xviii-xix.
-4-8 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

adjective pius means. The reader is allowed to feel the pull

Dido exerts on him and then to hear the reply of Aeneas,
lovis monitis inmota (3 3 I). With Page, many readers will for
a moment hesitate to accept this action as a truly virtuous
one, until the narrator steps in authoritatively with his
'placid' 'at pius Aeneas'. In the following lines the reality of
Dido's claim on our attention is acknowledged, but sub-
ordinated to a higher claim :
at pius Aeneas, quamquam lenire dolentem
solando cupit et dictis avertere curas,
multa gemens magnoque ani mum labefactus amore,
iussa tamen divom exsequitur, classemque revisit.
(393-6)
The dramatic and moral tensions of the moment are ex-
hibited in the syntax; the main clause is a simple declarative,
cold, absolute, and, one could say, insensitive to complexity,
'the good Aeneas followed the orders of the Gods and
returned to the fleet'; but contained within the main clause
and literally surrounded by it are all the considerations
Aeneas must reject along with Dido, her sorrow, his own
inclinations, the fact of love : 'although he desires to assuage
her sorrows and turn aside her grief with his words, sighing
much, his soul shaken by his mighty love'. 1 The firmness
and precision of the narrator's comment guides the reader
and leads him to a clearer conception of Aeneas' heroism,
which is here measured by the effort of will it requires to
leave Dido, and the reader, in turn, must measure himself
against the hero's response.
Indeed, the experience of the scene redefines heroism
completely, as does our experience of Satan in the first six
books of Paradise Lost. Satan's initial attractiveness owes as
I Again there is a Christian analogue in The Pilgrim's Progress when

Christian stops his ears against the cries of his family 'and ran on crying, Life,
Life, Eternal Life'. See edition quoted above, p. 10.
 The Good Temptation 49

much to a traditional idea of what is heroic as it does to our

weakness before the rhetorical lure. He exemplifies a form of
heroism most of us find easy to admire because it is visible
and flamboyant (the epic voice also admires : the 'though in
pain' of 'So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain' is
a recognition of the steadfastness that can belong even to
perversity; the devil is always given his due). 1 Because his
courage is never denied (instead Milton insists on it) while
his virtue and goodness are (in the 'allegations' of the epic
voice), the reader is led to revise his idea of what a true hero
is. If this poem does anything to its readers, it forces them to
make finer and finer discriminations. Perhaps the most
important aspect of the process I have been describing-
the creation of a reader who is fit because he knows and
understands his limitations - begins here at I. I 2 5 when
Milton's authorial corrective casts the first stone at the ideal
of martial valour and points us towards the meaningful
acceptance of something better.
To summarize: Paradise Lost is a dialectical experience
which has the advantage traditionally claimed for dialectic
of involving the respondent in his own edification. On one
level at least the poem has the form of a Platonic dialogue,
with the epic voice taking the role of Socrates, and the
reader in the position of a Phaedrus or a Cratylus, con-
tinually forced to acknowledge his errors, and in this way
moving toward a confirmation in the Truth :
The genius of elenchos •.• is that whatever eventuates in the
course of cross-examination is not the examiner's importation, but
the respondent's own contribution and finding. If there are sum-
mations and conclusions, they are the respondent's. He has not
1 Patrick Hume in his notes to the poem (1795) suggests still another

possible reading for_this couplet: 'Though in torment, making vain boastings'

(1o). That is, even while he is racked with pain, Satan cannot resist an occasion
for hearing his own voice. Presumably, he would find something better to do.
50 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

been shown; he has himself made a discovery.... Dialectic is the

true rhetorical and persuasive art, because it permits a man to
convict himself of error, and, on the other hand, to confirm
himself in the truth. He is self persuaded. I

If the demands Milton makes on his readers seem exces-

sive, they flow from a sense of his responsibility to them (his
is 'the office of a pulpit, to inbreed ... the seeds of virtue ...
and set the affections in right tune')2 and correspond to what
they asked of themselves in their daily ('yea, hourly')
exercises of self-examination. 'Self-examination', explains
Watson in The Christian Soldier, 'is the setting up a court
in conscience, and keeping a register there, that by strict
scrutiny a man may know how things stand between God
and his own soul' (p. 4 7). This court is in session always,
considering the innumerable ways and byways of the
human heart whose falseness, asserts Dyke, 'so often deceiv-
ing us, must make us to be very strict and severe in
. . '
exammmg:

Let us never therefore let reckonings runne on, but every day let
us make all even. Let us chastise ourselves every morning,
examine ourselves every evening, even in the still silence of the
night, as wee lye waking in our beds.
(The Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving, p. 355)

Inevitably, the practice of self-examination becomes formal-

ised. Dyke devotes hundreds of pages to a Ramist analysis of
the varieties of self-deception, urging eternal vigilance and

I Robert Cushman, Therapeia (Chapel Hill, 1958), p. 230.

2 Milton's didacticism is no more radical than Sidney's for whom poetry is
a branch of learning, sharing with other arts a great purpose 'to lead and draw
us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay
lodgings, can be capable of', and accomplishing that end to better effect:
'The poet ... doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth.'
(Again the familiar emphasis on the exercise of the reader's mind.)
 The Good Temptation 51

meditation as antidotes to all of them. Diarists commit their

daily 'audits' to paper in a systematic fashion, answering set
questions designed to organize for them the spiritual history
of the day:

Observe, what sin 'tis you are most unwilling to part with ....
Which you have formerly been most apt to plead for, to extenuate
or excuse, and hide.
Which an awaken'd Conscience hath most plainly told you
of ...
Which the Temperament of your body doth most incline to ...
Observe ... what Passion was most predominant in each
Period of Time. Consider further what dangerous Temptations
you have met with: how you have fallen by 'em or been inabled
to resist. Consider withal the Time and the Means whereby
God hath at any time ... awaken'd, convinc't and humbled you.
(John Shower, Serious Reflections, pp. 179-81)

By the last quarter of the century 'the duty of Self-Observa-

tion' has acquired the status of a science and an apparatus
that is the counterpart of the analytical method developed in
connection with the new empiricism; 'For this considerate
thinking on our ways, separates and discriminates things
that are confusedly huddled together, ... gathers and collects
those that are scattered and dispersed, ... traces and finds
out truth, examines likelihoods and appearances, and dis-
covers and explores pretences that are feigned and varnished'
(Arwaker, Thoughts well Employ'd, p. 22). This might be a
summary of the claims Bacon makes for his method were it
not for the inclusiveness of the final sentence : 'This is it
that preordains what is to be done, revolves what is already
acted, governs the Affections, restrains excess, and betters
and improves our lives in all respects' (22-23).
The habit of self-analysis is only one aspect of an age
of analysis. Ramists teach that a discourse, written or oral,
p. Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

is built up of a series of axiomatic sentences, arranged in a

descending order from the most general to the most special ;
and that, since composition or genesis involves the accretion
of discrete units of thought, analysis is able to break down
the finished product into the same units and so verify the
correctness of the procedure. The Puritan preacher ana-
tomizes doctrine in the same way, beginning with the text
and dividing it and sub-dividing it until nothing remains to
be explained. His auditors, in turn, co-operate with him by
carefully noting each sub-division and reflecting on its
application :

When the Word of God is preached before thee ... be attentive

... observe these directions ... marke the Text, observe the
division; marke how every point is handled: quote the places of
Scripture which he alledgeth for his Doctrines proofe, fold
downe a leafe in your Bible from whence the place is recited,
that so at your leisure after your returne from the Church, you
may examine it: apply that which is spoken to thy self; and
endeavour to be bettered by it. Continue in thy attentive
hearing without wearinesse, from the beginning unto the end of
the sermon. 1

Literary texts are also 'opened' by the rules of method.

Schoolboys were taught to cull out figures of speech, parse
grammar, and resolve orations and poems into 'matter' or
doctrine. 2 The value of much of this analysis is question-
able, but its effect on those who are encouraged to practise
it is undeniable. Commenting on Dudley Fenner's analysis
of St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon, an example of the 'complete
Ramist technique of reading', Sister Miriam Joseph ob-
serves that,
I A Garden of Spiritual/ Flowers, pp. I r6-7.
2 See Walter J. Ong, S.J., Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue
(Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 263-7.
 The Good Temptation 53

If it makes us somewhat dizzy to follow Fenner through these

analytical gymnastics, we must remember that such exercise, like
parsing in grammar or noting rhetorical features such as loose and
periodic sentences, parallel structure, balance and rhythm, estab-
lishes habits of subconscious observation and appreciation which
contribute greatly to mature reading even when rapid and pre-
occupied with content. A habit of logical analysis subconsciously
associates itself with one's reading even more deeply than a
grammatical or rhetorical analysis, for it is more closely related to
the thought itself. I

And Ong makes a similar point when he remarks on the

pervasiveness of analysis in the schools :
Although it often meant mere naming of the 'ornaments' of
tropes and figures, such rhetorical analysis, particularly when
abetted by dialectical analysis, demanded that the pupil get into
the text, struggle with it, and, in general, involve himself in
the linguistic situation.z

We have then two analytical traditions, one concerned

with the inner life and encouraging introspection, the other
concerned with objects and artifacts and encouraging a sense
of responsibility to 'the linguistic situation'. And as a poem
whose subject is man's disobedience and the 'fruit thereof',
a poem which tells the story of how its readers came to be
what they now are, Paradise Lost is uniquely fitted to draw
forth a response rooted in both traditions.

I Rhetoricin Shakespeare's Time, (New York, 194-7), p. 3 53·

z Op. cit., p. 285. See also Harding, The Club of Hercules, p. 10: 'The poets
of the period would not have written in such a highly figurative manner
unless they knew they could count on an audience capable of responding to it•
• . . Whatever else we may say about Milton's "fit audience, though few" there
can be no doubt that it was unusually well equipped to understand his uses of
classical literature and had, furthermore, developed a background of reading
and listening habits which guaranteed a closer and more intelligent inspection
of Paradise Lost than most modern readers are qualified to give it.'
E F.s.s.
54 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

The possibility of such a response, and of a reader who

becomes the detachedly involved observer of his own mental
processes, is attested to by the commentary of Jonathan
Richardson, the elder (Explanatory Notes and Remarks on
Milton's Paradise Lost, 1734). Repeatedly Richardson pays
tribute to the subtlety of Milton's method and acknow-
ledges the special claim the poem has on his Christian
attention. The reading experience, he insists, must be a
consciously analytical one. The business of poetry is to
'awaken' (clv), and Milton is praised because his style rouses
the reader from drowsiness into attention, and makes him
like it; 'There is Something in Every Man's whereby he is
Known, as by his Voice, Face, Gait, &c. in Milton there is a
certain Vigour, whether Versing or Prosing, which will
Awaken Attention be She never so Drowsy, and then
Persuade her to be Thankful though She was Disturb'd.'
Richardson's description of the poem's demands accords per-
fectly with my own :

a Reader of Milton must be Always upon Duty; he is Surrounded

with Sense, it rises in every Line, every Word is to the Purpose
... he Expresses himself So Concisely, Employs Words So
Sparingly, that whoever will Possess His Ideas must Dig for
them, and Oftentimes pretty far below the Surface. If This is
call'd Obscurity let it be remembered 'tis Such a One as is Com-
plaisant to the Reader, not Mistrusting his Ability ... if a Good
Writer is not Understood 'tis because his Reader is Unacquainted
with, or Incapable of the Subject, or will not Submit to do the
Duty of a Reader, which is to Attend Carefully to what he
Reads.
(cxliv-cxlv)

The fit reader, then, will regard the difficulty of the poem as
a compliment to his own powers, and his reward will be
commensurate with the effort : the poem is not only a
 The Good Temptation 55

vehicle for sublime ideas, it is an instrument by which the

reader's mind can be educated to receive them:

and all These Sublime Ideas are Convey'd to Us in the most

Effectual and Engaging Manner: the Mind of the Reader is
Tempered, and Prepar'd, by Pleasure, 'tis Drawn, and Allured,
'tis Awaken'd and Invigorated to receive Such Impressions as
the Poet intended to give it: it Opens the Fountains of Know-
ledge, Piety and Virtue, and pours Along Full Streams of
Peace, Comfort and Joy to Such as can Penetrate the true Sense
of theW riter, and Obediently Listen to his Songs (clx).

And the reader who does listen obediently will have partici-
pated in something more than a literary experience, smce
this poem is concerned with his very salvation :

what does the War of Troy, or the Original of the Roman Name,
say it was That of Britain, Concern You and Me? the Original
of Things, the First Happy, but Precarious Condition of Man-
kind, his Deviation from Rectitude, his Lost State, his Restoration
to the Favour of God by Repentance, and Imputed Righteous-
ness.... These Concern Us All Equally, and Equally with our
First Parents, whose Story, and That of the Whole Church of
God, this Poem sets before us .... Whereas Whoever Profits, as
he May, by This Poem will, as Adam in the Garden, Enjoy the
Pleasures of Sense to the Utmost, with Temperance, and Purity
of Heart, the Truest and Fullest Enjoyment of them; and will
Moreover perceive his Happiness is Establish'd upon a Better
Foundation than That of his Own Impeccability, and Thus
possess a Paradise Within Far more Happy than that of Eden.
(clxi-ii).

In short, for the Christian reader Paradise Lost is a means of

confirming him in his faith, and Richardson goes so far as to
suggest a comparison with Scripture, 'the Best of Books ...
said to be Profitable for Doctrine,for Reproof, for Correction, for
Instruction in Righteousness' (clviii).
56 Not so much a Teaching as an lntangling

Doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction. Milton could

not have wished for higher praise, and he should not be
judged by a lesser standard.
2 The Milk of
the Pure Word
the man that is truly regenerate and renewed
hee doth best relish the Word when it is alone
without any mixture, and therefore he cals it
the sincere milke; that is, the pure Word,
JOHN PRESTON, Sins Overthrow

(i) T H E F 0 R MAL D E FENCE

Now had th' Almighty Father from above,

From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High Thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as Stars, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his Glory sat,
His only Son; On Earth he first beheld
Our two first Parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy Garden plac't,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall'd love
In blissful solitude; he then survey'd
Hell and the Gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night
In the dun Air sublime, and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet
On the bare outside of this World, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without Firmament,
Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake:
Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary, whom no bounds
58 The Milk of the Pure Word

Prescrib'd, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains

Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not far off Heav'n, in the Precincts oflight,
Directly towards the new-created World,
And Man there plac't, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For Man will heark'n to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole Command,
Sole Pledge of his obedience: So will fall
Hee and his faithless Progeny: whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere
Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,
Where only what they needs must do, appear'd,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I, from such obedience paid,
When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had serv'd necessity,
Not mee? They therefore as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;
As if Predestination over-rul 'd
Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Thir own revolt, not I : if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
 The Formal Defence 59

So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,

Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I form'd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd
Thir freedom: they themselves ordain'd thir fall.
The first sort by thir own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd
By th' other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in Mercy and Justice both,
Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glory excel,
But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.
(m. 56-1 34)
In recent years, several critics have asserted that the
stylistic characteristics of the voice of Milton's God are
answerable to the idea of deity demanded by the poem and
by seventeenth-century theology. Arnold Stein notes that
God's 'language and cadence are as unsensuous as if Milton
were writing a model for the Royal Society and attempting
to speak purely to the understanding', and offers as a
defence the observation that 'Poetry is human and meta-
phorical, and the Father's speeches are intended to express
divine Justice as if directly : to seem without seeming : to
create the illusion of no illusion'. 1 Jackson Cope makes
more explicit Stein's coupling of the human and the meta-
phorical : 'This eye of God does not see things meta-
phorically, but in their essential natures. . . . God in his
own voice can never speak metaphorically.' 2 Thomas
1 Answerable Style, p. I 28.
2 The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise Lost, p. r68. Actually Cope goes
on to argue that God does indeed use metaphoric language, but he is using the
word 'metaphoric' in a sense that makes his inclusion here not much of a
distortion.
6o The Milk of the Pure Word

Kranidas insists on the decorum of the presentation : 'The

purity of his image of God requires the kind of rhetorical
isolation, the dialectic and schematic movement of language,
which strikes the reader as barer than mere simplicity.' 1
And Irene Samuel points to the obvious contrast between
diabolic and heavenly rhetoric : 'The flat statement of fact,
past, present, and future, the calm analysis and judgment of
deeds and principles -these naturally strike the ear that
has heard Satan's ringing utterances as cold and impersonal.
They should.' 2 There is general agreement here as to
Milton's intention: he is trying to communicate philo-
sophical and moral distinctions through stylistic (rhetorical)
signatures. The question criticism asks quite properly is,
does he succeed? Stein abstains, 'I pass the problem of
trying to judge them [God's speechesp while J. B. Broad-
bent replies in the negative :

The least successful contrast is between the Father's rhetoric in

Book III and Satan's ... This is not enough to mark the vast gap
that the poem supposes to exist between the minds of God and
Satan. The fault seems to lie in rhetoric itself. For all its
elaborations as a system, it is not a flexible enough instrument
for the dramatic function of distinguishing between characters. 4

In other words, while the distinction exists in the abstract,

that is in the system, it is not felt strongly enough by the
reader and is therefore finally not made. This would be
a telling argument were the two styles attached to a merely
1The Fierce Equation: A Study of Milton's Decorum (The Hague, 1965),
P· I 35·
2 'The Dialogue in Heaven: A Reconsideration of Paradise Lost, III,

I-417', in Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Arthur Barker (New

York, 1965), p. 235·
3 Answerable Style, p. 128.
4 Some Graver Subject. An Essay on Paradise Lost (London, 1960), pp.
I so-r.
 The Formal Defence 6I

literary theory of decorum, but as Kingsley Widmer reminds

us, 'the entire Miltonic view, and thus much of Protestant
Christian mythology is involved in the stylistic antithesis
between Heaven and Hell'! Rhetoric is the verbal equi-
valent of the fleshly lures that seek to enthral us and divert
our thoughts from Heaven, the reflection of our own
cupidinous desires, while logic comes from God and speaks
to that part of us which retains his image. Through rhetoric
man continues in the error of the Fall, through logic he can
at least attempt a return to the clarity Adam lost. Stephen
Hawes advises early in the sixteenth century, 'Who wyll
take payne to folowe the trace I In this wretched worlde of
trouthe and ryghtwysenes I In heven he shall have dwellynge
place I . .. So by logyke is good perceyveraunce I To devyde
the good and the evyll a sondre' (Pastime of Pleasure:
11. 624-7, 63 1-2). In the seventeenth century this injunction
is translated into a programme of scientific action and a
theory of sermonry ; metaphorical and affective language are
rejected in favour of the objective style of Baconian empiri-
cism and the plain style ofPuritan preaching. Stein, Kranidas,
Miss Samuel and, to a lesser extent, Cope, defend God's
speeches by isolating them as objects whose meaning is
derived from an abstract system, inviting Broadbent's
objection that they are deficient in poetical force. In the
context of contemporary attitudes, however, the reader's
response to a rhetorical pattern like this one would be
emotional, even visceral, as well as intellectual. To the
watchful Christian, the rhetorical appeal is something to be
feared because it panders to a part of him he knows to be
subversive, while the philosopher disdains it as a clouder of
men's minds and an impediment to scientific investigation;
conversely, bareness and clarity or organization are not only
1 'The Iconography of Renunciation: The Miltonic Simile', ELH, xxv

(1958), 269.
62 The Milk of the Pure Word

valued, but welcomed, with the kind of physical pleasure

men in other ages reserve for beautiful (lyric) poems or
beautiful women. In other words, the prevailing orthodoxies
- linguistic, theological, scientific - make possible an
affective response to a presentation because it is determinedly
non-affective.
God's presentation is determinedly non-affective, al-
though it certainly does not give that impression. His first
speech is a fine example of logical method being applied to a
universe of things. Cope might well be describing it when
he speaks of 'the spatialized form of logic which reduced
reality to a visual object, and supplanted dialogue by the
monologue of the expositor pointing out the connections
among parts'. 1 Walter Ong's characterization of Ramist-
Puritan poetry is similarly apposite :
When the Puritan mentality which is ... the Ramist mentality,
produces poetry, it is at first blatantly didactic, but shades
gradually into reflective poetry which does not talk to anyone in
particular but meditates on objects.z

To those who are accustomed to think Milton's God

querulous or self-justifying, the suggestion that he does not
talk to anyone in particular may seem curious. Technically,
however, the tonal qualities usually ascribed to his voice are
accidental, the result of what the reader reads into the speech
rather than of what is there. The form of his discourse is
determined by the nature of the thing he contemplates
rather than by the desire to project a personality (ethos) or
please a specific audience (pathos); its mode is exfoliation;
that is, the speech does not build, it unfolds according to the
rules of method.
Seventeenth-century method is based on a faith m
1 Metaphoric Structure, pp. 33-34·
a Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue, pp. 287-8.
 The Formal Defence 63

'natural order', the rather na'ive assumption that the satis-

faction the mind feels at seeing things arranged one after
the other, from general to special or special to general,
corresponds to the arrangement of reality :
Methode est disposition par laquelle entre plusieurs choses la
premiere de notice est disposee au premier lieu, la deuziesme au
deuziesme, la troiziesme au troiziesme et ...
Methode de nature est par laquelle ce qui est du tout et absolu-
ment plus evident et plus notoire est prepose, ce qu' Aristote
appelle au premier de la Demonstration ores plus notoire de nature,
ores precedent de nature, d'autant que ce qui est naturellement
plus evident doibt preceder en ordre et declairation de doctrine
comme sont les causes de leurs effectz et partant, aussi leurs
symboles comme le general et universe! du special et singulier.
Et d'autant que chacune sera plus generalle, tant plus precedera.
Et le generallissime sera le premier en rang et ordre car il est le
premier de clairte et notice. Les subalternes suyvront car ilz sont
prochains de clairte. Et d'iceux les plus notoires precederont, les
moins notoires suyvront. Et enfin les exemples qui sont specialis-
simes seront mis les derniers. Ceste methode est singuliere et
unique es doctrines bien instituees car en elle, singuliere et
unique, est procede par choses antecedentes du tout et absolu-
ment plus cleres et notoires pour esclarcir et illustrer les choses
COnSequenteS ObSCUreS et incognueS. I
We can see here that while the doctrine is non-affective, it
is nevertheless rhetorical or at least pedagogical, since the
emphasis is on the perceiving mind, and the end is to
produce visible patterns or groupings that the mind will
find easy to follow.z It is a rhetoric of the mind, leading from
and looking to a God who is all mind (Ramus remarks that
I Pierre de la Ramee, Dia/ectique, edition critique avec introduction,

notes et commentaires de Michel Dassonville (Geneve, Librairie Droz, 1964),

PP· 144-5·
2 This does not contradict my assertion that method attends to things since

Ramism equates the objects in the real world and the sets of mental items in
the mind. See Ong, Ramus, Method, passim.
64 The Milk of the Pure Word
God is the perfect logician) but it respects neither persons nor
occasions. When Milton's God asks 'whose fault?' and
answers 'Whose but his own? ingrate', the question is posed
because the exposition of the thing or item under con-
sideration (man's position in the universe) requires that it be
answered ; and in the answer given, 'ingrate', is a term not of
reproach, but of definition. That is to say, the names God
imposes reflect the accuracy of his perception rather than his
attitude toward the object named. Consider, in support of
this statement, John Wilkins' account of the difference
between man's knowledge and God's:
His knowledge is most deep and intimate, reaching to the very
essence of things, ours but slight and superficial. ... He hath a
perfect comprehension of all things that have been, that are or
shall be, according to all the various relations, dependences,
circumstances, belonging to each of them. So that this Attribute
of his [knowledgeJ must be infinite and unbounded, both extensive
with respect to the several kinds of objects which it comprehends;
and likewise intensive as it sees every single object with a most
perfect infallible view. He doth not only understand all particulars;
but he knows every particular so exactly; as if he were wholly
taken up and intent in his thought upon that alone. I
Wilkins' conception of deity is at base linguistic; the
contrast between human and divine sight is grounded in the
assumption that for both God and man the problem is the
accurate description of a shared universe of fixed objects.
The things of the world are the measure of God's knowledge
as well as man's. God's superiority is, in a sense, merely
optical, and one can assume that he speaks the language
Wilkins triumphantly offers to the world in An Essay
Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, 1668,
a language free of 'synonymous words', 'Equivocals', words
of 'several significations', and of metaphors, those 'affected
I On the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (r678), PP· 12 s-6.
 The Formal Defence 6S

ornaments' which prejudice the native simplicity of speech

'and contribute to the disguising of it with false appearances'
(p. 1 8). God is the perfect name-giver whose word is the
thing in all its aspects. In the ultimate philosophical sense
his words are true. 'Ingrate' is not a judgment, but a
scientific notation with the emotional value of an X or a r;
and later when God commands the 'Abyss' of unformed
matter, 'Sile'1ce, ye troubl'd waves ... f ... your discord
end' (vn. 2 16-q), 'troubl'd' and 'discord' are to be under-
stood only in a physical sense, notwithstanding anything
else we may read into them.
God's monologue, then, is the union of method- the
self-generating exposition of what is - and a philosophically
accurate vocabulary, admitting neither ambiguity or redun-
dancy.1 Rather than true, that is conversational, inter-
rogatives, God's questions are a part of the machinery of
method ; 'whose fault?' is not the defensive exclamation of
an angry parent disclaiming responsibility for the sins of
his offspring, but a logically necessary inquiry if the fact
(of the Fall) is to be placed in the context of total reality. If
God's comprehension of things extends to 'all the various
relations, dependences, circumstances, belonging to each of
them', his verbal consideration of anything is correspon-
dingly all-inclusive. For Bacon and those who follow him
the application of an empiricist methodology will lead
eventually to a complete description of the universe. Bacon
envisions an army of committed methodologists who
proceed in a business-like manner- 'one shall take charge
of one thing, another of another' -to illuminate areas of a
segmented whole. The end product will be a spatialized
diagram of reality in which each object is presented in the
1 The interpretation of the speech as an unfolding picture of reality in all its

aspects was first suggested to me by Edward Pechter in a paper written for a

seminar at the University of California, Berkeley.
66 The Milk of the Pure Word

context of all other objects and all relationships can be seen

at a single glance. While man must work toward that goal
slowly, 'gathering up limb by limb' the shattered body of
Truth, God enjoys it now, in his eternal present, and any
utterance of his says everything about anything. He will
open with the fact ('will fall') and proceed to connect it to
all other facts ('the monologue of the expositor pointing out
the connections among parts'); he does this not to anticipate
objections (the speech is a meditation, not an argument,
directed if it is directed at all, to the Son who is a reflection
of his Father), but because his vision 'Wherein past, present,
future he beholds' sees each thing as it exists in the total
picture of reality, and his report of any particular answers
to that vision, extending to 'all the various relations, depen-
dences, circumstances'- to everything.
For God to fix his eye on any one thing is to fix his eye on
all things ; reality is spread before him on a table, as it were,
a finite complex of interconnections in which each fact
implies and indeed contains all others. In his monologue God
follows the network of relationships that lead out from the
point of his 'momentary' concentration without ever aban-
doning that point. Satan regards his ascent from Hell as an
assertion of self and a proof of his independence : 'whom no
bounds f Prescrib'd, no bars of Hell ... can hold'; but in
the larger view, which the reader is allowed to share with
God, Satan's action, or pseudo-action, is ( 1) a sign of his
dependence and service and hence of his eternally recurring
defeat ('shall redound') and (2) part of another action ('so
will fall') in which his role is ultimately secondary ('they
themselves ordain'd thir fall'). That action in turn is im-
bedded in a configuration of particulars that radiate out from
it, surround it, and define it; and God's questions ('whose
fault', 'Not free, what proof', 'what praise could they
receive') serve to bring that configuration into focus. The
 The Formal Defence 67

process is one of continuing clarification ; that is, Satan

'Coasting the wall of Heav'n' is never abandoned as an
object for comprehension; when God concludes (stops) at
Book m, line 134, he does so because that object is now known
(understood) in 'every particular', both intensively and ex-
tensively, and in God's 'most perfect infallible view' to
know so completely one object is to know all objects. The
effect is analogous to the operation of an expanding spot-
light which at first illuminates a single point of reference
and then widens to take in the panorama that finally deter-
mines its meaning. While the monologue touches on all
actions and happenings- even Christ's offer of himself,
soon to be made, is implied in the word 'mercy'- it is in
no sense digressive, since it ends where it begins, with the
complete identification (unfolding) of a single entity.
In the process, of course, other entities are identified,
placed, unfolded, disposed, defined, displayed, known,
understood :
So will fall
Hee and his faithless Progeny: whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have giv'n ...
(m. 5-1 03)
The thing (fact, item) under consideration here is the Fall.
In accordance with the traditional order as exemplified in
Milton's Art of Logic, arranged after the method of Peter
Ramus, the first of the arguments or logical topics to be
applied is cause : 'This first place of invention is the fount
of all knowledge ; and in fact if the cause of something can
68 The Milk of the Pure Word

be comprehended it is believed to be known.' 1 God asks

'whose fault?' (what cause?) and replies immediately,
'Whose but his own?'. (The mode of Ramist logic is self-
interrogation.) Before the answer can be said to be truly
comprehensive the agent must be more precisely identified.
Man has already been characterized as 'faithless'; like
'ingrate' the word is literal not metaphorical ; faithlessness
is the essence of disobedience, and when Adam chooses it,
it becomes his essence. Ingratitude is one aspect of faithless-
ness-disobedience in the context God is establishing. 'He
had of mee I All he could have' circumscribes and delimits
this particular instance of ingratitude, but that statement
too must be divided or 'opened' before the situation is fully
'known'. 'Sufficient to have stood, but free to fall' defines
the 'all' God has given Adam, a will strong enough to make
steadfastness possible, and flexible enough to make it
meaningful. This definition is educed specifically in respect
to Adam ; it is now extended to the genus of which he is a
species, that is to all free agents: 'Such I created all th'
Ethereal Powers I And Spirits, both them who stood and
them who fell'. The fact of God's having created these
agents leads naturally and necessarily to an exposition of
their place in his benevolent plan: 'Not free, what proof
could they have giv'n ... what praise could they receive
... What pleasure I from such obedience paid?' There
follows a proof or argument (in the Ramist sense) by nega-
tives : Adam is at fault because no one else is ('Not I'). The
unfolding of the discourse continues until nothing remains
to be clarified or disposed, and we end with God's mercy,
that attribute which shows him to be independent of his
own causal sequences while indicating his willingness to
extricate his creatures from them.
I A Fuller Institution of the Art of Logic, arranged after the method, of

Peter Ramus, trans. A. S. Gilbert, The Works of John Milton, xi. 31.
 The Rhetorical Defence 69

(ii) THE RHETORICAL DEFENCE

One might say at this point that the aesthetic objection

remains unanswered :

Theology's demand for ... clearness ... and Poetry's demand

for a characterization of God that will support our love and
reverence cannot, on Milton's terms, be reconciled. 1

Of course, in 'Milton's terms', poetry's demands are

illegitimate because they proceed from, and return to, the
affections (art-truth is psychological and self-centred), and
he would want his readers to resist them. Yet he would be
aware also of his obligation to readers 'of soft and delicious
temper who will not so much as look upon Truth herselfe,
unlesse they see her elegantly drest', and as a teacher he
would know that 'Truth ... ere she can come to the triall
and inspection of the Understanding' must first 'passe
through many little wards and limits of the several Affections
and Desires', putting on 'such colours and attire as those
Pathetick [appealing to the emotionsJhandmaids of the soul
please to lead her in to their Queen'. 2 In this passage from
Reason of Church Government, Milton joins those who echo
Aristotle's reluctant concession to the 'defect of our hearers',
admitting rhetoric into their systems in recognition of a
basic human weakness. Ramus provides for the weak-
minded in his audience by allowing them the 'prudential'
method, 'en laquelle les chases precedentes non pas du tout
et absolument plus notoires, mais neantmoins plus conven-
ables a celluy qu'il fault enseigner'. 3 Puritan preachers stress
1 John Peter, A Critique of Paradise Lost, p. I 8.
2 Complete Prose Works of Johfl Milto11, ed. Don Wolfe (New Haven,
1953), i. 817,818,830.
3 Dialectique, p. 1 so.
p P.s.s.
70 The Milk of the Pure Word

the importance of adding exhortation to the exposition of

doctrine. Not surprisingly, the clearest statement is Bacon's:
if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason,
it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and
insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and
proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditions of
the affections, ... reason would become captive and servile, if
Eloquence of Persuasion did not practise and win the Imagina-
tion.1
Ideally, the reader should respond to the 'naked proof' of
God's word, but the fallen intellect being what it is, a more
emotive stimulus is required. Somehow poetry's demands
must be made to accord with theology's.
Milton secures a positive response to the figure of God by
creating a psychological (emotional) need for the authority
he represents. The experience of the first two books is
unsettling; the reader's confidence in his own powers is
shaken, and other guides prove similarly unreliable. There is
of course the epic voice, but his reliability is largely negative
and hardly comforting, extending to what Satan is not, to
what the human mind cannot do, to what cannot be trusted.
The devils present themselves as authorities in the debate,
but they are exposed one by one, and the reader can only
feel further uneasiness at having surrendered even momen-
tarily to their eloquence. At one point Beelzebub seems
about to transfer to his 'Atlantean shoulders' the task of dis-
tinguishing the true from the false. He sweeps away the
self-deceptions of the previous speakers with a single word
-'doubtless'- and goes on to recall to the fallen host and
to the reader what they have forgotten in the exhilaration of
debating: God is God. 'For he, be sure, fIn highth or depth,
still first and last will Reign' (n. 323-4). Figuratively, and
1 Francis Bacon, Selected Writings, ed. H. G. Dick (New York, 1955),
PP· 3Io-II.
 The Rhetorical Defence 71

perhaps literally we nod in approval as he continues : war

with God is unthinkable and peace (he conjectures correctly)
will not be offered ; let us, therefore, - and the reader
awaits expectantly for his conclusion - attack man! 'Seduce
them to our Party, that thir God f May prove thir foe'
(368-9). At once the promise of the angel's Atlantean
shoulders is seen as illusory (there is an analogue in the
foolishness of the pilot who places his anchor in the scaly
rind of Leviathan-serpent-Satan); more disturbing than
Beelzebub's treachery is our involuntary involvement in it;
for the success of his strategy depends on our willingness to
conspire against ourselves, and our response to the debate
indicates that such a conspiracy is all too possible. Of
course, Beelzebub does not escape the poem's irony. We
know that his final taunt - 'Advise if this be worth f
Attempting, or to sit in darkness here f Hatching vain
Empires' (376-8)- is directed as much at him as at his
fellow devils ; any empire apart from God is vain, even one
secured through subversion. But this is cold comfort since
Beelzebub's ultimate defeat does not preclude his assault
on us, and his error in no way mitigates ours. To God and
those who know God, the devilish counsel and Beelzebub's
plan are equally absurd; to the devils Beelzebub offers a
rational solution to a difficult military problem ; the reader
has the advantage (or is it the disadvantage) of both per-
spectives and therefore of a third whose complexity defies
literal transcription. When Satan struggles up to the seat
of Chaos, he describes his situation in words that apply to
us as well: 'Wand'ring this darksome Desert/ ... Alone,
and without guide, half lost, I seek' (973, 97 5). Satan is
wholly and irretrievably lost ; we are but partly lost, re-
deemed finally by the true promise of Jesus Christ and
guided in the poem by an inspired poet. At this point, how-
ever, the incarnation is far from our minds and the poet
72 The Milk of the Pure Word

seems to have joined with his characters to unsettle us. We

do wander ; we are alone, without a guide, facing the threat
of Satan who approaches 'this frail world' : 'Thither full
fraught with mischievous revenge, I Accurst, and in a
cursed hour he hies'. And in the midst of our confusion we
know at least that the cursed hour is now.
It is from this experience that we move toward our
encounter with Milton's God; and the sense of imminent
and inevitable danger we bring with us from Book II is only
accentuated by the lines that precede him. While the
invocation to light does many things, it proves neither a
defence against the menacing shadow of Satan nor a clari-
fication of the issues that have been obscured in Hell. If the
soliloquy is finally the first stage in the progressive humaniza-
tion of the epic voice, it is also a revelation of his fallibility.
The tersely confident declaratives, so familiar in Books 1 and
n, give way here to the provisionality of the suppliant ('that
I may see'). The blind poet who wanders 'where the Muses
haunt' and seeks guidance is suddenly with us rather than
above us (it is the father who now bends down 'from above'),
and however comforting this admission of fellowship may
be in Book xn, it hardly answers to our present need. In
context, that need is objectified in the precarious position of
'our two first Parents' who are discovered 'in the happy
Garden plac't, I Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love'
(m. 6 5-67). From God's prospect high this is a blighted
pastoral, existing under the shadow of Satan's impending
attack. The reader views simultaneously the happy garden
and the enemy despoiler now touching down on the 'bare
outside of this World' ; he is the helpless observer who, by
chance, commands the vantage point of an intersection and
sees two vehicles about to collide.
As Satan descends, the epic voice's new status is indicated
by the ambiguous placing of the word 'Uncertain' :
 The Rhetorical Defence 73

To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet

On the bare outside of this World, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without Firmament,
Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.
(73-76)
'Uncertain' is, as Hughes notes, 'an impersonal and absolute
construction', and it could apply either to Satan, stooping
with wearied wings, or to the general state of knowledge
concerning the bare outside of this world. The second
reading, which will suggest itself because 'Uncertain' is so
far from Satan, is a reflection on the observer-narrator who
is unable to make out the scene he is supposedly describing
('which' is the question he asks). The inspired poet's vision,
like ours, is limited, although it is a higher order of limita-
tion. 'There is a vast difference', writes Wilkins, 'between
the wisest of men, and such as are grossly ignorant and sot-
tish .... And yet these things hold some proportion to one
another being finite; whereas betwixt Gods knowledg and
mans, the distance is infinite.' 1 At this point the distance
betwixt God and man is being defined dramatically, although
the drama takes place in the reader's mind rather than in the
poem's action: the threat Satan poses is now felt personally
because it is directed at Adam and Eve, the natural objects
of our affection and sympathy; the epic voice fails to provide
even the negative protection we have come to expect from
him ; an authority vacuum exists just as an authority is most
needed. Consequently, while God talks to no one in par-
ticular and is unconcerned with the effect his words may
have, the occasion of his speech is rhetorical, even though
the audience it is delivered to is technically not there.
If Empson's law- 'all the characters are on trial in any
civilized narrative'- applies at all to Milton's God, its
application is rhetorical. Rhetorical persuasion or demon-
1 Natural Re/igio11, pp. I 26-7.
74 The Milk of the Pure Word

stration, Aristotle tells us, depends first 'on the personal

character of the speaker' (Rhetoric, I 356a) and second 'on
putting the audience into a certain frame of mind'. God's
personal character is established through his language
which is conspicuously biblical and assures conviction by
virtue of its references to scriptural passages every reader
knows. Aristotle's orator is advised to rely heavily on
sententia because 'if the maxims are sound, they display the
speaker as a man of sound moral charater' (Rhetoric, I 3 9 5 b).
This is a principle of decorum which has a Christian parallel
in Augustine's advice to young preachers: 'For one who
wishes to speak wisely ... it is above all necessary to
remember the words of Scripture ... He shall give delight
with his proofs.' 1 The 'maxims' of the Bible are not merely
sound, they are true, or more properly Truth itself; they
persuade by being. Milton can rely on his readers to
recognize the propriety of the language God speaks and
therefore to acquiesce in his authority :
Milton's divine persons are divine persons indeed, and talk in the
language of God, that is in the language of Scripture. He is so very
scrupulous and exact in this particular that perhaps there is not a
single expression which may not be justified by the authority of
holyWrit.z
James Sims lists eight biblical sources for lines 8 5-86 alone. 3
God's syntax also contributes to the 'proof' or demon-
stration of his character. Satan's fallacies are wrapped in
serpentine trains of false beginnings, faulty pronoun
references, missing verbs and verbal schemes which
sacrifice sense to sound ('Surer to prosper than prosperity f
Could have assur'd us'); it is a loose style, irresponsibly
1 On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson (New York, 1958), p. 122.

z Thomas Newton's note to III. 344 in his variorum edition of Paradiu

Lost, 1749.
l The Bible in Milton's Epics (Florida, 1962), p. 262.
 The Rhetorical Defence 75

digressive, moving away steadily from logical coherence

(despite the appearance of logic) and calling attention finally
to the virtuosity of the speaker. In contrast, God practises a
Stoic austerity; his syntax is close and sinewy, adhering to
the ideal of brevity (brevitas) by 'employing only what is
strictly necessary for making the matter clear' ; 1 the intru-
sion of personality is minimal, the figures of speech are
unobtrusive and to the point, and one has little sense of a
style apart from the thought. The speech is an example of
the lucidly anonymous style Cicero recommends to anyone
seeking to appear authoritative : 'The exordium ... should
contain everything which contributes to dignity ... It
should contain very little brilliance, vivacity, or finish of
style, because these give rise to a suspicion of preparation
and excessive ingenuity. As a result ... the speech loses
conviction and the speaker, authority.' 2
Evidence of an awareness of Milton's rhetorical skill 1s
provided by Addison's instructions to the reader:
The beauties ... which we are to look for in these speeches, are
not of a poetical nature. . . . The passions which they are
design'd to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. The par-
ticular beauty of the speeches in the third book consists in that
shortness and perspicuity of stile. . . . He has presented all the
abstruse doctrins ... with great energy of expression, and in a
stronger and clearer light than I have met with in any other
writer ... the concise and clear manner, in which he has treated
them is very much to be admir'd. (Spectator, No. 315)

What Addison admires is the art that conceals art, the

rhetoric that denies itself recognition. The effort required
to secure this effect may have been great, but the impression
1 George Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton, 1963),
P· 294·
2 De lnventione, De optimo genere oratorum Topica, trans. H. M. Hubbell

(Cambridge, Mass.), pp. 51, 53·

76 The Milk of the Pure Word

given is one of effortlessness. As we read, God is innocent of

Milton's skill; his eloquence is not eloquence at all, but the
natural persuasiveness that is inseparable from wisdom. The
distinction between the truth and the form the truth takes
in speech disappears, as it does in Stoic theory ; 'The Stoic
concept made unnecessary any distinction between a ...
philosopher ... and a good orator ... for to the Stoics the
thought of the speech was the speech and would produce its
own natural and good expression. Rem tene, verba sequentur,
"hold to the subject, the words will follow" was Cato's
expression of it'. I (One can see here the similarity to Ramist
method which also holds to the subject or object.) Augustine
declares, 'in those places where ... eloquence is recognized
by the learned such things are said that the words with which
they are said seem not to have been sought by the speaker
but to have been joined to the things spoken about as if
spontaneously, like wisdom coming from her house (that is,
from the breast of the wise man) followed by eloquence as if
she were an inseparable servantwhowas not called.' 2 The Bible
is not composed of tropes and figures which are merely the
names rhetoricians give to the effects of its true eloquence.
As critics, engaged in an analytic act, we can see how God's
eloquence has been 'sought' by Milton, but as readers who
are involved in an experience that has its own frame of
reference, we accept it, unthinkingly, as an adjunct of the
wisdom we have sought so long.
I Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion, 292-3.
2 On Christian Doctrine, p. I 24. Cf. the characterization of Christ by Satan
in Paradise Regained, 'Thy actions to thy words accord, thy words I To thy
large heart give utterance due, thy heart I Contains of good, wise, just, the
perfect shape' (m. 8-ro). In Comus the Lady imagines that eloquence will
come to her because of or along with the cause she speaks for, 'the uncontrolled
worth I Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits I To such a flame of
sacred vehemence, I That dumb things would be mov'd to sympathize'
(793-5).
 The Rhetorical Defence 77

For of course the true force of God's speech as a rhetorical

performance stems from its success in satisfying the needs of
a specific audience, in 'putting the audience into a certain
frame of mind'. In this case the orator's task is not so much
to arouse passions as to assuage them by providing reassur-
ance and clarification to counteract the fear and confusion
his auditors feel when they come to him. The emotion
Milton is reaching for here is relief, the physical sense of
having exchanged the chaotic liveliness of Hell for the calm
stasis of Heaven. Broadbent is finally unsympathetic to this
part of the poem because he believes that divinity should be
'enclosed in an experiential context more immediate than
Milton's'; yet his own words reveal, inadvertently, how
immediate Milton's context is: 'There is a stolid honesty
about this [Puritan pulpit rhetoric] that carries over into
the Father's sermon- at least we know, what we don't
usually from an Anglican pulpit, precisely what he is
saying.' 1 The point is, we need to know what he is saying,
and to know it precisely, that is, unambiguously. A dis-
tinction that Broadbent regards as theoretical and abstract
is the basis, in the poem, of a response the reader gives to a
dramatic moment. Pope is correct when he calls God a
'School-Divine'; the pedagogical stance (God does not
assume it consciously) is just right, following as it does the
multiple failures of pseudo-authorities in the earlier books ;
for a moment we are caught up in and share the confidence
and detachment of the speaker, and returned to the un-
ambiguous exactness of the opening line, 'Of Man's First
Disobedience .. .' :
seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary, whom no bounds
Prescrib'd, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains

1 Somt Gravtr Subject. A11 Euay 011 Paradise Lost, pp. J4.6-7.
78 The Milk of the Pure Word

Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss

Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head.
(m. 8o-86)
The visual image complements the tone: the Father points,
assuredly, to a single spot in the vast panorama before him
and proceeds to consider calmly events that have agitated
and bewildered us ('thou' is the Son's pronoun, but we
appropriate it). He sees what we see, but his reaction differs
from ours and the difference is corrective. The rage that
transports our adversary is, from the prospect high, an object
of interest or amusement rather than fear. One can almost
hear in the casualness of 'seest thou' the derisiveness of
'Nearly it now concerns us to be sure f Of our Omnipotence'
(v. 72 I -2 ). Satan as threat has no reality in this place.
When God says 'so bent he seems', Bentley demurs: 'Satan
was already broke out of Hell, and more than seem' d to be
bent on Revenge. 'Tis likely the Poet gave it, Wide inter-
rupt COULD hold: so bent he IS' (Paradise Lost, 1732,
p. 8o). This emendation is unsatisfactory in two respects :
(I) in God's eternal present there is no distinction of tenses,
and (2) the qualifying 'seems' is proof of God's prescience.
He sees beyond (or around) the ominous appearance of
Satan descending on Adam and Eve 'In blissful solitude';
while Satan is confident in the evidence of things seen and
the reader fears them, with 'seems' God dismisses them,
almost contemptuously, and insists that all be interpreted, in
this case quite literally, sub specie aeternitatis. This seems is
the seems of certainty; it reflects the speaker's perfect
confidence in the justness of his perception, in contrast to
the 'seem'd' of line 74, the sign, as we have seen, of the
uncertainty (Uncertain, which, in Ocean or in Air) of the
narrator and the reader. Being reminded of our limitations is
 The Rhetorical Defence 79

a familiar experience in Books r and II ; here it is for the first

time comforting since the imposition of the heavenly per-
spective brings with it the promise of Satan's eventual
defeat.
The task of reassuring the reader is completed with the
words 'shall redound'. The three syllables receive almost
equal stress ; the force of the phrase, however, resides in
'shall' which is at once a prediction and a command, indica-
ting a union of absolute knowledge and absolute control. I
The circularity implicit in 'redound' provides a visual image
of that control : Satan hurls himself against the superstructure
of a God-centred universe only to see his own efforts turned
against him. The movement is mirrored in the verse ;
straining against limits, Satan breaks through barrier after
barrier- bars, chains, Abyss- only to reach the verb
'hold' ; technically negative ('nor ... can hold'), it restrains
him nevertheless (the force of 'nor' is not felt) so that with
'seems' and 'redound' he snaps back like a boomerang,
although the illusion of freedom continues. We have seen
this before; in Book r, Satan's summoning of the fallen
angels is compared to Moses' calling up of the locusts, and
for a moment the comparison seems inapposite, since Moses
sends the locusts against Pharaoh who is anti-Christ and a
type of Satan ; but of course Satan does just that - raises
the devils against himself (to 'redound Upon his own
rebellious head') and against his will. In his final appearance
on our stage, the archfiend is made to assume the shape he
once adopted -so he thought- on his own initiative.
Satan's powerlessness is revealed many times in Paradise
Lost, but never so nakedly as here in Book m when God

I Not that God causes Satan's rebellion and the woes attendant on it; but

he could if he wished prevent it or remit the punishment; all lies within

his power. In the case of angels and men, however, he delegates responsibility
to lesser agents.
So The Milk of the Pure Word

declares 'that shall redound'. From this point, Satan ceases

to be a problem for the reader.
The emphasis in the preceding paragraphs on the
rhetorical propriety of God's first utterance is in no way
meant to invalidate the earlier analysis of the lines as a
demonstration of formalist perfection. The speech can be
said to move on two fronts : as a self-contained organism,
it unfolds according to its own inner logic ; as a performance,
it inspires confidence and offers consolation. The God who
tenders reassurance and guidance to a reader in need of both
is still the logician whose existence supports the seventeenth-
century ideal; it is Milton's triumph to make the two
figures one in terms of their effect, while maintaining the
integrity of each. God is not a rhetorician, but he has a
rhetorician's success. The formal proof of deity, rigorously
non-rhetorical, becomes part of the rhetorical proof (in
Stoic-Ramus theory the oratorical and philosophical ideals
tend to merge). We flee our compromising involvement
with the affective in Books I and u and respond affectively to
its antithesis in Book m. Milton turns the intellectual-
linguistic bias of his age into a dramatic reality and gives his
readers an intuition of ultimate authority and absolute
reliability. Theology's demands have become poetry's.

(iii) INGRATE

The defence, however, cannot rest without admitting that

the difficulties Milton's God poses for most readers remain.
Northrop Frye's lifelong experience with the poem is a case
in point:
When as a student I first read the speech in Book Three of
Paradise Lost in which 'God the Father turns a school divine',
I thought it was grotesquely bad. I have been teaching and
 Ingrate 81

studying Paradise Lost for many years, and my visceral reaction

to that speech is still exactly the same. But I see much more
clearly than I did at first why Milton wanted such a speech at
such a point.
(The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern
Languages and Literatures, ed. James Thorpe, p. 64)

Frye's 'visceral reaction' is what all readers (who are not

saints) feel to some extent- dismay, disappointment, and
a reluctant hostility. The argument of the preceding pages
holds, I think, through the phrase 'that shall redound' ; but
the confidence we have in the voice that intones this pre-
diction soon becomes the source of new anxieties and
discomforts. Milton has provided God with a dramatic
moment so rhetorically effective that it secures for him a
believing audience. This is fine when God is telling us what
we want to hear - Satan will be defeated and the threat he
represents in the poem dispelled - but our complacence
does not survive the inexorability of 'and shall pervert, I
For Man will heark'n to his glozing lies, I And easily
transgress the sole Command, I Sole pledge of his obedience'
(92-95). The force of 'shall redound' is transferred to 'shall
pervert' - the parallels extend beyond the repeated stress
on 'shall' to the number of syllables and the position in the
line- and having accepted the first 'shall', and with it the
authority of the speaker, we automatically accept the second
(which is vaguely threatening rather than reassuring), and
with it the accusation that follows. Where God had a willing
audience at line 8 5, he holds us captive from line 92 on.
(To dethrone him now would be only to add one more false
deity to the roll call of Book I and one more error of judgment
to a list already too long.)
The problem for the reader is compounded by the pace of
the presentation. The closeness of God's methodical logic
works against any effort to follow it. God dwells on a point
82 The Milk of the Pure Word

only for the length of time it takes to state it concisely

(truly), and that time is insufficient for a merely human mind
to assimilate the various parts of a complex argument
(Boethius spends five books saying something God says in
six lines). Given no opportunity to make the psychological
and mental adjustments the speech finally requires, the
reader is always off balance as he struggles to place state-
ments that refuse to stand still for him ; his reactions lag
behind his eye.
Contributing to his discomfort is the experience of over-
hearing a legal brief in which he is the defendant and
pronounced guilty. We have seen how God's speech exists
simultaneously on two levels within a single space : it is an
exhaustive and objective description of what is; it is an
oration delivered before auditors 'in a certain frame of
mind'. For a few moments these two levels are perceived
as one by the observer and draw from him an integrated
response ; but this harmony is disturbed when the diagram-
ming of reality is discovered to involve the stating of facts
that cannot be heard with equanimity. In other words, at
some point, the formal and rhetorical proofs of deity cease
to be complementary; the rhetorical proof fails as God does
nothing to assure the good will of the jury ; instead the tradi-
tional oratorical situation is reversed since the speaker judges
the audience. To be sure, the oratorical situation does not
actually exist for the expositor, who is unaware of his fallen
auditors. Milton employs a familiar stage technique : a
soliloquy is spoken within earshot of a character for whom it
was not meant, and the result is a series of complications that
are more or less created by this accident of coincidence. In
this case the complication is the creation in the reader's mind
of attitudes and modes of thought that have nothing to do
with the intentions (if the word can be used) of the speaker,
but which affect him as an object of worship and make the
 Ingrate 83

experience of the poem even more disquieting and arduous

than it has been heretofore.
At this point modern critics divide into two camps, one
holding 'that God escapes the requirements of decorum
personae by not being a person', the other insisting, with
Waldock, that 'the human impression is what is important'. 1
These views can be reconciled if the unimpeachability of
God's word is distinguished from the manner in which the
reader receives it. The 'human impression' if it is there (and
for most of us it will be) is what the reader must answer for;
it is after all his impression. 'The very essence of Truth',
Milton writes in Of Reformation, 'is plainnesse, and bright-
nes, the darknes and crookednesse is our own.' 2 In the poem,
God's speech represents the essence of Truth, and the
reader's response is a judgment on him (a reflection of his
'crookednesse'), not on the dispassionate voice of the Logos.
What seems 'disagreeable' (the word is Peter'sY or dis-
tressing is the result of the fallen reader's inability to come
to terms with what he knows to be true. According to John
Preston, one of the signs 'whereby you may examine your-
self whether you bee earthly minded or no', is the 'delight
you have of the hearing of the pure Word'. The earthly
minded man will be pleased with 'entising words, such
wordes doe rather feed the humour [flatter the self] than
work upon the conscience of a man'; but 'if the heart be
regenerate, then it will find sweetnesse in nothing but in
heavenly things', and in the 'sincere milke of the word' even
if the word 'crosseth his corruptions'. 4 The quality of the
auditor's response measures his humility; if he can hear the

1 Kranidas, The Fierce Equation (The Hague, 1965), p. 131; Paradise

Lost And Its Critics, p. 102.

2 Complete Prose Works, i. s66. 3 Peter, Critique, P· I I.
4 Sins Overthrow or A Godly and Learned Treatise of Mortification (London,
x633198,roo, 103.
84 The Milk of the Pure Word

judgment of the word - 'They are corrupt, they have done

abominable works, there is none that deeth good' (Psalm 14)
-and answer with the psalmist 'cleanse me from my sin,
For I acknowledge my transgressions' (Psalm 5 I), his
motions are godly ; but if he protests at the accusation
('ingrate!') and turns aside to the flattery of worldly counsel
or to the evasions of his own reason, he betrays his iniquity
and is deficient in contrition.
The idea that books (sacred or profane) read the reader
is not a novel one. Replying to the charge that poets are
'corruptors of morals', Boccaccio replies, 'Rather, if the
reader is prompted by a healthy mind, not a diseased one,
they will prove actual stimulators to virtue, either subtle or
poignant, as occasion requires.' 1 And Milton is even more
explicit in Areopagitica, when he declares
To the pure all things are pure, not only meats and drinks, but all
kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill; the knowledge
cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and con- ·
science be not defil'd. For books are as meats and viands are;
some of good, some of evill substance; and yet God in that un-
apocryphall vision, said without exception, Rise Peter, kill and
eat, leaving the choice to each mans discretion. Wholesome
meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwhole-
some; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to
occasions of evill. Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment
in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad
books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many
respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. 2
Books draw out what is in a man, and Scripture, the best
of books, searches out a man's corruption and reveals it
to him. In hurling the naked word at the reader, Milton is
1 Boccaccio On Poetry, trans. and ed. C. G. Osgood (New York, 1965),

p. 74· The passage is from the fourteenth book of the Genea/ogia Deorum
Gentilium.
2 Complete Prose Works, ii. 512-13·
 Ingrate 85

performing the office of a mm1ster, who should, Preston

insists, 'be a Physician', and 'apply the pure Word of God
unto the Consciences of men, and so to purge out the sick-
nesse of the soule before it grow incurable' (pp. 102-J).
Critics of Milton's God complain of his harshness and wish
that the poet had been able 'to suggest a loving God' or
at least a God less 'obstinately there', rather than this
'invitation ... to stare God full in the face' ;• but Milton
would be derelict in his duty if he were inconsiderately kind
and protected his reader from the full force of the Truth.
Salvation, not comfort, is the issue :
the part of a wise Physician is not to satisfie the humour of his
Patient, for so he may encrease the disease, but to labour to
cure him by ministring such Physicke unto him, as he knowes
by experience the necessitie of the disease requireth: even so, to
humour men in Preaching, is not the way to cure them, or to
change the evill disposition of their nature, but rather a meanes
to encrease their disease.
(pp. 102-3)

The poet has his reader-pupil-patient's best interests at

heart when he 'takes the risks' (the phrase is Waldeck's and
quite appropriate) of the 'direct, unshaded vision', 2 and
provides an occasion for self-knowledge :
Preach the pure Word, and nothing but the pure Word; and let
men examine themselves whether they bee heavenly minded or
no, by their tasting and relishing of theWord when it is Preached
purely.
(p. 103)
The division some see in the logical and rhetorical
aspects of God's public personality is a reflection of the
division in the fallen reader, between that part of him which
recognizes the truth and that part of him which r1ses,
1 Waldock, op. cit., p. roo. 2 Ibid.
G F.s.s.
86 The Milk of the Pure Word
unbidden, against it, and resists its efforts to make him
free. To God belongs the essence of the speech, the com-
pleteness, the logical perfection, the perfect accuracy of its
perceptions ; all else is the reader's, the harshness, the sense
of irritation, the querulousness. The monologue of the
divine expositor 'pointing out the connections among parts'
is dispassionate, and if we find it unsatisfactory the fault
(quite literally) is ours. 'If our understanding have a film of
ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false
glisterings ['entising words'] what is that to Truth.' 1 The
emotional content of a word like 'ingrate' (if it is felt) is
provided by the reader who receives it defensively, his pride
resisting the just accusation, and confers on the speaker a
tone compatible with his own reaction ; the recalcitrance of
the sinner, not the vindictiveness of his God, is the source
of the difficulty. The word leads a double life; it leaps from
the page to evoke a 'visceral' response and it falls into place
as a perfect (accurate) definition of an object (you) in space;
only one life, however, is real, the other is an illusion
projected by the reaction of a guilty reader. Equally illusory
is God's vaunted defensiveness. He does not argue, he
asserts, disposing a series of self-evident axioms in an
objective order, 'not talking to anyone in particular but
meditating on objects'. (Of course, God technically addresses
the Son, but he is not in any sense, we feel, initiating a
discussion, although he is, as we discover, creating a situation
within which the poem's first truly heroic act will be per-
formed.) The most provocative of God's propositions, 'they
themselves decreed f Thir own revolt, not I', is merely a
stage in the impersonal unfolding of the discourse, and it
reflects no attitude on the speaker's part towards man or
towards himself. A logical proof in the Ramist (non-syl-
logistic) manner proceeds by contraries. The positive
I Complete Prose Works, i. s66.
 Ingrate 87

('Whose but his own?') is proved by eliminating alternative

possibilities ; 'indeed in the establishment of any true
axiom', Bacon insists, 'the negative instance is the more
forcible.' 1 The tendency to argue with God, like the sense
of injury we feel at hearing his words, is self-revealing, a
manifestation of the rebellion of the carnal reason in defiance
of heavenly disposition ; the flesh has not yet been mortified.
This distinction- between the objective reality of the
speech and the 'human impression', for which the fallen
perspective, to the degree we are bound to it, is responsible
- is not external to the reading experience. I make it as a
reader in the confidence that Milton would have expected
his contemporary reader, trained in analysis, committed to
introspection, acutely aware of logical and rhetorical cate-
gories, to make it, consciously, while seeing in it evidence of
his own intransigence.
The possibility of recovering an integrated response to
God, of healing the split between the erected wit and the
infected will, is represented by the poet, who joins in the
heavenly songs of praise, and by the angelic audience :
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All Heav'n, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd.
(135-7)
Waldock wonders ironically, 'And it is in response to such
words as these [i.e., as God'sJ that the blessed spirits ...
feel new joy suffusing them' (Paradise Lost and Its Critics,
p. IOJ). The angels' joy, signifying as it does a recognition
of God's goodness and glory, is a rebuke to those of us who
cannot share it whole-heartedly. If the poem is successful,
the reader will finally be able to hear the Word joyfully, and
join, with Milton, in the angelic hallelujahs.
1 NOfJum Organum, 1. xlvi, in The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill,

ed. E. A. Burtt (New York, I 939), p. 36.

88 The Milk of the Pure Word

(iv) CARNAL AND SPIRITUAL RESPONSES

The relationship between God and the reader is the obverse

of the relationship between the reader and Satan, and
together they establish the dominant patterns of the poem :
(I) A morality of stylistics. The poem embodies a Platonic
aesthetic or anti-aesthetic in which the still clarity and white
light of divine reality, represented (figured forth) in the
atonal formality of God's abstract discourse, is preferred to
the colour and chaotic liveliness of earthly motions, rep-
resented in Satan's 'grand style'. 1 This is the aesthetic
Milton ascribes to elsewhere when he opposes the trappings
of gold and robes and surplices (mere 'corporeal resem-
blances') to an 'inward holiness and beauty', and the simple
directness of gospel truth to 'artful terms', the reflection of
the artist's pride, 'swelling epithets thick laid f As varnish
on a harlot's cheek.' 2 Reflected in this stylistic antithesis
(which may be posed physically as well as verbally) are the
contrasting appeals of the beauty of the created world and
the heavenly (true) beauty of which all bodily forms are an
expresswn.
(2) Response as choice. The reader's response to the two
styles, and thus to what each of them represents, determines
his spiritual status, measuring the extent to which in his
soul the pride of life has been supplanted by love of Heaven.
t This is essentially Herbert's aesthetic. See 'The Forerunners' where the
embellishments of language (the visible expression of the brain's 'sparkling
notions') are opposed to the naked simplicity of 'thou art still my God': 'Let a
bleak palenesse chalk the doore, J So all within be livelier than before.' See
also Marvell's 'The Garden', where the red and white of carnal love are
rejected for the cool rationality of green, and the mind transcends the physical
world ('all that's made') to withdraw into a world of abstract forms.
z Reason of Church Government, Complete Prose Works, i. 828; Paradise
Regained, IV. 343-4·
 Carnal and Spiritual Responses 89

A delight in the fleshly (rhetorical) style indicates a preference

for that which flatters the carnal self; in worshipping
corporeal resemblances (of which rhetorical flourishes are
the verbal extension) man worships the projected image of
his own corrupted (darkened) understanding. Those who
clothe the naked gospel do so to make it 'decent' in their own
eyes (Reason of Church Government) ; unable or unwilling to
'make themselves heavenly and Spiritual!' they labour in-
stead to 'make God earthly and fleshly' (Of Reformation).
Spiritual apprehension, on the other hand, which is achieved
only when the self acknowledges its own powerlessness and
unworthiness, will incline to spiritual things. I Only the
pure mind, Richardson remarks, is able to be touched with
the beauties of Heaven :
We have seen Hell; Now Heaven opens to our View; from
Darkness Visible we are come to Inconceivable Light; from the
Evil One, to the Supream Good, and the Divine Mediator; from
Angels Ruin'd and Accurs'd to Those who hold their First
State of Innocence and Happiness; the Pictures Here are of a
very Different Nature from the former: Sensible things are more
Describable than Intellectual; Every One can Conceive in some
Measure the Torment of Raging Fire; None but Pure Minds,
and Minds Capable Of, and Accustom'd To Contemplation
Can be Touch'd Strongly with the Things of Heaven, a
Christian Heaven; but He that Can may Find and possess Some
Ideas of what he hopes for, where there is a Fullness of Joy and
Pleasure for Evermore.
(Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's
Paradise Lost, p. 99, note to III. 5 I)
I Cf. Plato, Laws, vu. 8o2c-d (trans. R. G. Bury, London, 1926): 'For if a

man has been reared from childhood up to the age of steadiness and sense in
the use of music that is sober and regulated, then he detests the opposite kind
whenever he hears it, and calls it "vulgar"; whereas if he had been reared in
the common honeyed kind of music, he declares the opposite of this to be
cold and unpleasing.' Thus the 'uneducated' reader finds God's music 'cold
and unpleasing', but responds to the 'honeyed kind' of Satan.
90 The Milk of the Pure Word

(3) The unavoidability of choice. Milton constructs his

narrative in such a way as to make the avoidance of response,
and therefore of choice and (possibly) self-betrayal, impos-
sible. Waldock is quite right when he grumbles, 'With the
best will in the world, we cannot avoid Milton's God or
refuse to react to him' (p. 100). Neither, in the context of the
Puritan habit of referring all experiences to the inner life,
can one avoid acquiring the kind of self-knowledge regarded
as particularly valuable. Of course this technique - learning
by doing in a controlled situation -has already been dis-
cussed in connection with the spear-spot similes, and we see
it employed here (and subsequently) on a larger scale.
(4) The invitation to ascend. Once the reader becomes
aware of his situation with respect to the contraries of
Heaven and Hell, and has located himself somewhere
between the two, he is invited to ascend on the stylistic
scale by 'purging his intellectual ray' to the point where his
understanding is once more 'fit and proportionable to Truth
the object and end of it', and his affections follow what his
reason (the eye of the mind) approves. I Whether or not he
makes the ascent depends on the strength of his will, which
in turn depends on his appetite for true knowledge and
illumination. As in dialectic, 'the final step may be the
embracement of truth, but the decision rests with the
I The arc of the narrative describes a Platonic ascent, which culminates

(for the reader who is able to move with it) in the simultaneous apprehension
of the absolute form of the Good and the Beautiful, 'without shape or colour,
intangible, visible only to reason, the soul's pilot' (Phaedrus, 247). In Christian
terms, the movement imitates the return of the soul to God and pre-figures
Christ's victory over death: 'The reader realizes that through the manipulation
of scene, from the dark lake to the blinding throne, he has been led to mimetic
enactment of precisely the promised resurrection into life which is the argu-
ment of the epic, an argument ... never more explicit than just here at the
close of the ascending action when it reaches the voice of God unfolding the
plan of the felix culpa. We, not Adam, have climbed the scala paradisa'
(Jackson Cope, op. cit., p. ro8).
 Carnal and Spiritual Responses 91

individual man', who may decline to ascend because the apex

coincides with the achieving of total humility, 'the full, and
absolute abnegation of all his wit, reason, will, desires,
strength, wisdome, righteousness, and all humane glory
and excellencies whatsoever, ... that self-hood might be
totally annihilated, that he might live, yet not he, but that Christ
might live in him' (Gal. ii. 20). 1 The success of the reader's
education will be in direct proportion to his own efforts, but
at the least he will be aware, through his responses, of his
distance from the ideal. His models in the poem are Eve,
who, enamoured at first of her own image, turns in time
from that 'fair outside' to the superior fairness of Adam's
wisdom (1v. 491) ; and the narrator, who turns gladly from
the 'sight of vernal bloom' to the inner vision of 'things
invisible to mortal sight' (m. 40-5 5). If he is successful as a
guide, the narrator confers on us the gift of his blindness (to
earthly things) and persuades us to value it above the sight
he has lost and we acknowledge as unreliable.
At base, the 'responsive choice' is always between the
flattering and superficially dazzling constructs of the carnal
mind and the absolute simplicity (unity) of the divine
reality (the milk of the pure Word), and it is posed exactly
in those terms when we are asked to respond in Book IX
to the Fall itself. But our consideration of that crisis, which
is the reader's as well as Adam's and Eve's, must wait upon
the exploration of other matters.
1 Cushman, Therapeia, p. 235; John Webster, The Examination of

Academies (1654), p. r6.

3 Man's Polluting Sin
My sin is ever before me. PSALM li

(i) M 0 RE CARNAL RESPONSES

When Bishop Joseph Hall sought a visual symbol for the

waywardness of sinful man, he found it in the image of a
woman with a 'loose lock erring wantonly over her shoul-
ders'. 1 It was an apt choice: loose, erring, wantonly, do
double duty as indicators of spatial position and moral status.
The image is particularly effective because the abstraction
it seeks to figure forth is contained in the physical rep-
resentation ; the response of the auditor is made in terms of
the physical : he sees or imagines a lock of hair moving
independently of an ordered configuration to which it
nominally belongs ; the lock 'strays' from the 'path' assigned
to it ; it is wayward. No translation is necessary ; one need
not allegorize the icon to extract from it the abstraction ;
comprehension is instantaneous, assured by the innumerable
associations of female hair with seduction, and by a habit of
mind which sees moral meaning in direction. Hall is hardly
original. Indeed the success of the presentation depends on
the familiarity of the tradition it calls upon. For students of
Paradise Lost, however, Hall's word-grouping is significant
because it finds an almost exact analogue in the description
of Eve. First impressions are unreliable, but their impact is
likely to be lasting. Why then does Milton introduce Eve in
a garment woven of adjectives traditionally associated with
the scarlet woman of so many sermons and moral harangues?
I Quoted by Douglas Bush in English Literature in the Earlier 81!'lJenteenth

Century (Oxford, 1945), p. I r6.

 More Carnal Responses 93

Shee as a veil down to the slender waist

Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd
As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli'd
Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.
(IV. 304-1 I)

Part of the answer has been given by Arnold Stein, Christo-

pher Ricks and Anne Ferry, who explain that Milton uses
words like 'loose' and 'wanton' to indicate linguistically the
movement from innocence to experience and sin :

Before the Fall, the word error argues, from its original meaning,
for the order in irregularity, for the rightness in wandering-
before the concept of error is introduced into man's world and
comes to signify wrong wandering. 1
Error here is not exactly a pun, since it means only 'wandering'
-but the 'only' is a different thing from an absolutely simple
use of the word, since the evil meaning is consciously and
ominously excluded. Rather than the meaning being simply
'wandering', it is 'wandering (not error)'. Certainly the word is
a reminder of the Fall, in that it takes us back to a time when
there were no infected words because there were no infected
actions. 2

This is brilliant crttlctsm, although a sceptic might ask

whether Stein and Ricks are not confusing their own subtlety
with Milton's and creating a response no reader could be
expected to deliver. Indeed Ricks himself approaches this
section of his book with a certain tentativeness: 'is Milton
reaching back to an earlier purity - which we are to
1 Stein, Answerable Style, pp. 66-67.
2 Ricks, Milton's Grand Style (Oxford, I964), p. IIO. See also Anne
Ferry's Milton's Epic P'oice, pp. I I 2-1 5·
94 Man's Polluting Sin

contrast with what has happened to the word, and the world,
since? Or is he simply being forgetful? The answer is
likely to depend on one's general estimate of Milton.'•
The answer, I believe, can be more firmly grounded in
contemporary attitudes towards language as they are related
to the traditional nostalgia for the linguistic purity of
Paradise. An examination of the verbal texture of the poem
against the background of the concerted effort during the
century to evolve a truly scientific system of denotation
reveals a pattern in the appearance of words like 'error' and
shows them to be an important part of the interior drama
Milton creates in the reader's mind.

From the beginning of the poem, the reader is aware that

certain moral distinctions are being conveyed to him by an
unconventional kind of word play. A number of words are
placed so firmly and immediately in specific contexts that
it becomes impossible to use them in any other way without
calling attention to a deviation from the established meaning.
Every reader knows them- woe, man, fruit, disobedience,
loss, high, low, dark, light, and most obviously, fall. Before
Satan speaks, the epic voice has already set up a system of
relationships between physical-spatial concepts and moral
ones. Our first parents are favoured of heaven highly and
from this height, of favour or grace, they fall off (30). Satan,
aspiring, wishes to set himself above the most High, that is
above the greatest Good, and his reward is to be 'Hurled
headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky f With hideous ruin
and combustion down.' The directional preposition 'down'
is withheld to the last so that the reader will associate exile
from Heaven and all its stands for with the movement
downward. When the epic voice surveys the scene in Hell, he
cries '0 how unlike the place from whence they fell' (7 5)
1 Op. cit., 1 I I.
 More Carnal Responses 95

and we know that place means status or spiritual position

('the angels which kept not their first estate') and that their
fall was a fact before they were moved one inch from the
physical boundaries of Heaven. 1
It is surprising and finally amusing, then, to hear Satan
and Beelzebub betray themselves by employing this spatia-
moral vocabulary with no sense of what it means in a God-
centred universe. Within ten lines of his first words ('But 0
how fall'n') Satan is gauging God's power by the distance
between Hell and Heaven : 'into what Pit thou seest I
From what highth fall'n, so much the stronger prov'd'; but
as always the apostate can think only in physical terms.
God's strength is measured by what he has done to his
enemies, by the length of his cast (he becomes a kind of
heavenly discus thrower) and in the 'great consult' it is
assumed that he could do no more. What we would think
of as metaphorical (the might of his arm) is for them
literal and limiting, a belief in the evidence of things seen,
with a vengeance. And when Satan complains 'from what
highth fall'n' he predicates a hierarchy that is political, and
subject to the vicissitudes of war. He fears to sink lower (an
impossibility, as we know), that is to a position in command
of less territory or administrative authority: 'To bow and
sue for grace ... I that were low indeed, I That were an
ignominy and shame beneath I This downfall' (r. I I I, I I4-I6).
The breaking of union involves the danger of speaking
nonsense, especially if the heavenly vocabulary or one
reflecting heavenly values is retained. Once the fallen angels
deny the centrality of God, they are committed to a moral
and linguistic anarchy. All goals and objectives are equally
arbitrary, and there is no justification at all for preferring one
1 See the discussion of basic image patterns in Thomas Greene's Tlzt

Ductnt From Htaf!tn: A Study In Epic Continuity (New Haven, 1963),

PP· 388-95·
96 Man's Polluting Sin

position to another ; any situation can be designated the best

or the worst, words which now lose their meanings as do
'fall', 'low', and 'beneath' in their spiritual significations. 1
Beelzebub, who is always more obvious than Satan is, sets
the seal to the literal demoralization of direction and dis-
tance when he offers a laughably empiricist explanation of
their present discomfort:
we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd;
No wonder,fall'n such a pernicious highth.
(281-2)
Other words along with the concepts attached to them
suffer similar diminutions. Satan describes his new habita-
tion as 'void of light' but the following line and one half-
'Save what the glimmering of these livid flames I Casts pale
and dreadful' (182-3)- suggest that the problem, as he
sees it, could be solved by a virtuoso electrician. Most
readers are shocked and disgusted when Mammon quite
unconsciously reveals the extent of his spiritual blindness :
As he our darkness, cannot we his Light
Imitate when we please? This Desert soil
Wants not her hidden lustre, Gems and Gold; ...
. . . and what can Heav'n show more?
(u. 269-71, 273)
But Mammon's question is only the logical end of Satan's
declaration of independence - 'The mind is its own place'
-and his plan for interior lighting, soon to be implemented
by Mulciber ('many a row I Of Starry Lamps and blazing
Cressets fed I With Naphtha and Asphaltus yielded light I
As from a sky'), has been anticipated by Satan's earlier
complaint. One wonders what Satan could possibly mean or
I Cf. Anne Ferry, Milton's Epic J7oice, p. 1 3 8: 'Physical reality is totally
sundered from moral meanings, things can only arbitrarily be made to stand
for values.'
 More Carnal Responses 97

think he means by 'our own loss how repair' ( 1 8 8) or 'Th'

associates and co-partners of our loss' (26 5) or 'what more
lost in Hell' (270). Milton urges us in another place to
'repair the ruins of our first parents' but the repairing must
be preceded by some awareness of what the loss or ruin is,
and Satan clearly has no such awareness. In the end of
course Satan can decide that his loss (whatever he takes it to
be) has been repaired at any moment he likes; and the awful
freedom of complete relativity is captured in the anti-
thetical alternatives of this couplet:
What reinforcement we may gain from Hope,
If not what resolution from despair.
(190-1)
It really doesn't matter, hope or despair (despero, without
hope), since the words signify nothing in the Satanic per-
spective.
The fallen angels are not altogether unaware of their
linguistic problem. Some words and phrases are too
obviously out of place if the pretence of a rational society is
to be kept up. God, for example is likely to be a difficult
word to utter. Quite soon the devils resort to circumlocutions
and diabolic euphemisms, and begin to fashion a new
language, one more consistent with the version of history
they now proceed to write. When Beelzebub salutes Satan
as the Prince who 'endanger'd Heav'n's perpetual King; I
And put to proof his high Supremacy, I Whether upheld by
strength, or Chance or Fate,' Newton is moved to comment:
The reader should remark here the propriety of the word
perpetual. Beelzebub doth not say eternal king, for then he could
not have boasted of indangering his kingdom; but he endeavours
to detract as much as he can from God's everlasting dominion,
and calls him only perpetual king, king from time immemorial or
without interruption. . . . What Beelzebub means here is
express'd more at large afterwards by Satan, ver. 637.
98 Man's Polluting Sin

-But he who reigns

Monarch in Heav'n, till then as
one secure
Sat on his throne, upheld by old
repute,
Consent or custom, &c. 1
One can take Newton's analysis further and note how
Beelzebub moves from the slight equivocation of 'perpetual'
to the comforting synecdoche of 'strength' and finally
arrives at the sophistry of 'Chance' or 'Fate'. (Satan has
provided the basis for this semantic prestidigitation by
insisting in his debate with Abdiel that he was self-begot by
'fatal course'.) There are many other places where the
reader should (and will) remark on the proprieties or
improprieties of diabolic diction. Satan thinks himself
grandly ironic when he reminds his grovelling and prostrate
legions of the titles they fought to preserve :2
Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flow'r of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place
After the toil of Battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the Vales ofHeav'n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror?
(3 1 5-23)
What Satan fails to realize is that physical posture has
nothing to do with virtue, a cast of mind now unavailable
to the rebels. The right to be styled 'Flow'r of Heav'n' is
theirs as long as they receive the title willingly from God.
1 Paradise Lost (1 749), r. r 3 r.
2 In Book v Satan taunts the gathered host: 'Thrones, Dominations,

Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, I If these magnific Titles yet remain I Not

merely titular' (772-4).
 More Carnal Responses 99

To fight for it is to lose it, and it is lost in the ambiguous

syntax of Satan's taunt. For while 'now lost' refers primarily
to the place Heaven, it also modifies 'Princes, Potentates .. .'.
From the military point of view this speech succeeds in its
objective -to 'rouse the rebels ... with the bark of a
sergeant-major' - but the reader is not limited to that point
of view and he will recognize a transparent exercise in self-
deception: God is a 'Conqueror' (323) who has won a
victory that can be reversed if the devils are careful to grant
him no further 'advantage' (327). Any admiration one might
have for Satan's rhetoric as a piece of strategy is submerged
in the terrible irony of 'Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n'
(330). What is meant to be the climactic moment in a
nicely calculated call to action becomes in effect the most
damning of self-revelations, no less damning because it is
unconscious. Of course the fallen angels do awake and do
arise, 'abasht', but Milton will not allow Satan even a small
success. His forces are only half awake ('ere well awake'):
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel.
(335-6)
The double negative is unexpected and for an instant the
sense of the line remains unresolved. Do they or don't they
perceive? Actually, they do and they don't and by forcing
the hesitation Milton leads the reader to understand how
the alternatives he hovers between are equally true. They
do perceive the fire, the pain, the gloom, but they are blind
to the moral meaning of their situation, that is to their evil
plight. This is to be their punishment, to be always half
awake and forever fallen, to rise at the command of a leader
who has chosen his own mind as his place and their prison.
Innumerable instances of this kind of word play could
be cited, and each of them contributes to the construction of a
 100 Man's Polluting Sin

morality of stylistics. 'Nor did they not perceive' is particu-

larly nice since a defect in language is only the visible
phase of a problem in perception. The reader comes to know
the limitations of the Hellish mentality by remarking how
the fallen angels misuse or under-use words of whose larger
significance he is aware. The result is a gain in confidence as
well as in knowledge : in the early stages of the poem the
distinction between the Satanic and mortal perspectives is
sometimes blurred, but when 'fall' is taken to have no
meaning beyond the obviously physical, and 'loss' is a
political concept, and light the province of the interior
decorator, the reader is entitled to congratulate himself on
his superior understanding. In Paradise Lost, however, such
gains are only temporary and when Adam and Eve are
introduced in Book IV, Milton teaches us a new humility
through a habit of mind he has himself encouraged.
What we learn from Adam and Eve is that corruption is a
relative matter once one moves away from purity. The
fallen angels betray themselves when they fail to see that
physical configurations are to be interpreted morally ; the
fallen reader betrays himself when he feels obliged to pass
moral judgment on every action or utterance. 'Wanton' and
'loose' and 'error' trouble us because we cannot help but
read into them moral implications that are not relevant
until the Fall has occurred. Milton warns us of what is to
come even before we see our first parents, although the
warning goes unrecognized and unheeded :
the Fiend
Saw undelighted all delight, all kind
Of living Creatures new to sight and strange:
Two of far nobler shape ...
(285-7)
Nobler than what or whom? Strange and new to whom?
The questions may seem unnecessary in view of the narrative
 More Carnal Responses 101

situation : the creatures are new to Satan, and among them

Adam and Eve stand out 'erect and tall'. But in fact it is the
reader in addition to Satan who is the stranger in Paradise,
although he may not realize it until the description of Eve
presents a problem he can solve only at his own expense :
Shee as a veil down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd
As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli'd
Subjection.
(304-8)
These lines move easily, lulling the reader into a com-
placency that renders him vulnerable to the shock of
'dishevell'd'. The tradition calls for an idealized Eve, and
this expectation is answered in the veil image. Eve is seen at
a distance, unapproachable, even modest. 'Golden tresses' is
a cliche of romance epic, but it is made new by the qualifier
'unadorned'. The suggestion is that gold is not the non-
pareil it is in other places (the golden age) since it could be
further adorned. Milton need not reveal what that further
adornment might be, since his effect is secured the moment
the reader is aware of the possibility. The thought is com-
plete at the end of line 305 and 'dishevell'd' is an unwelcome
complication. The adjective modifies both the verb and its
object: Eve wears disordered golden tresses, Eve wears her
golden tresses in a disorderly fashion. In either position the
word troubles. Is there, can there be, disorder in Paradise?
The involuntary question would seem to be anticipated by
the epic voice who immediately counters with a 'but'. This
is not however a 'but' of clarification, as it should be or as
we expect it to be; instead still another complicating element
is introduced in the word 'wanton'. A reading of 'not
disorderly but lascivious' is hardly reassuring. To some
extent the reader's difficulty is an accident of syntax since
H F.s.s.
102 Man's Polluting Sin

the following line absorbs 'dishevell'd' and 'wanton' into

the vine simile ('As the Vine curls her tendrils'), the tradi-
tional analogy in nature for the proper relationship between
husband and wife. Yet even this image is not presented
straightforwardly. The curling of the vine, the epic voice
tells us, implies 'Subjection'; but that word is somewhat of a
surprise at the beginning of the line, since in conjunction
with 'wanton', 'dishevell'd' and 'wav'd' the tendrils seem
to imply invitation. (All of Eve, not merely her 'ringlets',
seems to curl, even coil, in the manner, perhaps, of a
serpent.) In retrospect, 'dishevell'd' is seen to mean 'not
arranged in any symmetrical pattern' and 'wanton' to be
standard seventeenth-century usage for 'unrestrained' (there
are no restraints in Paradise). If Eve's tresses were plaited
or bejewelled, she would be open to the suspicion of vanity;
as it is, her 'sweet disorder', her 'wantonness' is innocent
precisely because it is not 'too precise in every part'.
In short, the reader will declare Eve innocent of a
sensuality whose only existence is in his mind ; but it is a
conscious effort, made necessary ultimately by his inability
to delimit the connotations of a prelapsarian vocabulary and
more immediately by Milton's deliberate evocation of the
preachers' scarlet woman. To paraphrase Ricks, 'wanton'
is read as 'unrestrained' (not lascivious), but of course
'lascivious' is suppressed at a price and Eve can never appear
without recalling this scene and the uneasiness it arouses.
The reader pays a heavier price than she does (Eve remains
ignorant of her detractors), for he is forced to admit again
and again that the evil he sees under everyone's bed is his
own. Fallen man's involvement with the vocabulary of
direction and spatial configuration is not unlike his bondage
to the old law : in both cases the moral implications are
largely negative, a network of thou-shalt-nots which have
come into being because we cannot help but. The law 'was
 More Carnal Responses 103

added because of transgressions' and man's transgressions

have taken from him the freedom of moving about without
anxiety, tainting actions (and the names of actions) which are
innocent apart from the transgressing mind. The fact of the
law is an ever-present reminder of our peccability and in the
structure of Paradise Lost a small group of words serves a
similar function. Fall, wanton, light, dark, dishevelled, loose
are like litmus paper. They test acidity (sin) by taking on the
hue of the consciousness that appropriates them. On an
absolute scale, according to the norm established in Paradise,
Satan's demoralization of language is no more reprehen-
sible and revealing than the over-moralization which makes
it necessary for the reader to exclude meanings that properly
are not there. The one advantage Milton grants us is the
advantage of self-awareness. Satan is immobilized and com-
placent in his confusion, moral and verbal ; we are pro-
foundly uncomfortable in ours, and our discomfort like the
Law acts to 'evince our depravity' and brings us to contrition.

The relationship between the reader and the vocabulary

of Paradise is one aspect of his relationship with its inhabi-
tants. Just as the fallen consciousness infects language, so
does it make the unfallen consciousness the mirror of itself.
'Of paradys', says Sir John Mandeville, 'ne can I not speken
propourly for I was not there.' Mandeville's statement is
true for every one of us, for as he himself adds, 'And yee
schull understande that no man that is mortell ne may not
approchen to that paradys.' The inaccessibility of Paradise
is more a question of psychology than geography. 'Assuredly
we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity
much rather' (Areopagitica). Fallen man's perceptual equip-
ment, physical and moral, is his prison ; any communication
from a world beyond the one he has made for himself
reaches him only after it has passed through the distortions
I 04 Man's Polluting Sin

of his darkened glass, and this applies to man's prior state

in Paradise as well as to the Heaven he has never known.
We know God or unfallen man indirectly if at all, by attribu-
ting to them qualities which are in fact the negations of our
limitations. God is all powerful, omnipresent, perfectly
knowledgeable, timeless, infinite in extension (spaceless ?) ;
Adam knows intuitively, is in complete control of all his
faculties, enjoys bliss and contentment (is not discontent)
and is innocent (knows no evil). In the poem Milton gives
the reader Paradise (innocence) by making him know how
far he is from it. The apprehension is negative, but in poetry
negatives can have a substantial reality if they are com-
municated in a way which gives them an emotive 'body'.
The technique is simple and familiar: Adam and Eve are
shown acting and speaking in situations which at first
encourage the reader to see in them qualities he recognizes
as fallen ; almost immediately, however, something in the
text reminds him of the distance separating the first man
from all others (save one) and he is asked to make a mental
adjustment- not them, but me -which becomes the felt
measurement of that distance, and thus the reality of inno-
cence, in the poem ; and he is also asked to judge himself
against that reality. (Again the sequence : mistake- cor-
rection- instruction.) As before, the reader must admit that
his perceptions do not extend to the object the poet would
present, and, in addition, he is forced to come to terms with
his tendency to remake everything in his own sinful image.
Consider, for example, the embrace we witness at IV. 492 :
with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd,
And meek surrendur, halfimbracing lean'd
On our first Father, half her swelling Breast
Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he in delight ...
 More Carnal Responses 105

Beginning with the verb 'lean'd' there is a steady progression

of physically stimulating images. At the end of the line,
'lean'd' is only an indication of posture, a direction waiting
for an object; the preposition 'on' is an extension of the
directional force which now finds an object by making contact
with 'our first Father'. What follows is almost cinematic in
technique : the camera eye moves in from the full embrace
to examine the detail of 'half her swelling Breast'; 'Naked'
at the beginning of the next line is unnecessary as a piece
of information, but as a delayed action adjective it attaches
itself to the entire scene as well as to 'Breast'. The present-
participles 'swelling' and 'flowing' continue to evoke the
sense of movement and still-to-be-completed action sug-
gested first in 'half-embracing'; and the adjective 'loose',
recalling 'Dishevell'd' and 'wanton' (306), locates the
sensuality of the scene in the seductiveness of Eve's tresses.
The response these lines draw from the reader, however,
must be distinguished finally from what Adam and Eve
feel as they embrace. The poem is quite explicit, in a negative
way, about this: Eve's eyes draw a 'conjugal attraction'
which is 'unreprov'd' and not passionate; these are 'kisses
pure' (502) we are told after our own impressions have
registered. A pure sexuality may seem a contradiction in
terms, but only because it is unavailable to us in our present
state ; and here the psychological effects of our loss manifest
themselves in an attempt to bring Adam and Eve down to our
level. The reader will ignore 'unreprov' d', a weakly felt
qualification, and warm to this demonstration of sinless
love-making with a body and mind infected by sin. When the
verse turns to describe Adam's response to Eve's swelling
breast and loose tresses, there is a tendency (and classroom
experiments bear this out) to read 'hee in desire' where the
poet writes 'hee in delight'. (In Book IX. IOIJ, where this
scene is echoed, desire is unequivocally desire ; the qualities
I o6 Man's Polluting Sin

the fallen reader imposes on Adam and Eve in Book IV have

become theirs by right: 'Carnal desire inflaming, hee on
Eve I Began to cast lascivious Eyes, she him I As wantonly
repaid; in Lust they burn; I Till Adam thus 'gan Eve to
dalliance move.') At this point, the distinction between
innocence and experience has been blurred, at least in the
reader's mind.
Quite deliberately, then, the description moves away from
the realistic detail of the actual embrace toward a more
generalized statement of its meaning- for them : 'hee in
delight I Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms I
Smil'd with superior Love, as Jupiter I On Juno smiles, when
he impregns the Clouds I That shed May Flowers ; and
press'd her Matron lip I With kisses pure' (497-502).
Raised to the level almost of ritual, 1 the kisses become the
visible signs of their inner (spiritual) unity, and the reader is
left to ponder the discrepancy between his response and the
purity of the action. If the distinction seems difficult or
abstruse, it is made easier (and inescapable) by the sudden
introduction of a third perspective :
With kisses pure: aside the Devil turn'd
For envy, yet with jealous leer malign
Ey'd them askance. (502-4)
The effect of the devil's entrance (he has been there all
along as our window on the scene, but we have forgotten
him) is not unlike the effect of 'Then was not guilty shame'
(3 I 3). The reader is alerted to the contrast between the
'kisses pure' and the impurity of the voyeur's response and is
forced to acknowledge whatever part of that response he
shares. No reader, of course, is the devil, and few readers will
actually leer, but the Satanic perspective is uncomfortably
1 Harding suggests an allusion to Georgics, ii, where the impregnating of

the earth is celebrated (Club of Hercules, p. 77).

 Language in Paradise 107

recognizable as one we can at least understand, whereas we

cannot understand innocence at all. Once again a controlled
situation has been the occasion of self-knowledge, in
accordance with the Puritan's obligation to 'know himself ...
without flattering himself in the slightest, without concealing
from himself a single unpleasant fact about himself' (The
Puritans, ed. Miller and Johnson, i. 284). The entire scene
works on the principle we observed in connection with
'error' and 'wanton', taking us back 'to a time when there
were no infected words because there were no infected
actions'; and the technique is basic to Milton's method
whereby the reader is both a participant in the action and a
critic of his own performance.

(ii) LANGUAGE IN PARADISE

By using language to point up the distortion that results

whenever fallen man attempts to make sense of the world
around him, Milton passes judgment on the scientific and
linguistic optimism of his own century. If the end of
education is to repair the ruins of our first parents, many in
the seventeenth century believed the end to be in sight, and
took to constructing systems with which to describe reality
and languages accurate enough to serve their systems. The
history of this effort has been written many times and it is
not my intention to write it again, but certain basic tendencies
of thought must be noted if the relationship between the
vocabulary of Paradise Lost and the larger philosophical
movement of the age is to be clarified :
(I) Reality is assumed to consist of a finite and dis-
coverable number of corpuscular units, species, clusters of
which constitute genera which in turn are themselves the
species of more general genera. Thus Milton in his Art of
Logic: 'That is, a thing can be now genus, now species;
ro8 Man's Polluting Sin

genus, if it is referred to the species subject to itself, species

if it is referred to its genus .... Thus man is a subaltern
genus, or subaltern species ; a species if you refer to animal,
a genus if you refer to single men. ' I
( 2) The operation of scientific method is twofold : the
identification or isolation of each unit (thing, concept, item)
and the arranging of the units according to the hierarchy of
genera and species, that is according to the relationships (of
cause, effect, adjunct, opposite, etc.) which pertain between
them in the objective order of nature. Bacon collects and
arranges, Ramus invents and disposes. Of course there are
important differences between Baconian empiricism and
Ramus' common-sense rhetoro-logic, but in their concern
with 'things' ('resolutely entering on the true road, and
submitting my mind to things'Y and their concentration on
the data of experience at the expense of abstraction (con-
scious in Bacon, unconscious in Ramus), and, most impor-
tant, in their insistence on precision in naming, they
contribute to the attitude of mind I am describing. One may
cite here Plato, whose dialectic, while it should be dis-
tinguished from the methods of both Ramus and Bacon,
displays the same two-part structure: Dialectic 'discerns
clearly one Form everywhere extended throughout many,
where each one lies apart, and many Forms, different from
one another, embraced from without by one Form; and again
one Form connected in a unity through many wholes, and
many Forms, entirely marked off apart.' 3
I The Works of John Milton, xi. 241. Milton illustrates the nominalistic

basis of much of Ramist thought when he explains that genus is merely a

'symbol of the common essence' of the species: 'For genus does not properly
communicate essence to species (since in itself it is in truth nothing outside the
species) but merely signifies their essence' (p. 239).
z N()f)um Organum, 1. cxiii.
3 Sophist, 235c, in Francis M. Cornford's Plato's Theory of Knowledge
(New York, 1957), pp. 262-3. Cornford comments: 'The expert in Dialectic
 Language in Paradise 109

(3) Since the first operation is basically a labelling

procedure, it requires a language free of redundancy or
ambiguity, i.e., a word-thing language. (In some of the more
sophisticated methodologies a logical syntax accompanies
the quantitative vocabulary.)
'The fancy that if we can only discover the original names
of things', writes A. E. Taylor in an introduction to Plato's
Cratylus, 'our discovery will throw a flood of light on the
realities named, seems to recur periodically in the history of
human thought. There are traces of it in Heraclitus and
Herodotus ; in the age of Pericles it was reinforced by the
vogue of allegorical interpretations of Homer, which depen-
ded largely on fanciful etymologies.' 1 In the seventeenth
century this fancy had a remarkable hold on both the
popular and academic imaginations, although its limitations
as a philosophic ideal had long ago been exposed by Plato.
Asked to arbitrate between Hermogenes, who as a Herac-
litean holds that names are arbitrarily imposed, and
Cratylus who regards true naming as the foundation of all
will guide and control the course of philosophical discussion by his knowledge
of how to "divide by kinds", not confusing one Form with another. He will
discern clearly the hierarchy of Forms which constitutes reality, and make out
its articulate structure, with which the texture of philosophic discourse must
correspond, if it is to express truth. The method is that method of Collection
and Division which was announced in the Phatdrus' (pp. 263-4). See also
Hobbes, Leviathan, 1. 4: 'The manner how speech serves to the remembrance
of the consequences of cause and effects consists in the imposing of names
and the connection of them' (in the edition of Herbert W. Schneider, New
York, 1958, p. 39). In this century one might compare the aims of the logical
positivists : 'Ifgrammatical syntax corresponded exactly to logical syntax pseudo-
statements could not arise. If grammatical syntax differentiated not only the
word-categories of nouns, adjectives, verbs, conjunctions etc., but within
each of these categories made the further distinctions that are logically indis-
pensable, then no pseudo-statements could be formed.' Rudolf Carnap's
'The Elimination of Metaphysics', in Logical Positivism, ed. A. J. Ayer
(Glencoe, Ill., 1959), p. 68.
1 Plato: The Man and His Work (Meridian Books, New York, 1957), p. 77·
I I o Man's Polluting Sin

knowledge and discourse, Socrates takes a middle course,

admitting with Hermogenes that there is no perfect cor-
respondence between the names and the things they are
taken to signify, joining Cratylus in wishing that there were :
I quite agree with you that words should as far as possible
resemble things ... for I believe that if we could always, or
almost always, use likenesses which are perfectly appropriate,
this would be the most perfect state of language; as the
opposite is the most imperfect. 1

Likenesses which are perfectly appropriate are an

impossibility however since all likenesses are images or
imitations and are at best approximate. Complete accuracy
of perception exists only in the face-to-face confrontation
of the perceiving mind and the ideal forms ; and this kind
of knowledge is intuitive rather than discursive or imitative,
available only at the end of a 'long travail of thought'. 2
To place an undue reliance on representations, whether
pictorial or verbal, is to confuse levels of reality, an error
Plato warns against repeatedly :
Soc. We will suppose ... that some God makes not only a rep-
resentation such as a painter would make ... , but also
creates an inward organization like yours ... and in a word
copies all your qualities, and places them by you in another
form; would you say that this was Cratylus and the image
of Cratylus, or that there were two Cratyluses?
Crat. I would say that there were two Cratyluses.
Soc. Then you see, my friend, ... that images are very far from
having qualities which are the exact counterpart of the
realities which they represent ?3

Socrates finally forces Cratylus to admit that the study of

1 Tlu Dialoguu of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (Random House, 2 vols., New

York, 1937), 1. 224.

2 The phrase is Taylor's, Plato, p. 23 I. 3 Dialogues, i. 22 I.
 Language in Paradise I I I

things as they really are is to be preferred to the study of

names and the dialogue ends somewhat inconclusively :
Whether there is this eternal nature in things, or whether the
truth is what Heracleitus and his followers and many others say,
is a question hard to determine; and no man of sense will like to
put himself or the education of his mind in the power of names:
neither will he so far trust names as to be confident in any
knowledge which condemns himself and other existences to an
unhealthy state of unreality. r
Neither reduce the problem of philosophy to the knowledge
of names nor accept the implications of a theory which
makes one name as good or bad as another.
Socrates never denies the relevance of names to the
philosophical inquiry; the end of dialectic is the apprehen-
sion of the ideal forms, and while knowledge of the forms is
finally intuitive rather than discursive, less a matter of
'knowing about' than possessing and being possessed by,
the process is largely rational. In the Phaedrus dialectic is
defined as the effort to 'divide into species according to
natural articulations, avoiding the attempt to shatter the
unity of a natural part as a clumsy butcher might do', 2
and in the Sophist the Stranger inquires rhetorically,
'Dividing according to kinds, not taking the same for a
different one or a different one for the same - is not that
the business of the science of dialectic?', and receives the
expected answer, 'Yes'. 3 Clearly the business of 'collecting
and dividing', as it is described elsewhere in the dialogues,
demands a precise nomenclature, if only as a means of
avoiding the clumsiness of a butcher or the mistaking of one
form for another. Naming is therefore a preliminary step
r Dialogues, i. 229.
2 Plato's Phatdrus, trans. W. C. Helrnbold and W. G. Rabinowitz (New
York, 1956),p. 55·
J In Cornford's Plato's Thtory of Knowltdgt, p. 262.
I I2 Man's Polluting Sin

which imparts some measure of control to the dialectical

investigation. Names are necessary if the divisions made are
to be free of overlappings and obvious inconsistencies.
Presumably the apparatus and the names will be abandoned
when the forms are finally discerned.
Like all other methods which aim at a mathematical
description of a static reality, dialectic operates primarily
to neutralize the distorting tendencies of the human mind
which is notoriously sloppy when left to itself. Plato is aware
that in view of the limitations of our perceptive equipment,
neutralization is an impossible goal. At best we can attain
a relative rigour. Yet unless we wish to give up the problem
entirely, we must commit ourselves to dialectic and be
prepared to accept the results as provisional, not final. The
cardinal intellectual rule then is 'be as careful as possible
without assuming that you can be as careful as necessary' :
Plato never assumes ... that he can do the world's scientific
thinking for it once for all ... Plato was far too true to the
Socratic conception of the insignificance of human knowledge by
comparison with the vastness of the scientific problem.... But
though the final 'rationalization' of things may be an unattain-
able goal, there is no reason why we should not try to get as near
to the goal as we can. If we can not expel the element of
'brute fact' for which we can see no reason from science, we may
try, and we ought to try, to reduce it to a minimum. We cannot
completely 'mathematize' human knowledge, but the more we
can mathematize it the better. 1

In the seventeenth century some men believed that they could

be as careful as necessary and completely mathematize
human knowledge.
If the search for a perfect language can be extended as far
back as Heraclitus and Herodotus, it exists also in another
tradition, more religious than philosophical. Pressed to
1 Taylor, Plato, pp. 294-5.
 Language in Paradise I I 3

identify the source of the names he believes in, Cratylus

replies, 'I believe ... the true account of the matter to be,
that a power more than human gave things their first names. ' 1
In the Judeo-Christian epistemology, the 'power more than
human' is of course God who endowed Adam and Eve with
an accurate language which was lost in the confusion of
Babel or perhaps at the time of the Fall itself. 2 Speculation
about this language is traditional. A primary goal was its
identification. Hebrew was the most successful candidate,
although other tongues are occasionally championed. 3 A
subsidiary concern, naturally, is the construction or nature
of the language, and in the seventeenth century this question
takes on a new urgency. For there is a tendency, on the part
of the reformers, to assume that the word-thing language, to
which they are committed as philosophers, represents
nothing less than a return to the linguistic purity of Paradise.
The scriptural basis of this position is Adam's naming of
the animals at Genesis ii. 19 : 'And out of the ground the
Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl
of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he
would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living

1 Dialogues,i.227.
z In his .Academiarum Examen or The Examination of the .Academies
(London, 1654-), John Webster seems to suggest that Adam lost the Para-
disical language when he fell: 'And therefore it is not without a deep and
abstruse mystery that the Seraphical .Apostle speaks that he knew a man caught
up into the third heaven, into Paradise, and heard . .. ineffable words • •. for
this was the Paradisicallanguage . .. which Adam understood while he was
unfaln in Eden and lost after' (p. 27).
3 At least one theorist, John Webb, proposed Chinese (see the account of
his work in D. C. Allen's 'Some Theories of the Growth and Origin of
Language in Milton's Age', Philological Quarterly, xxviii. 194-9, 5-16) a
language which answers in some ways to the theoretical demands. In The
.Advancement of Learning, Bacon notes 'that it is the use of China and the king-
doms of the high Levant to write in Characters Real, which expres~ neither
letters !'lOT words in gross, but Things or Notions.' (Selected Writings, p. 300.)
114 Man's Polluting Sin

creature, that was the name thereof.' This act is taken to be

proof of Adam's superior knowledge, and the names he
gives the animals are thought to be exact, corresponding in
each case to the essence of the species. Adam's knowledge is
infused into him directly by God, and the names he imposes,
like God's, are accurate, intensively and extensively. There
are several references to this event in Paradise Lost. Raphael
alludes to it in passing in his account of the Creation : 'the
rest [of the animalsJ are numberless, f And thou thir Natures
know'st, and gav'st them Names' (vu. 492-3). Knowing
and naming are one, an equation made explicitly when Adam
recalls the same scene :
I nam'd them, as they pass'd, and understood
Thir Nature, with such knowledge God endu'd
My sudden apprehension.
(vm. 352-4)

(One should note that 'sudden apprehension' is still possible

in Ramist theory. Even now, he implies, the mind assents
immediately to any truth presented to it.) 1 Milton provides
a prose gloss to this passage in Tetrachordon: 'Adam who had
the wisdom giv'n him to know all creatures, and to name
them according to their properties, no doubt but had the gift
to discern perfectly.' 2 These names, in Sylvester's words are
'Fit sense-full' :

For, soon as ever he had framed thee,

Into thy hands he put this monarchy;
Made all the Creatures know thee for their Lord,
1 For discussions of this aspect of Ramus' thought see P. Albert Duhamel,

'The Logic and Rhetoric of Peter Ramus', Modern Philology, xlvi (1949),
163-71 and 'Milton's Alleged Ramism', PMLA, lxvii (1952), 1035-53;
also Walter J. Ong, S.J., Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue, passim.
2 Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Ernest Sirluck (New Haven,

1959), ii. 642·

 Language in Paradise I I 5

And come before thee of their own accord:

And gave thee power (as Master) to impose
Fit sense-full N ames. 1

The manner in which this commonplace finds its way

into the works of the empiricist propagandists is well
illustrated by this excerpt from John Webster's Academiarum
Examen:

Further, when I find the great and eternal being, speaking and
conversing with Adam, I cannot but believe that the language
which he uttered, was the living and serviceable word, and that it
was infinitely high, deep, and glorious like himself, and that
which was radically and essentially one with him, and preceded
from him, and was indeed the language of the divine nature,
and not extrinsecally adventitious unto him; and when I find
Adam understanding this heavenly Dialect (which had been
uttered in vain if he had not understood it) I cannot but believe
that this was the language of nature infused into him in his
Creation, and so innate and implantate in him, and not inventive
or acquisitive, but merely dative from the father of light, from
whom every good and perfect gift doth come and descend.
(Jam i. 17)
Again, when I find the Almighty presenting all the Creatures
before Adam to see what he would call them, and whatsoever
Adam called every living creature, that is the name thereof, I
cannot but conceive that Adam did understand both their internal
and external signatures, and that the imposition of their names
was adequately agreeing with their natures: otherwise it could
not univocally and truely be said to be their names, whereby he
distinguished them; for names are but representations of notions,
and if they do not exactly agree in all things, then there is a
difference and disparity between them, and in that incongruity
lies error and falsehood: and the notions also are but the images
or ideas of things themselves reflected, in the mind, as the outward
face in a looking-glasse, and therefore if they do not to an hair
1 Tlze Complete Works of Joshua Sylvester, ed. A. B. Grosart (2 vols.,

Edinburgh, r88o),i. 8o-8r.

I I 6 Man's Polluting Sin

correspond with, and be Identical one to the other, as punctually

and truly as the impression in the wax agrees with the seal that
instamped it, and as face answers face in a glass, then there is not
absolute congruency between the notion and the thing, the
intellect and the thing understood, and so it is no longer verity,
but a lye and falsity. And therefore if Adam did not truly see into
and understand their intrinsecall natures, then had his intellect
false notions of them, and so he imposed lying names upon them,
and then the text would be false too, which avers that what he
called them was their names. Also Adam was in a deep sleep
when Eve was framed of his bone, and yet when she was brought
before him being awaked, he could tell that she was bone of his
hone, and flesh of his flesh, and therefore he called her woman,
because she was taken out of man. Nor if it be denyed that he
understood by his intrinsick and innate light, what she was, and
from whence she was taken (which I hold altogether untrue)
and that God by extrinsic information told Adam from whence
she was taken, yet did he immediately give unto her an adequate
name, suiting her original, which most significantly did manifest
what was her nature, and from whence it came, and doubtless the
name being exactly conformable, and configurate to the Idea in
his mind, the very prolation, and sound of the word, contained in
it the vive expression of the thing, and so in verity was nothing
else but that pure language of nature, which he then spake, and
understood, and afterwards so miserably lost and defaced. I

This is a perfect example of the easy union that was effected

between the old theology and the new science. Adam's
language is now precisely identified as a word-thing
language with which he can comprehend the 'internal and
I pp. 29-30. See also Hobbes, Lroiathan, i. 4, p. 37: 'The first author of

speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as
he presented to his sight.' Ramus, too, attests to the pervasiveness of this
commonplace: 'Before Adam lost the image of God, Ramus said, almost all
of his judgments had been simply axiomatical; in his integrity he had been
able to see and to pronounce sentence immediately, as when he named the
animals' (Perry Miller in The New England Mind: The Sroenteenth Century
(Beacon Press Edition, Boston, 1961, p. I 33).
 Language in Paradise I I 7

external signatures' of all the creatures. (Significantly, Adam

is here described in terms John Wilkins reserves for God.) 1
Webster defends his thesis by employing the Ramus method
of arguing by contraries or absurdities: Adam's names must
be perfectly congruent, the name with the notion with the
thing, for if there were a disparity between them, the
scriptures could be said to lie. In his enthusiasm, he sees
meaning implicit in the very sound of the Edenic word, a
notion Socrates plays with and seems to reject in the
Cratylus.
Earlier attempts to reconstruct the language of Paradise
had about them an archaeological flavour since they were
usually tied to the search for the terrestrial Eden. Webster's
impetus, on the other hand, is provided by the pervasive
intellectual climate of the century, specifically by the move-
ment in all disciplines toward what Sprat calls a 'Mathe-
maticall plainness'. R. F. Jones, whose researches are indis-
pensable for this period, argues that 'the remarkable
development of mathematics in the seventeenth century, to
which Descartes contributed much, and especially the
improved mathematical symbols that were coming into use,
exerted no small influence upon conceptions of what
language should be ... the movement toward clear defini-
tions characteristic of this period drew much of its inspiration
from mathematics.' 2 Jones cites the example of Seth Ward,
professor of Astronomy at Oxford, who in 16 54 declares his
confidence in a universal mathematics: 'My first proposall
was to find whether other things might not as well be desig-
nated by symbols and herein I was presently resolved that
Symboles might be found for every thing and notion.' 3 Ward
1 See Wilkins's Principals and Duties ofNatural Rdigion(I678), pp. 125-7·
2 The Seventeenth Century, Studies in the History of English Thought and
Literature from Bacon to Pope (Stanford, 195 I), PP· I so-r.
J Loc. cit.

F.s.s.
I I 8 Man's Polluting Sin

goes on to make an explicit connection between his goal and

the recovery of Adam's language: 'Such a language as this
(where every word were a definition and contain'd the nature
of the thing) might not unjustly be termed a naturall
language, and would afford that which the Cabalists and the
Rosycrucians have vainly sought for in the Hebrew, And in
the names of things assigned by Adam.' 1 Note that Adam's
mastery now includes not only the animals, but 'things', all
things.
Behind these statements is the assumption that linguistic
reform is the key to all the problems that beset fallen man,
and again this is an extension of a traditional attitude.
Complaints against mortality are likely to lament the Curse
of the Confusion and to characterize fallen man's lot as 'a
Babel'. The loss of the perfect language is more than any-
thing else the sign of the Fall, since in Eden speech is the
outward manifestation of the inner Paradise. Adam's
speaking grace, Raphael notes, signifies his inner grace:

for God on thee

Abundantly his gifts hath also pour'd
Inward and outward both, his image fair:
Speaking or mute all comeliness and grace
Attends thee, and each word, each motion forms.
(vm. 219-23)

The congruency between the word and the thing implies a

congruency between the mind and the thing. Adam's mind
is the ideal instrument, the clear glass :

But our now-knowledge hath, for tedious train,

A drooping life and over-racked brain,
A face forlorn, a sad and sullen fashion,
A restlesse toyland Care's self-pining passion.

1 Op. cit., I 53·

 Language in Paradise I I 9

Knowledge was then even the soule's soul for light,

The spirit's calm Port, and Lanthorn shining bright
To strait-stept feet: deer knowledg; not confus'd:
Notsowr, but sweet: not gotten, but infus'd. 1

This instant infusion of knowledge will be experienced

again when the soul finally joins Christ in the bliss of ever-
lasting union. In this connection, Mrs. MacCaffrey cites a
sermon of Donne's: 'God shall create us all Doctors in a
minute ... no more preaching, no more reading of Scrip-
tures, and that great School-Mistress, Experience, and
Observation shall be remov'd, no new thing to be done, and
in an instant, I shall know more, than they all could reveal
unto me.' 2 According to Donne, this awaits us in the life to
come, but for Ward, Webster, Sprat and others it is a goal
attainable on the earth, if not immediately, then within
several generations. In the early years of the century Bacon
holds out a promise to those who will join him in the task of
scientific inquiry :
the true end ... of Knowledge is a restitution and reinvesting (in
great part) of man to the sovereignity and power (for whensoever
he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names he shall
again command them) which he had in his first state of creation.
And to speak plainly and clearly, it is a discovery of all operations
and possibilities of operations from immortality (if it were possible)
to the meanest mechanical practice.
(The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, ed.
Spedding, Ellis, and Heath (London, 1876), iii, 222)

His followers, who are legion, ignore the parenthetical

qualification ('if it were possible') and transform what may
have been only a figurative and hyperbolic statement of
purpose - the recovery of true names - into a programme
for action.
r TluComplete WorksoJJoslzuaSy!fmter,i. roz.
z Paradise Lost as 'Myth', p. 36.
1 20 Man's Polluting Sin

In 1668 John Wilkins published his An Essay Towards a

Real Character and a Philosophical Language. This document,
along with Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667) and
Cowley's ode to the same body indicate the extent to which
a mathematically quantitative methodology had won the
day. In contrast to the polemic stance Bacon takes in the
Preface to the Great Instauration, Wilkins' tone in his
'Epistle Dedicatory' is easy and familiar. Obviously he is
confident that the public will approve his stated purpose,
'namely the distinct expression of all things and notions that
fall under discourse'. His readers are his colleagues, aware
of their common problem and thoroughly conversant with
the commonplaces which attend its consideration : 'He that
knows how to estimate that judgement inflicted on Mankind,
in the curse of the Confusion with all the unhappy conse-
quences of it, may thereby judge, what great advantage and
benefit there will be in a remedy against it.' Again in contrast
to Bacon, Wilkins does not hesitate to take theology as his
provmce:

This design will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some

of our Modern difficulties in Religion, by unmasking many wild
errors, that shelter themselves under the disguise of affected
phrases; which being Philosophically unfolded and rendered
according to the genuine and natural importance of Words, will
appear to be inconsistencies and contradictions.
('Epistle Dedicatory')

'Modern difficulties in Religion' is marvellously ingenuous

when one recalls the Civil Wars ; yet the phrase is less sur-
prising than the implied equation of religious and linguistic
'difficulties'. The idea that heresy and controversy are the
by-products of metaphorical language is not a novel one ;
but Wilkins' confidence in his ability to establish the truths
of religion by fashioning a language free of affectation is
 Language in Paradise 12. I

new, 1 and perhaps, if one takes seriously the doctrine of

original sin, blasphemous.
When Wilkins lists the deficiencies he intends to supply,
he does so in the context made familiar by his predecessors.
One begins by referring to Paradise :
'tis evident enough that the first Language
was con-created with our first Parents, they
immediately understanding the voice of God. 2

The nostalgia in 'they immediately understanding the voice

of God' is comparable to Aristotle's 'nobody uses fine
language when teaching geometry' ;3 the difference is that
Aristotle's statement is an admission of defeat while
Wilkins presses resolutely on: All languages, 'except the
first, (of which we know nothing so certain as that it was not
made by Human Art upon Experience) have been either
taken up from that first, and derived by way of Imitation; or
else in a long tract of time, have, upon several emergencies,
admitted various and casual alterations.' 4 The 'various and
casual alterations' can be subsumed under three headings :
( 1) Redundancy. 'Synonymous words, which make Lan-
guage tedious, and are generally Superfluities, since the end
and use of speech is for humane utility and mutual converse.' 5
(2) Equivocals. 'which are of several significations and
therefore must needs render speech doubtful and obscure;
1 Not that Wilkins was the first to suggest this. Jones cites Cave Be~k,

The Universal Character (I657), who believed that a universal character

would be the means of 'propogating all sorts of Learning and true Religion'
(The Seventeenth Century, p. I 54). The 'newness' of the idea belongs to the
age and not to any one individual proponent of it.
2 Real Character, p. 2.
3 Cf. Hobbes: 'In geometry, which is the only science that it has pleased
God hitherto to bestow on mankind, men begin at settling the significations of
their words, which settling of significations they call definitions and place
them in the beginning of their reckoning' (Leviathan, i. 4, p. 4-I .)
4 Real Character, p. I 9· s Ibid., p. I 8.
1 2. 2. Man's Polluting Sin

and that argues a deficiency, or want of a sufficient number of

words.' 1
(3) Metaphor. 'may seem to contribute to the elegance
and ornament of speech ; yet like other affected ornaments,
they prejudice the native simplicity of it, and contribute to
the disguising of it with false appearances. ' 2
The warning against metaphor is related to more general
warnings against rhetoric as the instrument of the devil ;
the 'false appearances' and the 'disguises' are his weapons,
the efficacy of which flows from their correspondence to
the 'natural' weakness of his victims. For the scientific
philosophers, however, the devil is almost an anachronism,
recalled in phrases like 'luxuriant swellings' only to be
dismissed along with equivocals, redundancy, and figurative
language. In a remarkable passage, Sprat combines echoes
of the Republic, Saint Augustine, Bacon, and countless
denunciations of pulpit enthusiasm in attributing all of man's
ills to the ascendancy of tropes and figures :
When I consider the means of happy living, and the causes of
their corruption, I can hardly forbear recanting what I said before;
and concluding, that eloquence ought to be banish'd out of all civil
Societies, as a thing fatal to Peace and good Manners.... They
[the Ornaments of speaking] are in open defiance against
Reason; professing not to hold much correspondence with that;
but with its Slaves, the Passions: they give the mind a motion too
changeable, and bewitching, to consist with right practice. Who
can behold, without indignation, how many mists and uncer-
x Ibid., p. 17.
2 Ibid., p. 1 8. Cf. Hobbes on the abuses of words: 'When men register
their thoughts wrong by the inconstancy of the signification of their words, by
which they register for their conception that which they never conceived ...
when they use words metaphorically - that is, in other senses than that they
are ordained for- and thereby deceive others' (Ler~iathan i. 4, p. 38).
Similar statements can of course be found in Bacon's works. Rudolf Carnap
terms the meaningless words of metaphysical speculation 'metaphorical'
('The Elimination of Metaphysics', p. 71).
 Language in Paradise 123

tainties, these specious Tropes and Figures have brought on our

Knowledg? How many rewards, which are due to more profit-
able, and difficult arts, have been still snatch'd away by the easie
vanity of fine speaking? For now I am warm'd with this just
anger, I cannot with-hold myself, from betraying the shallowness
of all these seeming mysteries; upon which, we Writers, and
Speakers, look so bigg. And, in a few words, I dare say; that of
all the Studies of men, nothing may be sooner obtained, than this
vicious abundance of Phrase, this trick of Metaphor, this volubility
of Tongue ... and I think, it may be plac'd amongst those general
mischiefs; such as the dissension of Christian Princes, the want of
practice in Religion, and the like. I
Sprat qualifies his indictment with the usual concession to
the importance of rhetoric as a defensive weapon, lest 'the
naked Innocence' of virtue, would be on all occasions 'expos' d
to the armed malice of the wicked', but for all practical
purposes the devil has disappeared or has at least been dis-
armed by the corrective control of methodical plainness.
While Sprat dare not mount a frontal attack on the doctrine
of natural depravity ('The operations, and powers of the
mind . .. will still be subject to the same errors'), he does
effect a separation between the distorting potentiality of
the fallen mind and the inevitable triumph of natural
philosophy. The rigour of method will provide 'means and
exercises for direction' and turn men from the vanity of
'being wholy imployd about the productions of their own
minds' to a fruitful consideration of 'all the works of Nature
that are without them'. By regarding the laws of method as
absolute and God-given, Sprat and Wilkins and their fellows
in the Royal Society manage first to isolate a variable - the
defect of the species- and finally to eliminate it as a serious
obstacle to clear and distinct knowledge. Since the senses are
now directed and controlled by a system independent of the
individual consciousness, they are rehabilitated, much as
I The History of the Royal Society of London (London, 1667), pp. I I I - I 3·
124 Man's Polluting Sin

Bacon insisted they could be in the Advancement of Learning:

But here was their [the Academies] chief error; they charged the
deceit upon the Senses; which in my judgement (notwithstanding
all their cavillations) are very sufficient to certify and report truth,
though not always immediately, yet by comparison, by help of
instrument.... But they ought to have charged the deceit upon
the weakness of the intellectual powers, and upon the manner of
collecting and concluding upon the reports of the senses ... for no
man ... can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of
hand, which may easily be done by help of a ruler or compass. 1
By 1 6 6 7, the senses take their place in a perfectly articulated
series of intellectual operations : the data of the physical
world are received by them, ordered by an intellect equipped
with the rule of method, and transcribed into a language
which admits only words that are things. What Miller says
of the Puritan-Ramist mentality will serve to characterize
the intellectual bias of a full half-century :
Thus armed with a system that was competent to do all things
required of it, the ... intellect could ascertain objectively the
individual entities, perceive their relations, clarify doubts, and
finally set everything in its proper place in elegant order; thus
equipped to end all the disputes which ever had been or ever
would be ... logicians were prepared to inaugurate a new era in
intellectual history. 2
The plain style associated with the scientific movement
is not the plain style Morris Croll has identified with anti-
Ciceronianism. The two share an ideal - mirror-like fidelity
to a reality. It is the realities that differ, at least in the early
stages of each movement when goals are unambiguously
stated. The anti-Ciceronians attempt in their style to
portray 'exactly those athletic movements of the mind by
which it arrives at a sense of reality and the true knowledge
I Selected Writings, ed. Dick, p. 290.
2 The New England Mind: The Sroenteenth Century, p. I 53·
 Language in Paradise I2S

of itself'. 1 The emphasis is on the uniqueness of the indivi-

dual mind's movement toward the truth and a value is
placed on a style which is faithful to that movement. The
objectivity is interior: 'its function is to express individual
variances of experience in contrast with the general and
communal ideas which the open design of the oratorical
style is so well adapted to contain. ' 2 In brief the style is the
man and is most 'true' when it accurately reflects his
individuality. On the other hand, the philosophy that yields
the mathematical plainness of Sprat and Wilkins implicitly
denies or skirts the concept of individuality. In Croll's
terms, the scientific style is oratorical (members of the Royal
Society would blanch at the accusation) because it concerns
itself with 'general and communal ideas' and does not
recognize the thinking mind as an active part of the cogni-
tive process. The universal applicability of method makes all
minds one mind, a common and passive machine harnessed
and directed by a power independent of it ; and the machine,
properly controlled, is assumed to be answerable to the
reality it would record. In this way, the human factor is
phased out and the epistemological gap between concepts
in the mind and their objective existence in nature is bridged.
There is no problem of the observer because the observer,
except as a transparent medium, does not exist. While this
effacing of the individual mind might encourage personal
humility, its most important by-product is racial pride, that
is to say, the idea of progress, the assumption that soon all
the secrets of the universe will yield themselves up to the
new methodology. Lip service is still paid to the inherent
weakness of mortal faculties, but once that weakness has
been isolated, it can be discounted, at least in practice, and
finally ignored, even in theory; except, perhaps, for an
1 'Attic Prose in the Seventeenth Century', Studies in Philology, xviii

(1921), p. 95· 2 Ibid., p. 88.

126 Man's Polluting Sin

occasional expression of conventional(and old-fashioned) piety.

Actually, as modern physicists are quick to admit,
mathematical or neutral notations are no more objective, in
a final sense, than are the 'reports from within' sent out to us
by a lyric poet. The rigour of scientific statements is a
relative rigour within a system of discourse adopted as a
working hypothesis. Recently one theorist has suggested
that true objectivity, as far as we can approximate it, de-
mands that our observations take into account the fact of
the observer's consciousness: 'A spoken or a written word
was spoken or written by someone, and part of the recogni-
tion of the word as activity is a recognition of who it was that
said it or wrote it. When I make a statement, even as coldly
and impersonal a statement as a proposition of Euclid, it is
I that am making the statement, and the fact that it is I that
am making the statement is part of the picture of the
activity. In the same way, when you quote a proposition of
Euclid the fact that it is you who quote it is part of the
picture which is not to be discarded.' 1 By discarding
that part of the picture a scientist oversimplifies his problem,
and a Christian forgets who he is. 'The insight that we can
never get away from ourselves', P. W. Bridgman has said, 'is
an insight which the human race through its long history has
been deliberately, one is tempted to say wilfully, refusing to
admit.' 2 One admission of this insight, indeed a basic
admission of it, is the doctrine of original sin which places
a permanent screen (dark glass) between the mind and the
full and clear comprehension of what is. The entire scientific
programme, of which we have been examining a small part,
is from one point of view a wilful refusal to face up to that
insight as it had been traditionally urged by orthodox
1 P. W. Bridgman, 'The Way Things Are', in The Limits of Language,
ed. Walker Gibson (New York, 1962), p. 42.
2 'The Way Things Are', p. 44·
 Language in Paradise 127

Christianity. The heritage of the second half of the century

is as much the Deist natural religion for a naturally good man
as it is a curiosity like Wilkins' Real Character.
Sympathetic though he may be to the more limited aims
of his contemporaries, especially as they relate to the
distrust of rhetoric he everywhere evidences, Milton is
unable to share their optimism, largely because it contains a
latent impiety. It is this that D. C. Allen discerns when he
explains Milton's reticence on the subject of the original
tongue, despite the fact that he 'was quite aware of the
general linguistic theories of his age' ;I
A scientific study of the Original Language ... is an unwar-
rented intrusion on the mysteries of theology. It is this sin against
which both Raphael and Michael warn Adam, and one of which
Milton himself would not be guilty. . . . His long experience
with the rationalists who had attempted to establish the data of
revelation by reason led him, I am sure, to the conclusion that
exercises of this sort often produced results that were antithetical
to revelation itself. 2
A similar observation underlies P. Albert Duhamel's insis-
tence that Milton could never have been a committed
Ramist:
... the faith in the immediate intuitive perception of logical
relations, which is the ultra-spiritual epistemology, implied
throughout the Ramistic logics, [was] much more in keeping
with the enthusiasm of the radical sects ... than with the
rationalism of Milton. 3
Leaving aside for the moment the question of his rationalism,
one can say that for Milton 'the immediate intuitive percep-
tion of logical relations' is the hallmark of prelapsarian
thought processes, as is the possession of a perfect language.
Any claims to the contrary, whether they were made by the
members of the Royal Society or by the enthusiasts, he
I 'Some Theories of the Growth and Origin of Language', p. 6.
2 Ibid., pp. 6-7. 3 'Milton's Alleged Ramism', p. 103 5·
12 8 Man's Polluting Sin

would regard as a huge and dangerous self-deception,

dangerous because it indicates a deficiency in humility.
Humility is what he seeks to instil in his readers by exploding
the promise of a terrestrial Paradise which they may have
accepted in the name of a secular faith. Every time a reader
is unable to limit his response to the literal signification of a
word descriptive of Paradise or its inhabitants, he is in
effect attesting to the speciousness of a programme that
offers salvation in the guise of linguistic reform. If ambiguity
and metaphor are the enemies because they are the basis of
all distortion, then the enemies live within him, for it is
beyond his power to withhold the metaphorical or ambiguous
reading. Milton need not believe wholeheartedly in the
ideal language in order to take advantage of his reader's
belief in it. As long as the reader identifies Edenic per-
fection with a word-thing vocabulary, he must admit his
distance from that perfection whenever he reads into the
word more than is literally there, more than the thing. (It is
Satan who scoffs in ambiguous words, ringing ingenious but
frivolous changes on the terms of cannonry; while Adam
and Eve pun etymologically, declining a word in its single
significance and therefore not punning at all.) 1 The would-be
rational man is hoisted with his own petard, and it is the self-
consciousness of his attitude toward language which enables
Milton to teach him humility by the careful patterning of a
few words.
If we miss the lesson at first, Milton is there to point the
moral. As Adam and Eve pass on, naked ('Nor those
mysterious parts were then conceal'd'), the epic voice steps
in with one of his periodic lectures :
1 Thus Eve: 'small store will serve, where store, I All seasons, ripe for use

hangs on the stalk; I Save what by frugal storing firmness gains' (v. 322-4).
This resembles the arguments from etymology Milton discusses in the chapter
De Notatione of his Art of Logic (r. xxiv).
 Language in Paradise I 29

Then was not guilty shame: dishonest shame

OfNature's works, honor dishonorable,
Sin-bred, how have ye troubl'd all mankind
With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,
And banisht from man's life his happiest life,
Simplicity and spotless innocence.
So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight
Of God or Angel for they thought no ill.
(rv. 313-20)

The purpose of this is, as Davis Harding explains, to make

us 'almost ashamed of any suspicions we may have momen-
tarily entertained' (I would delete 'almost'). 1 Then was not
guilty shame, but now is. Adam and Eve are not troubled
by their nakedness, but we are. Shame is described by Adam
in his first awareness of sin, as 'the last of evils' (IX. 1079)
especially difficult to bear because it sits there to 'reproach
us as unclean' (1098, emphasis mine). Shame is 'guilty'
because it wells up in us involuntarily to testify to an inner
corruption. 'Shame to Milton', writes Northrop Frye, 'is
something deeper and more sinister in human emotion than
simply the instinctive desire to ~over the genital organs. It
is rather a state of mind which is the state of the Fall itself:
it might be described as the emotional response to the state
of pride. ' 2 This is the emotional response the reader gives to
the description of Eve, and subsequently to the unfallen
embrace, and repeatedly to the key words this chapter
examines. If he does not immediately recognize his uneasi-
ness at 'wanton' and 'dishevell'd' for what it is, he will
certainly do so when Milton reminds him that 'nature's
works' remain spotless and innocent unless they are per-
verted by the sin-bred mind of a guilty mankind. His own
reaction to a guiltless word or a guiltless being is more of a
1 The Club of Hercules, p. 73·

z The Return of Eden, (Toronto, I 965), p. 37.

130 Man's Polluting Sin

reproach than anything the epic voice might say to him.

The implication of the concluding halfline, 'for they thought
no ill', is inescapable: they thought no ill, but we do, and
therein lies our shame and our guilt. Adam and Eve share
neither until they fall in Book IX and at that moment
'wanton' receives its fallen meaning:
heeonEve
Began to cast lascivious Eyes, she him
As wantonly repaid: in Lust they burn. (IOI+-I6)
Wanton is defined here by the words that surround it,
'lascivious' (to which 'As wantonly' stands in a kind of
apposition) and 'Lust' ; and its appearance is a signal to the
reader, telling him that he can now relax, since Adam and
Eve speak his language at last. But by then he knows
enough to wish that their vocabulary had remained pure.

(iii) IN WAND' RING MAZES LOST

I cannot emphasize too much the deliberateness of this

pattern. The placing of 'wanton' and 'dishevell'd' and later
of 'loose' (1v. +97) is too conspicuously awkward to be acci-
dental. They are there to create problems or puzzles which
the reader feels obliged to solve since he wishes, naturally,
to retain a sense of control over the reading experience.
Consider, as another example, the present participle
'wand'ring', noted by Mrs. MacCaffrey as a 'key word,
summarizing the theme of the erring, bewildered human
pilgrimage, and its extension into the prelapsarian world
with the fallen angels' . 1 Its first appearances are significant
only in retrospect: the fallen angels lose their heavenly
names by rebelling and get 'them new names' by 'wand'ring
1 Paradise Lost as 'Myth', p. x88.
 In Wand' ring Mazes Lost I 3I

o'er the Earth, I Through God's high sufferance for the

trial of man, I By falsities and lies the greatest part I Of
Mankind they corrupted' (r. 36 5-8). There is a paradox
here that will be exploited in other contexts : wandering
signifies undirected movement, but the fallen angels wander
through God's high sufferance; even their aimlessness is not
their own. One cannot help but serve God. These are the
same devils who are the 'wand'ring Gods' of 1. 48 I and
who as the Sons of Belial 'wander forth ... flown with
insolence and wine' (SOI-2). 'The word wander', according
to Mrs. MacCaffrey, 'has almost always a pejorative, or
melancholy connotation in Paradise Lost',r but in these
early instances the word has a neutral connotation. It is an
empty counter, awaiting the meanings that will accrue to it.
When Belial asks 'who would lose ... I Those thoughts
that wander through Eternity' (u. 146, 148), 'wander' has
the force of promenade or stroll, and it is surely neither
pejorative nor melancholy. Some hint of what will finally
become of the word is contained in Beelzebub's 'who shall
tempt with wand'ring feet I The dark unbottom'd infinite
Abyss' (u. 404-5). By 'wand'ring' Satan means without
guide or aimlessly and the association of the verb with
'tempt' is ominous (although here tempt means 'try') since
we know that Eve will wander from Adam and together,
tempted, they will wander from God into the dark unbot-
tom' d abyss of sin (in Book x Adam acknowledges his new
kinship to Satan - 'to Satan only like' -and cries '0
Conscience, into what Abyss of fears I And horrors hast thou
driv'n me').
It is pleasant to cross-reference Milton's po~m in this
way, finding echoes and anticipations, but this is a synthetic
operation performed after the fact and with the aid of a
concordance. If 'wand'ring' and words like it are to exist
1 Loc. cit.
132 Man's Polluting Sin

in a pattern that the reader will recognize and carry with

him, his attention must be called to them in a very specific
way. At n. 523 the devils exit from the 'great consult' and go
... wand'ring, each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplext, where he may likeliest find
Truce to his restless thoughts.
Here the word is given in its 'innocent' or neutral meaning
as a descriptive of a physical movement ('each his several
way') ; the potential moral signification does not occur to
the reader. But when the equally neutral 'inclination'
becomes 'sad choice' and the devils become 'perplext'
(confused, entangled) sojourners whose activity is the
manifestation of 'restless thoughts', 'wand'ring' is caught in
a backwater effect and takes on in retrospect the moral
connotations of these words (on the printed page, 'wand'-
ring', 'inclination', 'perplext', and 'restless' appear in a
vertical line). Within thirty-five lines 'wand'ring' recurs in a
context inescapably moral, as if Milton were confirming for
the reader its new meaning :
and reason'd high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate,
Fixt Fate, Free will, Foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
(558-61)
Every reader remembers this last line, and the image is one
that expands to include other figures in other scenes. Both
the good and bad angels participate in an inconclusive battle
- 'Whence in perpetual fight they needs must last /
Endless and no solution will be found' (vi. 693-4, emphasis
mine)- ended only by the intervention of Christ. Adam
and Eve awake to sin and the fruitlessness of 'mutal
accusation'- 'And of thir vain contest appear'd no end'
 In Wand'ring Mazes Lost 133

(1x. 1189, emphasis mine)- until 'Prevenient Grace'

descends from Christ ('the Mercy-seat above') and softens
their hearts. Throughout the poem the reader struggles
with the concepts enumerated here - the oxymoron-like
juxtaposition of 'Fixt Fate' and 'Free Will' anticipates all
our difficulties with the pronouncements of God and all our
efforts to deny the Fall by making Adam and Eve the victims
of impulses beyond their control - and again only faith,
in Christ, can extricate us from these philosophical tangles.
In Book x Adam is able to 'find no way' (844) out of the
maze of his consciousness until Eve in imitation of Christ
offers herself as a redeemer. And in Book XII the depressing
cycle of an endlessly wand'ring humanity, powerless through
sin to keep to the straight and narrow, is broken only by the
entrance into history of Christ who shall 'bring back I
Through the world's wilderness long wander'd man I Safe
to eternal Paradise of rest.' Of course each Christian wanders
his personal wilderness from which he is brought back only
by Christ. The devils have no redeemer (Satan says he
would like to fly to Christ's protection in Paradise Regained,
IV. 21 5); and for them (although not to them) 'wand' ring'
always has the meaning it assumes for the first time at
II. 56 I, perplexed and hopelessly entangled, condemned to
meaningless movement without end and without rest, lost.
When Satan presents himself as a petitioner at the court of
Chaos and ancient Night, he unwittingly summarizes the
history and development of the word as it has so far been
seen in the poem :
Wand'ring this darksome Desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious Empire up to light,
Alone, and without guide, halflost, I seek.
(973-5)
These lines anticipate the final appearance of 'wand'ring'
lC F.s.s.
I 34 Man's Polluting Sin

and will serve to contrast, for the last time, the wanderings
of Satan and the wanderings of man.
While the reader will surely remember these instances of
'wand'ring', he will not yet necessarily apply the word to his
own situation or see in its repetition a pattern that is especi-
ally meaningful to him. There are still neutral occurrences,
although it becomes increasingly difficult to accept 'wand'-
ring' as a merely physical concept. Satan intends very little
when he characterizes his journey as a 'wand'ring quest'
(n. 830) yet we are free and indeed obliged to compare his
quest with Gawain's or Percival's and draw the obvious
conclusion. Similarly Satan's hope 'To find who might direct
his wand'ring flight to Paradise' (m. 6 3 1) is literal enough
until one realizes that in the true sense he can never be
directed to Paradise and must wander like his successors in
the Paradise of Fools (458). Uriel accepts his 'alone thus
wand'ring' (667) innocently because his uprightness pre-
vents him from considering any other possibility. We see
through Satan and even beyond him to a level on which his
feigned wandering is all too true, but our advantage is in
reality a liability or a defect (it takes one to know one) and it
is this that our involvement with the word will finally bring
us to acknowledge.
The extent to which these distinctions are made con-
sciously will vary with the individual reader ; but in Books
xv, v, and vn the placing of 'wand'ring' is obviously and
unmistakably provocative. In Paradise the four main
streams are said to run 'diverse wand'ring many a famous
realm' (1v. 234). Why 'wand'ring'? Even to a reader who
has thought little about the word, its appearance here, in
Paradise, is disconcerting and on Milton's part, tactless.
Paradise is that place and time where roses are without
thorns and fables are true ('If true, here only') and language
is perfect, no redundancy, no equivocals, and above all no
 In Wand'ring Mazes Lost 135

ambiguities. But ambiguity is the attribute most easily

attached to 'wand'ring' on the basis of its previous occur-
rences. And if the reader somehow passes by the word
without pausing to think about it, he is brought up short by
the line Ricks and Stein seize on in their discussions of
paradisicallanguage :
And now divided into four main Streams,
Runs diverse, wand' ring many a famous Realm
And Country whereof here needs no account,
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,
How far from that Sapphire Fount the crisped Brooks,
Rolling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold,
With mazy error under pendant shades.
(233-9)
Syntactically 'With mazy error' modifies 'Rolling', but if
the force of 'wand'ring mazes lost' is at all as I have des-
cribed it, the eye will involuntarily glance back to 'wand'-
ring' (234), which functions much as 'Rolling' does in the
earlier clause, and read 'wand'ring with mazy error'. Later,
in Book vrr, Milton will combine the same words in an
even more ominous grouping, thereby indicating the
deliberateness of their previous association in Book IV:
in response to the command of God the waters of the earth
hasten toward their appointed places 'With Serpent error
wand'ring' (303). In both cases the reader is surprised to
encounter complications where he least expects them. If
there are any moments in the poem which should be free of
evil or even of the suggestion of evil, surely they are when
Paradise is put before our eyes and again when God performs
his first and greatest mercy, creation. Mrs. MacCaffrey
seems almost to attribute the 'sense of danger' we feel in the
presence of innocence and Godhead, respectively, to a
potential for evil in nature. 1 But Milton everywhere insists
1 Paradise Lo!l as 'Myth', p. 165.
I 36 Man's Polluting Sin

that 'matter ... proceeded incorruptible from God, and even

since the fall it remains incorruptible.' 1 Again one must
exclude (consciously) the tainted meaning, rejecting with it
the idea of a guilty nature. The serpent too must be pro-
nounced innocent. He is chosen to accompany 'error' only
because his physical aspect (accidentally) resembles the
movement being described, which is also innocent. Evil
exists only in the fallen mind which makes a naturally good
universe the reflection of its own corruption. This truth is
not easily understood by those who are in bondage to a law
that locates evil in actions and things- thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife- but it is the
covetous eye that transforms a woman or a jewel into an
object of temptation and an apple into an idol ; and in the
sharply delineated structure of Paradise Lost one cannot
evade responsibility for evil by foisting it off on a passive
and guiltless universe. By confronting the reader with a
vocabulary bearing the taint of sin in a situation that could
not possibly harbour it, Milton leaves him no choice but to
acknowledge himself as the source, and to lament.
A similar effect is achieved earlier in vn when 'wand'ring'
is structured into a deliberately misleading verse paragraph :
lest the like befall
In Paradise to Adam or his Race,
Charg'd not to touch the interdicted Tree,
If they transgress, and slight that sole command,
So easily obey'd amid the choice
Of all tastes else to please thir appetite,
Though wand'ring. (H-50)
At first 'Though wand'ring' seems to refer directly to Adam
and Eve : they should be able to resist the temptation of the
interdicted tree despite a tendency to wander: 'though'
becomes 'even though'. The effect depends on the position-
1 Tlu Works of John Milton, x.v. 23-25.
 In Wand'ring Mazes Lost 137

ing of the phrase; it springs out at the reader before he has

time to place it. When he does go back he will attach
'wand' ring' to 'appetite', but as a second reading this is
more problematical than the first. 'Wand'ring appetite'
immediately translates itself into immoderation, excess, lust.
Is there lust in Paradise? Do we glimpse here in Adam's
and Eve's domestic habits a weakness which will lead to the
fall? The answer to both questions is no and in the necessary
third reading the thought is finally unravelled : the pro-
hibition does not represent an appreciable gustatorial
restraint since the number of trees in Paradise precludes
satiation even if the inhabitants happen to be gourmets
(being a gourmet in Paradise is no more reproachable than
any other action). It is an unnecessary point, awkwardly
made, and its only purpose is to seduce the reader into an
interpretation he must give up (Adam will fall because he
wanders or has a wandering appetite), and in the process
remind him of a tendency to impose his own inadequacies,
verbal and moral, on Adam and Eve, Paradise, and God.
(It is we who must watch our appetites.) One can see from
this that the over-moralization of a word can have con-
sequences far beyond the resulting misreading. The
technique, in which the reader is led by the inconsistencies
(puzzles) of the 'surface materials' to a point which is not
made directly in the text, is, as D. W. Robertson has
taught us, basic to the method of Christian didacticism. 1
More specifically, it is an extension of the method Milton
describes as Christ's- 'not so much a teaching, as an
in tangling' - 2 the allowing (or forcing) of an error so that
it can be corrected in an experiential context (learning by
doing) within which the pupil will have an opportunity to
come to terms with his tendency to err. Because it suggests
1 A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton, I 962 ), pp. 52- I 37.
z Complete Prose Works, ii. 6,j.2.
138 Man's Polluting Sin

that there is something already wrong with Paradise, and

therefore implies, at a remove, I admit, that the Fall is the
fault of the situation and not of Adam and Eve, the reading
of 'Wand'ring appetite' as 'lustful appetite' is attractive
(seductive). We give it up reluctantly, and our reluctance
indicates how much we need the poem's instruction. But
more about that later.
After Book vn, the reader is ready at any time to deliver
two definitions of 'wand'ring'- (I) movement that is not
patterned or directed ( 2) straying from moral probity -
and the self-consciousness of his attitude toward the word
has created a third- irregular, but innocent. Moreover he
feels obliged to define the word precisely each time it occurs.
In his astronomical dissertation Raphael is careful to ascribe
no superiority to regular motions. The stars may pursue a
'wand' ring course' (vm. I 26) or at least one that appears to
wander and still be part of the praise the universe sends up
to God. In fact, the Ptolemaic system is scorned as an attempt
to 'save appearances' by making the heavens conform to
man's sense of order. 'Wand'ring' seems less innocent when
Adam agrees not to seek 'anxious cares ... with wand'ring
thoughts and notions vain' (I 87), but even in this con-
figuration 'wand'ring' means something like 'not as profit-
able as they could be' and 'vain' is almost a synonym for
indifferent, or at the worst frivolous. All actions and thoughts
are permitted in Paradise, although some are more advisable
than others. The ascent that Raphael promises 'in tract of
time' will perhaps be more rapid if Adam directs his thoughts
to the goodness of heaven and leaves its maintenance to God.
Still the worst to be said of 'wand' ring thoughts' is that they
are unprofitable, 1
As the Fall becomes imminent, the pressure (on the
reader) to moralize spatial language increases. When Satan
1 But later Adam will accuse Eve of'wand'ring vanity' (x. 87 5).
 In Wand'ring Mazes Lost 139

leads Eve to the forbidden tree his movements trace out the
morality of his action :
Hee leading swiftly roll'd
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy
Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wand'ring Fire,
Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night
Condenses, and the cold invirons round,
Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive Light,
Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way.
(xx. 631-40)
With 'tangles' and 'intricate' we return to the mazes of
philosophical vanity. Suddenly directions are no longer
innocent although Eve is innocent as she takes them since
her will does not yet concur in Satan's mischief. Satan's
wandering is evil, but Eve's is not. This distinction, between
the intention of the 'wand'ring Fire' and the 'wanderer' who
is misled by it, is a difficult one, since it requires the appor-
tioning of a single word ; but it must be made (the possibility
of not making it constitutes a temptation) lest the reader slip
into the error of pre-dating the actual commission of sin and
denying the spontaneousness of the Fall. (At this point, Eve
is in Uriel's position, involved in an evil which cannot be
imputed to her without distorting the facts.) The awaited
metamorphosis of 'wand'ring' is effected by Adam and Eve
themselves : Awaking to shame and uncleanliness, Adam
turns on Eve to upbraid her in what the epic voice calls
'alter'd style':
Would thou hadst heark'n'd to my words, and stay'd
With me, as I besought thee, when that strange
Desire of wand'ring this unhappy Morn,
I know not whence possess'd thee. (I I 34-7)
140 Man's Polluting Sin

The reader who has lived with the word for nine books will
realize at once that Adam has slipped into the fallen habit
of imputing evil to things and actions rather than persons.
The desire of wandering possesses Eve in some mysterious
fashion; even as he indicts her, Adam excuses her. Of
course Adam's use of 'wand'ring' is the correct one, now:
the straight and narrow way is no longer merely advisable,
it is necessary since any deviation may lead to eternal woe.
Adam is wrong, however, to apply the fallen meaning retro-
actively, and it is on this basis that Eve challenges him :

What words have past thy Lips, Adam severe,

Imput'st thou that to my default, or will
Of wand'ring, as thou call'st it.

Eve's 'what words' should be taken literally; she is question-

ing Adam's vocabulary as well as his accusation or identify-
ing one with the other. Adam's 'alter'd style' is more
'strange' than her desire. 'Wand'ring as thou call'st it' is
shorthand for, 'Is it now our lot to regard with anxiety the
"various motions" that have before signified the joyous
freedom of innocence?' What we see here is a new kind of
naming, or, as Eve characterizes it, calling, one that con-
trasts unfavourably to Adam's naming of the animals; the
newly fallen consciousness becomes aware of itself just as the
reader has been aware of himself all along, and for both
recognition comes through language. From this point on
Adam and Eve and the reader wander together in a fellow-
ship either party would be happy to forgo.
For the fallen Adam and Eve, wandering seems at first
to represent exile and hopelessness. Eve cries 'How shall
I part, and whither wander down I Into a lower World'
(xi. 282-3), and Adam echoes her fears when he despairs
for Noah whom 'Famine and anguish will at last consume I
 In Wand'ring Mazes Lost 141

Wand'ring that wat'ry Desert' (xr. 778-9). But in Book xn,

'wand'ring' undergoes a final transformation and is absorbed
into the Christian vision. The new meaning is first seen in
the description of Abraham: 'Not wand'ring poor, but
trusting all his wealth I With God, who call'd him, in a land
unknown' (xn. 1 33-4). Not 'wand'ring poor' although he is
wandering because Providence is directing him even if he
himself is unsure of the direction. Later Abraham's seed
will repeat his journey, wandering a wide wilderness, but
accompanied by 'The clouded Ark of God ... in Tents'
(333). Wandering is now the movement of faith, the sign of
one's willingness to go out at the command of God ; and so
it is for Adam and Eve when, enlightened by Michael, they
descend from Paradise :
TheWorld was all before them where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitary way.
One is meant to recall, as I have already suggested, the
wandering of Satan: 'Wand'ring this darksome Desert, as
my way I Lies through your spacious Empire up to light, I
Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek.' Certainly, how-
ever, the contrast is all. Satan wanders without hope of a
place of rest, either temporary or final while man wanders
but can choose to rest anywhere because his 'light' is with
him as long as he believes in it ; therefore he doesn't wander
at all. Under Providence, through the medium of faith, the
word is able to include all its meanings, even those which
are literally contradictory, and is thus returned, after many
permutations, to its original purity and innocence. Its
ambiguity, like all other refractions of the divine unity, has
been an illusion, our illusion. Despite anything we can do to
it, language, proceeding incorruptible from God, remains
incorruptible in its essence.
142 Man's Polluting Sin

(iv) THE GUILTY READER AND THE

INNOCENCE OF NATURE

The accumulated arguments of this chapter have been

anticipated in part by Joseph Summers who attributes to
Milton an early use of Henry James' technique of the 'guilty
reader': 'The readers as well as the characters have been
involved in the evil and have been forced to recognize and
to judge their involvement.' 1 For the most part the reader's
sense of guilt is bound up in the distinction he is repeatedly
asked to make between Adam and Eve and himself. He is
encouraged to compare his perceptions and reactions and
linguistic habits with theirs (insofar as they can be com-
pared) and to fashion from the comparisons a working
definition of innocence. The experience is primarily a dia-
lectical one and leaves little room for extended and con-
sidered self-recriminations. But from time to time, and in
one instance for an entire book, the pace slows and the
reader is invited to consider in a more leisurely fashion his
relationship to the totality of God's universe. It is then that
sin becomes the kind of burden it is for Bunyan's Christian:

I saw a Man cloathed with Raggs, standing in a certain

place, with his face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and
a great burden upon his Back. I looked, and saw him open the
Book, and Read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled:
and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a
lamentable cry; saying, what shall I do ?z

By reading in his book, Christian is given an insight into

his situation that staggers him and takes from him forever
I The Muse's Method, p. 3 I.

z The Pilgrim's Progress, ed. J. B. Wharey, rev. Roger Sharrock (Oxford,

196o), p. 8.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature 143

the complacency he once shared with those who have not

had his experience.
Complacency is most certainly not what Milton's reader
feels, even after only one hundred lines of the first book ;
but there is a certain exhilaration in the mental calisthenics
he is put through which works against the conviction of sin
and the feeling of helplessness before the fact of sin that
must precede any real contrition. The reader does not think
to cry, 'What shall I do?', because he is always doing some-
thing- analysing, judging, comparing, recalling. The
intuition that man is unworthy and can do nothing is not
likely to be properly humbling if one has worked very hard
to earn it. (It is physically and psychologically exhausting to
read this poem.) What the reader must finally learn is that
the analytical intellect, so important to the formulation of
necessary distinctions, is itself an instrument of perversion
and the child of corruption because it divides and contrasts
and evaluates where there is in reality a single harmonious
unity. The probing and discursive mind may be essential to
the piecing together of the shining oneness of Truth, but
at the end of the effort is the abandonment of self-conscious-
ness and the surrender to a truth which is no longer per-
ceived but participated in. Active seeking is a good only
because of the stasis assumed as its goal. Overvalue the
process and you deny the goal as something to be desired ;
indeed the lack of it becomes a virtue since it makes necessary
the activity you judge to be virtuous. This is in fact what
happens in some philosophies which place the highest
premium on 'becoming', but it will not do for Christianity
unless you are prepared to make the fortunate fall the
virtuous fall. Watkins, among others, does not shrink from
this final step :
The challenge she [Eve] meets is fundamental to the human
mind which to become civilized at all beyond a wild or vegetable
144 Man's Polluting Sin

state has had to break innumerable taboos, always risking failure

to distinguish the one true prohibition among so many false.
Granted the choice between unconscious good in mindless
immortality, and a period of wisdom followed by death, Milton
would choose the latter. I

Trial and error, however, is the way to distinguish the one

true prohibition only when it is not known. The challenge
Eve meets does not exist except as a result of her having
invented it. The same confusion informs Watkins' second
statement. By 'mindlessness' he means that since Adam and
Eve know no other possibility they do not really know the
good ; but this is what we have (literally) fallen into, knowing
good by evil. Adam and Eve do not know good, as we do,
by separating it from evil. They are a part of Good, as they
must be (everything proceeds incorruptible de deo), because
there is no evil. Evil is not a thing ; it is a state of being
which exists only in and for the will that chooses it ; it is
the voluntary breaking away from God, a voluntary meta-
morphosis of the self from unity with God, and therefore
with the good, into an isolated bit of evil. Choosing disunion
creates the fractured vision Watkins calls consciousness ; to
say that Adam and Eve are unconsciously good is meaning-
less unless it is intended as praise. The reader must under-
stand that mindlessness - a sense of well-being because the
mind knows nothing else (no better, we might say mis-
takenly)- is virtuous, and that his inability to be mindless
is his punishment. This insight awaits the reader in Book
vn, the creation scene, when Milton gives him an opport-
unity to relax, and be at his ease, and lets him feel the horror
of being able to do neither.
Watkins' phrase for the joyous movement of a universe
informed (made pregnant) by God is 'the rhythm of plenitude'
I A11 A11atomy ojMilto11's rerse (Baton Rouge, I95 s). PP· I 32, I 3 I.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature 145

and Adam and Eve are included in the picture he draws :

Having already surrounded with rich imagery of generation the
universe which Adam and Eve inhabit, he has only to gather
them silently into the rhythm of plenitude, so that they seem,
till eating the forbidden fruit, never self-conscious, ... sharing
in a general process of nature. 1
(This is so good that I wonder how Watkins can later
applaud the action that sets them apart from the 'general
process of nature'.) The rhythm of plenitude, on display
gloriously in Book vu, has been exhibited before in the
'various style' of the morning hymn. Their prayer is various,
that is non-patterned, because prayer is a praise of God ; and
in a universe that proceeds from God, the praise of any one
part is the praise of all. There really are no parts, only
multiple expressions of a single informing spirit. \Vhen the
harmony is broken, at least from man's point of view, and
he stands in relationship to God rather than in God, the
easy and various expression of praise will be replaced by the
rigidity of ritual, which, as C. S. Lewis explains, 'is a pattern
imposed on the mere flux of our feelings by reason and will',z
necessary because the reason and the will are themselves
inadequate to the task. This formally distanced way of
communicating with deity is introduced at the close of
Book x when the epic voice echoes ritualistically Adam's
design for praying :
What better can we do, than to the place
Repairing where he judg'd us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears
Watering the ground, and with our sighs the Air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek.
(ro86-<p)
1 An Anatomy of Milton's P'erse, p. 69.
z A Prefact to Paradise Lost (Oxford, 1942), p. 21.
146 Man's Polluting Sin

they forthwith to the place

Repairing where he judg'd them prostrate fell
Before him reverent, and both confess'd
Humbly thir faults, and pardon begg'd, with tears
Watering the ground, and with thir sighs the Air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek.

The repetitions indicate stylistically that prayers will here-

after be patterned, and ·not, as they had been in Eden,
spontaneous. But now, in Book v, Adam and Eve can say
anything that comes to mind because both the thing and the
mind live in God and are worthy of praise. A key line in the
prayer is 'Him first, him last, him midst, and without end'
(I 6 5), or in other words, without distinction or hierarchical
order. It does not matter where you begin to pray or where
you begin to look for God. Significantly, the first of God's
works to declare his goodness does not have a fixed position
in the universe : 'Fairest of Stars, last in the train of Night, /
If better thou belong not to the dawn' ( 1 6 6-7 ). Summers
comments perceptively, 'The fact that the star may be
conceived either as "last in the train of Night" or as first
"pledge of day" is a matter for glory rather than doubt, as
is also, perhaps, the thought of the identity of Hesperus, the
holy Venus, and the unfallen Lucifer.' 1 It is a matter for
glory also that terms like first and last are qualitatively
neutral. Throughout the prayer our first parents employ
with a fine indifference words and images we associate with
an evil that does not yet exist. The sun 'climb'st' or 'fall'st'
(' "Fall'st" occupies the strongest possible position as the
final syllable of the line, the sentence, and the section')1.
and one motion is as much a vehicle for praise as the other.
I The Muse's Method, p. So. 2 Loc. cit.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature I 47

The planets are 'wand'ring Fires' (177), wandering not

through God's sufferance, but as part of his easy order,
whereby things are 'regular ... when most irregular they
seem' (623-4). 'Mists and Exhalations' (I85) rising or
falling 'still advance his praise' (I 9 I), as do the constituents
of Chaos 'the eldest birth I Of Nature's Womb' (I 8o-I)
which (from the Satanic perspective) has presented so
villainous an aspect in Book u. Later Raphael describes the
movements of heavenly bodies as 'mazes intricate' (622), and
thus baptizes another image which had appeared irredeem-
able in Hell. Obversely, usually positive images and symbols
lose their preferred status. God is presented as he 'who out
of Darkness call'd up Light' (179), but the praise is for the
miracle, not its content; darkness out of light would be
equally praiseworthy. Not that the line can be read without
an awareness of the symbolic pattern which has operated in
the poem from the first ; but one must realize that for Adam
and Eve no such pattern yet exists ; they have no need of it.
The prayer ends with a wish which seems to us fraught with
moral implications : 'Hail universal Lord, be bounteous still I
To give us only good; and if the night I Have gathered
aught of evil or conceal' d, I Disperse it, as now light dispels
the dark' (205-8). It is impossible to read this without
substituting good for light and evil for dark, but Adam is
merely reaching for an analogy in nature (he looks up and
sees it happening ; had it been evening the thought might
have been reversed) and the fact that he hits upon the
symbolism of fallen moral discourse is an accident. (Even
in Book xu Adam uses the bringing of light out of darkness
as an analogy for, rather than an instance of, bringing good
out of evil : 'That all this good of evil shall produce, I And
evil turn to good ; more wonderful I Than that which by
creation first brought forth I Light out of darkness !')
Summers speaks of the 'ultimate implications of their
148 Man's Polluting Sin

prayers' 1 which include 'the chief metaphysical theme of the

poem, the Fall',z But if the Fall is implied or foreshadowed
in the prayer it is no part of their intention, nor is it their
responsibility. Summers adds, 'a reading of the morning
hymn necessarily entails a consideration of much beyond
the hymn.' The necessity is ours and defines the difference
between us and Adam and Eve who need consider nothing
beyond their present bliss. There are no implications m
Paradise.
The reader's inability to simulate the mindlessness of
innocence by reading passively (without implications) is
especially noticeable in Book vn where there are no narrative
concerns to draw attention away from the operations of his
own consciousness. Adam and Eve are not yet created, and
have not been directly presented to us as characters since
v. 56o. (Adam does comment on the war in Heaven and
asks Raphael to go on, but his remarks are little more than
offstage promptings and do little to return him to centre
stage.) Satan has been swept off the scene, ignominiously,
not even by name, one of a flock of timorous goats ; in strict
sequential time he is safely battened away in Hell and
guarded by a heavenly patrol led by Raphael. Raphael too,
although he is nominally our narrator is 'completely for-
gotten during his narrative : mainly because this is the
familiar transition in the second chapter of Genesis, which
Milton follows almost word for word'. 3 The reader is alone
with God and with all the thoughts he has brought with him
from the experience of the poem.
God begins by asserting 'I am who fill I Infinitude'
(168-9). All creation flows from him, is him, and is there-
fore good. This includes chaos, 'the vast immeasurable
Abyss I Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wild' (21 1-12).
1 Tlu Muse's Method, pp. 83, So. 2 Ibid., p. 84.
3 Watkins, An Anatomy ofMilton's Yerse, p. 65.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature I 49

Chaos is merely that part of God from which he has with-

drawn his active goodness. 'Though I uncircumscribed my-
self retire' -although I still fill infinitude I leave portions
of myself without informing direction. Chaos is a storehouse
of materials and is at worst morally neutral ('wasteful'
means not yet used, or left over from previous creations).
Its outrageousness and wildness and darkness are conditions
of its relationship to the active presence of God; the dis-
tinction to be made is between one kind of perfection -
we might call it chaotic perfection - and another, the
perfection of God's imposed order:

Silence, ye troubl'd waves, and thou Deep, peace,

Said then th' Omnific Word, your discord end.
(216-17)

Chaos's discord is also God's. We are not to imagine a

recalcitrantly independent matter resisting the constraint
of an enemy power. Chaos hears God's voice and obeys it
willingly (the adverb may be meaningless) and joyfully:
'him all his train I Follow'd in bright procession to behold I
Creation and the wonders of his might' (22 1-3). Even the
cold infernal (that is, destined to be used in the construction
of the lower regions) dregs are adverse to life only in the
sense that other materials are more answerable to God's
present purposes. Milton steadfastly refused to construct
a hierarchy which would involve qualitative distinctions
between portions of God's created good. Light is the
'Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure', and it is good:
but the angelic choir, hymning, sings the creator 'Both when
first Ev'ning was, and when first Morn'. Later the heavenly
lights are instituted to 'divide' the day from the night, and
the division is clearly physical, the means of the 'grateful
vicissitude' Raphael remarks on at VI. 8. There is no
L F.s.s.
 I 50 Man's Polluting Sin

dualism here except that provided by a Manichean reader. 1

If the reader has been properly attentive in the early parts
of the poem, his own perceptions will come back to haunt
him here in Book VII. I have already noted the impact of the
line 'with Serpent error wand'ring' (302) which can be read
properly only by stripping the three words of the meanings
they have acquired in the preceding books, that is by
acknowledging the irrelevance, in context, of their pejora-
tive associations. A similar manoeuvre is called for when
Milton insists on the innocence of icons he has previously
used to represent sin. The epic similes of 1 and II establish
habits of mind and patterns of association that are continu-
ally useful and relevant. This is especially true of the
Leviathan simile which reaches out to embrace Satan and
Pharaoh, the serpent and the river-dragon, all the night-
foundered wanderers who are misled by false lights or
seeming islands, every deceiver and every deception. It is, to
say the least, surprising, then, to meet the simile once again
in strange surroundings, amidst the joyful numbering of
God's created:
there Leviathan
Hugest ofliving Creatures, on the Deep
Stretcht like a Promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving Land.
(4-12-15)
In Book I, Leviathan-Satan lies 'extended long and large ...
1 Of course, as Jackson Cope points out (The Metaphoric Structure of

Paradise Lost, p. 1 26), 'there are limits beyond which liberty in manipulating
traditional symbols becomes license'. The traditional associations of good with
light and evil with dark operates everywhere in the poem except at moments
like this when Milton is reaching back to a time when such symbolism was
unnecessary, when darkness was as comforting and holy as light. In general,
however, nothing I say here should be taken to contradict Cope's discussion
of the manipulation oflight imagery as a prime instance of the 'mode of paradox'
and the Renaissance tradition of discordia concors.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature I 5I

floating many a rood, in bulk ... huge', waiting until a pilot

deems him 'some island'. The verbal echo is undeniable, but
it is also irrelevant, at least as a statement about the structure
of the universe. It says nothing about the Leviathan whose
playfulness (we see him spouting out seas from his trunk)
recalls the gambolling of the 'unwieldy Elephant' wreathing
'His Lithe Proboscis'. Both images are deliciously genial
and natural, cosmically humorous. But when the Leviathan
is viewed through fallen man's distorting lenses he is spoiled,
remaining at the same time innocent of his spoiling, just as
the language of Paradise remains innocent of the anxieties
that are read into it. The creation scene is the most objective
presentation in the poem of the cosmic harmony Milton
celebrates; it is the reader's misfortune not to be able to
imitate the joyous and spontaneous abandon God's other
creatures display here. Instead he saddles them with his
burden.
The reader's action parallels Adam's. Corruption is not
inherent in God's plan or in the matter that flows from him.
God wills only good. Evil enters as a consequence of his
conditional decree, and the responsibility for it rests with the
free agent who defaults on an obligation he has contracted
and is capable of meeting. The decree as formulated deals
specifically with the contracting parties : 'On the day thou
eatest, thou shalt die'. But the effects of sin extend far beyond
the person or control of the sinner who is punished, in part,
by seeing his sin envelop those innocent of it. In the narra-
tive proper the harmony of nature is not disrupted until after
the Fall when God bids his angels 'See with what heat these
Dogs of Hell advance I To waste and havoc yonder World,
which I I So fair and good created' (x. 6 I 6-1 8). Thus God
himself invites the question so many have asked. Why?
why is all creation to be given over to Sin and Death? The
answer is immediately forthcoming :
I 52 Man's Polluting Sin

and had still

Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man
Let in these wasteful Furies. (618-20)
Let in. Adam agrees not to perform a (negative) action
whose significance (as far as he knows) is as a pledge of faith ;
and the fact that the action has consequences of which he is
not aware does not affect his original obligation or his
capabilities, even though he will be held responsible for
those consequences :
I call'd and drew them thither
My Hell-hounds to lick up the draff and filth
Which man's polluting Sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure. (629-32)
God does not execute his decree with pleasure, yet he must
allow the forces let loose by man's error to run their course
or deny man the dignity imputed to him by the original
contract. Within fifty lines the landscape that dances before
us in Book vn changes completely:
Beast now with Beast gan war, and Fowl with Fowl,
And Fish with Fish; to graze the Herb all leaving,
Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Of man, but fled him or with count'nance grim
Glar'd on him passing: these were from without
The growing miseries, which Adam saw.
(710-15)
Which Adam saw, which Adam caused, which we cause
still. In Book x the disruption of nature is effected at a
distance from the reader as a result of events he is involved
in only as an observer. When God cites 'Man' it is a generic
term in a legal indictment ; it might as well be 'party of the
first part'. But in the creation scene it is the reader who
personally 'lets in' sin and there is no one with whom he can
comfortably divide the responsibility.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature 153

There is a word for what happens to nature as a result of

man's sin: unfair. And John Peter uses it to characterize
Milton's treatment of the serpent: 'to condemn the serpent
for the deeds which it performs unwittingly, under Satan's
control, is grossly unfair. A clear distinction is needed
between the reptile and the spirit who has usurped its form.' 1
The distinction is there, made by Satan when after long
debate he chooses 'The Serpent subtlest Beast of all the
Field •.. f Fit Vessel, fittest Imp of fraud' (IX. 86, 8 9). This
does not mean that the serpent was intended by God to be a
vehicle of fraud. Like everything else in the universe, the
serpent has his appointed place in the divine order, and the
place is good. Satan views the universe from a distorted
angle and sees, or more properly creates, properties and
uses that are accidental to the essence of the thing. It is evil
intent that makes evil instruments.
Peter's objection is interestingly phrased and contains at
least one inaccuracy : the serpent is not condemned, but
'accurst' (x. 84). Conviction would belong to the serpent
only if he sinned 'wittingly'. But he cannot : although the
beasts reason 'Not contemptibly', their reason is necessarily
right. Wilful disobedience is not a possibility, because they
are willess ; for them reason is not choosing, but programmed
obedience. The obverse of this is the inability of the serpent
or any other unfree agent to resist: nature is, in effect, at the
mercy of a consciousness who decides to pervert one of her
multiple forms from its natural good, by appropriating it for
evil (disobedient) purposes or by setting it up as an idol.
(Satan does both in the battle : he perverts the minerals of
heaven by fashioning them into weapons to be used against
God's angels, and by abstracting matter from its place in the
divine order, he makes it his God; Satan is the poem's true
materialist.) Once appropriated or idolized, however, the
1 A Critique of Paradise Lost, p. I I 5·
154 Man's Polluting Sin

innocent form becomes part of the sphere of evil which

possesses it. Milton emphasizes the passivity of the serpent
by having him sleep through his violation :
Nor nocent yet, but on the grassy Herb
Fearless unfear'd he slept: in at his Mouth
The Devil enter'd, and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing soon inspir'd.
(Ix. I 86-<), emphasis mine)

When evil enters the mind of beast or the substance of

matter it does leave a spot behind (though no blame) and
corruption has occurred. The logic behind Christ's judging
of the serpent is carefully explained by the epic voice in a
passage Peter finds 'astounding' and 'wholly unacceptable' :I
ToJudgementhe proceeded on th' accus'd
Serpent though brute, unable to transfer
The Guilt on him who made him instrument
Of mischief, and pollutedfrom the end
Of his Creation; justly then accurst,
As vitiated in Nature.
(x. 164-9, emphasis mine)

The language is the same God uses to describe the vitiation

of Nature: 'man's polluting Sin with taint hath shed I On
what was pure'. On what is no longer pure. The serpent, and
later all of nature, are subject to a kind of infernal tran-
substantiation. They are literally consumed by evil, and
although incorruptible in their essence (when Christ
destroys Satan's work in man, 'Heav'n and Earth renew'd
shall be made pure') they are impure in their present
position and are adjudged so : 'justly then accurst, I As
vitiated in Nature'. It is just in that the curse is merely a
formal recognition of what has happened ; that which has
been corrupted is corrupt. It is of course unjust or unfair if
I Critique, pp. I I S-I6.
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature 1 SS

one considers the culpability of the serpent, but that injustice

is not God's who merely establishes the laws of his universe
and leaves their maintenance to his appointed agents, who
are assigned spheres of responsibility. (Peter should be
angry at Satan and Adam, not God.) Since these spheres of
responsibility are interdependent, a disruption of the order
at any one point will affect areas beyond it ; in short the
innocent will suffer. (Lear threatens the entire structure of his
kingdom when he removes his support from a central
position.) Adam wrestles with this problem when he cries,
'Ah why should all mankind I For one man's fault thus
guiltless be condemn'd, I If guiltless?' The reader knows
the answer and so does Adam : 'But from me what can pro-
ceed, But all corrupt.' This is the long day's dying Adam
laments, the true punishment for his sin :
if here would end
The misery, I deserv'd it, and would
My own deservings; but this will not serve;
All that I eat or drink, or shall beget
Is propagated curse.
(x. 725-9)
To Adam's question, 'Why should not Man, I Retaining
still Divine similitude I In part, from such deformities be
free?' (xi.5II-IJ), Michael answers, 'Thir Maker's
Image . . . I Forsook them, when themselves they vilifi' d'
(51 5-1 6), again absolving God of responsibility and return-
ing it to man. The argument that Adam should have known
the cosmic implications of his disobedience if he was to be
in control of his situation, does not hold because obedience
is an affirmation of loyalty despite appearances, and not a
decision between visible alternatives. (Actually, Raphael
does warn, 'thine and of all thy Sons I The weal or woe in
thee is plac't; beware', but Adam cannot know what the
angel means.)
I s6 Man's Polluting Sin

Satan's single action- the exploitation of the serpent

- is a model for what man does every day of his sinful life.
He makes things the vehicles of his evil and then puts them
away (judges them accursed) as if they were guilty. (Arma-
ments are the extension of the violence in our souls, but we
try to ban them.) This is what the reader does in Book VII
when he draws the Leviathan and the serpent into his
polluted consciousness :
the rest are numberless
And thou thir Natures know'st, gav'st them Names,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
The Serpent subtl'st Beast of all the field;
Of huge extent sometimes; with brazen Eyes
And hairy Mane terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.
(492-8)
This is one of the few times in Raphael's narrative that we
are aware of Adam as narrator ('to thee', 'at thy call'). The
intention is to contrast his naming and understanding with
ours ; to Adam and Raphael (who is ignorant- a very bad
word- of the serpent's role in Adam's fall) the serpent is
merely the last and one of the more interesting of God's
creatures. If there is any significance to his position in the
catalogue, it is a positive one. As the subtlest of all the field
he is closest in intelligence to man, a fact that does not
escape Satan. The irony in the sentence before this one is
double-edged. With every other reader I am condemned to
see in this praise of the serpent an ominousness that is
simply not there. The possibilities are endless: 'Not
noxious? how little you know, Raphael. Obedient at thy
call? would that were so and not the reverse.' But Raphael's
ignorance and Eve's eventual weakness are less reprehensible
(if they do indeed exist) than the reader's overactive and
suspicious intellect. Every commentator who writes on the
 The Guilty Reader and the Innocence of Nature 157

creation scene uses the same words, joyous, easy, delightful,

happy, fecund, natural, good, innocent. It is no exaggeration
I think to say that this is a composite statement of what
Book vn is without us, and could be for us were we able to
lose ourselves in its rhythms. But how can we when every
other line demands a readjustment, a purging of what we
interpolate? Can we recognize the peacock 'whose gay
Train I Adorns him' without recalling his traditional
significance? Can we read of insects 'In all the Liveries
deckt of Summer's pride' or of swans 'mantling proudly' and
know at once, without reflection, that here pride is permis-
sible and good because it is pride in one's nature as God
ordained it, and therefore a praise of God? I think not. At
best the fit reader will come to see this only after he has been
brought up short by the word and reasoned away from the
meaning it now has for him. Man may have been created
in God's image but he has defaced it and now recreates the
world in his own. Raphael's narrative ends with a warning
'lest sin I Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death'
(546-7). Had he thought of it Adam could have responded
with a formula he has used before : 'Whate' er sin is'. We
are neither so fortunate nor so ignorantly wise.
4 Standing Only:
Christian Heroism
The way of the Lord is strength to the
upright, PROVERBS

INTRODUCTION

When Milton asks of Eve's and Adam's trespass, 'For what

sin can be named, which was not included in this one act',
he does not mean that in this sin are potentially all sins, but
that this sin is all sins :
If the circumstances of this crime are duly considered, it will be
acknowledged to have been a most heinous offense, and a trans-
gression of the whole law. For what sin can be named, which was
not included in this one act? It comprehended at once distrust in
the divine veracity, and a proportionate credulity in the assurances
of Satan; unbelief; ingratitude; disobedience; gluttony; in the
man excessive uxoriousness, in the woman a want of proper
regard for her husband, in both an insensibility to the welfare of
their offspring, and that offspring the whole human race; patricide,
theft, invasion of the rights of others, sacrilege, deceit, pre-
sumption in aspiring to divine attributes, fraud in the means
employed to attain the object, pride, and arrogance. Whence it is
said, Eccles. VII. 29 : 'God hath made man upright, but they
have sought out many inventions.' James ii. I o: 'whosoever shall
keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.'
(The Works of John Milton, xv. 181-3)
In effect, the 'whole law' as it is given by Moses and
multiplied as situations multiply is no more than a single
command : obey God. 'The circumstances of this crime'
make it a multiple offence because one's duty to God
 Introduction I 59

subsumes all other duties. In Milton's monistic universe,

where 'all things are of God' (de deo), a sin against the source
is a sin against all. A proper sense of one's relationship to
God will yield a proper attitude toward everything that
flows from him, since all relationships and the values
embodied in them depend on his sustaining power. To turn
away from God is to turn away from all values and to default
on all obligations, whether they be racial, political or familial.
Gabriel scorns Satan's characterization of himself as a
'faithful Leader' by pointing out how meaningless the word
is divorced from God :
and couldst thou faithful add? 0 name,
0 sacred name offaithfulness profan'd!
Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?
Army of Fiends, fit body to fit head;
Was this your discipline and faith ingag'd,
Your military obedience to dissolve
Allegiance to th' acknowledg'd Power supreme?
(rv. 950-6)

Faith, discipline, obedience - they are one, along with

heroism and love ; and none of them can be invoked to
sanction a movement away from God.
While the moral structure of the universe - its radical
unity- survives the Fall, man's ability to perceive it does
not. The impairment of his vision is reflected in the nature
of the acts he is required to perform. Adam and Eve need
only refrain from doing something to affirm their obedience,
for in this one act (not doing something is also an action)
they discharge their obligations to all derivative forms,
keeping the whole law by keeping one point of it (which is
the law). But fallen man must keep every point in order to
fulfil one. The symbolic force of the single prohibition is
transferred to the innumerable instances it originally in-
cluded; thus the bondage of the law whose details press in
z6o Standing Only: Christian Heroism

on us always, and the impossibility of fulfilling it. The

distinction is one of degree rather than of kind. In both
states the decision to obey is made all the time. Adam and
Eve obey every second they decline to disobey, even when
no one is inviting them to. The tree is always there and
eating of it is always a possibility and not eating of it is
always virtue. The literal physicality of the law - the fact
of the tree- merely makes it easier for them to see what
the issue is- obedience to God- for no other reason for
not eating exists. (Satan perverts this insight into a reason
for eating.) In the Fall, the issue is confused when alterna-
tive considerations are created (i.e., Eve's welfare) and as
punishment this momentary confusion becomes a permanent
part of man's intellectual equipment. That is to say, he is no
longer able to see the oneness of God's law and is delivered
to the Mosaic law, the perfect reflection of his divided vision.
Under the law man is in effect made to commit the original
mistake again and again, because the machinery of legalism
conspires with his own defective reason to prevent him
from seeing that behind every statute is a single command
- obey God. (Those who accept Christ live again in pre-
lapsarian freedom because they fulfil the entire law through
the single decision to believe that he has redeemed them ;
this belief is the belief Adam and Eve evidence as long as
they do not eat.)
What Milton describes in the Areopagitica -the piecing
together of the shattered image of truth - is no more than
this, the recovery of the unified moral vision of Edenic
innocence; and it is the task he sets the reader in the poem.
The preceding chapters have been concerned largely with
the discovery by the reader of his fallen self; this, however,
is but one half of an action requiring for its completion the
transformation of the reader's mind into an instrument
capable (in Richardson's words) of receiving 'Such Im-
 Introduction I 6I

pressions as the Poet intended to give it'. This transfor-

mation or education is an extension of the basic pattern we
have observed so often- mistake-correction-instruction:
first the gross and carnal conception of a virtue or a value is
evoked, and subsequently challenged, and finally the reader
is asked to infer from the actions or words of personages
more reliable than himself the essence that his earthly
apprehension had been unable to discern. Invariably the
result is the identification of the virtue or value under
consideration with the all-inclusive value of obedience. In
this way the 'dissevered pieces' of the 'body of truth' are
rejoined, 'limb by limb', until, hopefully, the reader is able
to perceive the 'perfect shape' whose wholeness had been
obscured by his distorting vision. ('The very esssence of
Truth is plainnesse, and brightnes, the darknes and crooked-
nesse is our own.')
The degree to which the reader succeeds in reassembling
Truth's 'lovely form' will be evidenced in his (considered)
response to the act that first violated it. If he has submitted
to the discipline of the poem and negotiated the courses of
instruction Milton lays out for him, this 'most heinous
crime' will be seen in its true light, as 'a transgression of the
whole law' and therefore of those values in whose name the
original sin is supposedly committed. If, however, he is
unwilling to expend the considerable effort necessary to
'repair the ruins' of his first parents, his ability to understand
what is happening (as opposed to what appears to be
happening or what he might like to believe is happening) is
progressively eroded, and he comes to the crucial scene
incapable of rebutting the rationalizations put forward by
Adam and Eve and by his own unregenerate reason.
What I am proposing is a direct relationship between the
(potential) effect the poem has on the reader and his ability
to read it; a curiously circular relationship whose explanation
I 62 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

lies in the uniqueness of the poem's subject-matter. In

other words, Paradise Lost is a primer designed to teach the
reader how to interpret it, and especially to interpret it at
the point where the characters perform that action which
made its writing and reading necessary. The element of
risk, in view of Milton's stated intention, to 'justify the ways
of God to men', is considerable ; for there is every possibility,
and some probability, that many readers will respond
inadequately to the poet's challenge, and end by saddling
themselves with misconceptions more harmful than any
they may have brought with them. The mechanics of the
educative process, along with the dangers that attend it,
will be examined in this and the two following chapters.

(i) BAPTIZ'D OR INFIDEL

One of the more misleading questions that has been asked of

Paradise Lost is, is Satan really courageous? Misleading
because it assumes that an answer, one way or the other, will
help to settle a great issue, the identity of the poem's hero;
whereas, in truth, the concept of heroism implied in the
question is not the norm Milton would have us accept. In an
important way epic heroism, of which Satan is a noteworthy
instance, is the antithesis of Christian heroism, and a large
part of the poem is devoted to distinguishing between the
two and showing the superiority of the latter. Since this
involves the debunking of an ideal the reader brings with
him from other epics, the reading experience is once again
educative and, in a special sense, disillusioning.
Milton's subversion of the ideal of martial valour begins
as early as I. 57 I, when Satan 'Darts his experienc't eye'
through the armed files of his legions :
 Baptiz'd or Infidel 163

Thir number last he sums. And now his heart

Distends with pride, and hard'ning in his strength
Glories: For never since created man,
Met such imbodied force, as nam'd with these
Could merit more than that small infantry
Warr'd on by Cranes.
(571-6)
This is rather late in Book 1, and the reader has already been
warned against taking Satanic poses seriously and at face
value. 'Thir number last he sums' alludes to David's prideful
numbering of Israel ('And Satan .•. provoked David');
the simile is tainted before it is offered and the reader
fully expects Satan and his host to be damned with faint
praise, as they have been earlier. What he does not expect
is an indirect attack on all the heroes, who, with the best
of intentions, find themselves in Satan's position, leading
armies.
Limited though it may be, James Whaler's method of
classifying similes is helpful because his categories corres-
pond to proportional formulas. This particular simile,
according to Whaler, falls into the fourth category, 'Complex
Pattern with Four Terms in a Ratio' and is diagrammed as
follows :I
AI. Sl(s+ s' + s" etc.)= Sl. S2
r
Al= Satan's host; Sl= all heroes of history and legend;
S2 =pygmies ('that small infantry') and r= with respect to
numbers and prowess. Or to transliterate : with respect to
numbers and prowess, Satan's host is to all the heroes of
history or legend as all the heroes of legend and history are
to pygmies. The trouble with this is that it is the result of
an operation made on the text after the fact ; it is not a
I 'The Miltonic Simile', PMLA, xlvi (193 1), 1034-74·
164 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

description of the relationships as they are perceived in

time, and in this case, the statement as formulated is not
even accurate.
To the casual reader Whaler's schematization is surpris-
ing because of an omission. What has happened to the
cranes? One could answer I suppose that the cranes are
not a part of the similaic structure ; they serve only to identify
the 'small infantry' by referring to an exemplum everyone
knows. But this ignores the logic of the reading experience
in which the cranes are accorded a position before they
appear. Like a Ciceronian period, a simile has a rhythm of
its own, a rhythm already established when the pivot point
is reached, i.e. the equal sign in Whaler's linear presentation.
The 'imbodied force' simile is easily mistaken for a 'complex
pattern with four terms in a ratio' because it looks like one.
In such a ratio, the placing of the first two terms in some
kind of proportional relation is sufficient to create an
assumption of the third and fourth. In fact, the reader is
eager to infer the whole pattern from a part, because it
simplifies his task, especially if this simile is hard to keep
track of, as this one surely is. The difficulty begins before
the simile does: in its position 'created man' could be either
an absolute construction or the subject of a verb which has
not yet been given. 'Met' only complicates the situation
since it seems to be the verb 'created man' is waiting for;
'such imbodied force' would then be the object of 'Met',
identified with Satan's host. 'As nam'd with these' shows
this to be impossible since 'these' refers to Satan's host
which is surely not being compared to itself. (Later, when
the 'imbodied force' of legendary heroes is mocked, the
mockery attaches itself to Satan's host which, at one point,
had seemed to be the body referred to.) The confusion
resolves itself finally into 'compared with Satan's host, any
force man has marshalled since he was created ... '. A
 Baptiz' d or Infidel I 65

pattern, apparently proportional, has emerged, and the eye,

anticipating its completion, glances forward and fashions,
prematurely but understandably, the second half of the
simile: 'compared with Satan's host, any force man has
marshalled since he was created would be as pygmies are to
cranes.' (This misreading, while it seems unlikely in retro-
spect is the result of the availability of 'small infantry' and
'Cranes' just when two terms are needed.) Of course it
doesn't work, and the reading is rejected almost immediately;
but for a moment, and a moment is enough, Satan's army is
reduced to the status of pygmies or cranes. A second
reading will rearrange the four terms into three and yield
Whaler's progression of relative magnitudes: Satan's host
is to all heroes as all heroes are to pygmies. But this is the
reverse of what is meant ; the superiority of the heroes to the
pygmies is being denied in the simile. (This will be obscured
for the reader because 'could merit more' is read without
the qualifying 'never', which has been forgotten, and hence
seems to imply that the 'imbodied force' could merit more
than something ; whereas the simile is telling us that the
'imbodied force' has no merit at all.) The size of Satan's
host is not to be comprehended by reference to an analogous
proportion, for in comparison to that army all other forces
are reduced to a single level of insignificance. If we retain
Whaler's symbols, a new formula (one which emerges from
the necessary third reading) can be constructed : _A1 stands
in such a relationship to S1 that S1 equals S 2 equals S3 and
so on; that is, _A1 is so huge as to make all S's equally un-
impressive, no matter what difference may pertain between
them on a lesser scale of measurement. This is essentially
Newton's reading: 'All the heroes and armies that ever
were assembled were no more than pygmies in comparison
with these Angels.' 1 'Small infantry' is merely shorthand for
1 Paradise Lost, 1749·
M F.s.s.
166 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

smallness, i.e. pygmylike ; it could as well have been flies

or rabbits. The intention is not in any way to magnify the
strength of human armies, but to denigrate it. The two terms
-pygmies and all imbodied forces- are an equality in
size and merit. The distinction between them, although it is
encouraged for a time by the unfolding of the simile, exists
only in the mind of the reader who expects it because he
identifies military prowess with heroism.
The simile does not wait for the reader to adjust to its
implications, but proceeds to drive home its point with a
vengeance:
though all the Giant brood
Of Phlegra with th' Heroic Race were join'd
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side
Mixt with auxiliar Gods; and what resounds
In Fable or Romance of Uther's Son
Begirt with British and Armoric Knights;
And all who since, Baptiz'd or Infidel
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,
Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond,
Or whom Eiserta sent from Afric shore
When Charlemain with all his Peerage fell
By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond
Compare of mortal prowess. (576-88)
The list of heroes and armies is in apposition to the inade-
quacy of 'imbodied force'. The sense is, all human forces are
pygmylike even though you were to combine in one force
Sl + S2 + ss etc. ; yet in the space of seven lines, the reader
forgets what he has just learned and tries to make distinc-
tions all over again. There is an obvious and easy progression
in the list from the armies of the oft-discredited giants to
the conspicuously Christian armies of Charlemagne and all
his peerage or, in the typology of the poem, from Satan's
warriors to God's, with sidelong glances at the worlds of
pagan heroes and chivalric knights. The sense of a progres-
 Baptiz'd or Infidel 167

sion results in part from the placing of 'brood', 'auxiliar',

'Fable or Romance'. These words share a sneering tone that
is logically an extension of 'that small infantry I Warr' don by
Cranes'; but within a few lines the roll-call of heroes detaches
itself from the simile (it is simply too long a time to keep the
simile in mind) and becomes an autonomous unit. In the
new framework, 'brood' 'auxiliar' 'Fable' and 'Romance'
seem to exist together on the lower rungs of a ladder that is
being climbed in these lines. 'Brood' continues the animal
motif of cranes, adding to it the impression of tameness and
passivity. (Something we shall see again in the timorous herd
of goats cast out of Heaven by the triumphant Son.) The
effect of 'auxiliar' is difficult to describe; but it is not unlike
the effect of expatiate in 'New rubb'd with Balm, expatiate
and confer I Thir state affairs' (1. 774-5, emphasis mine).
Both 'expatiate' and 'auxiliar' work against the poses assumed
by the agents they belong to; 'expatiate' mocks the high
seriousness of the bee council, 'auxiliar' unmakes Gods who
should, by definition, be necessary rather than auxiliary.
'Fable' and 'Romance', of course, bear the taint of fancy and
illusion in an age of rationalism (soon Milton will scorn
pagan fablers who err). But the reader who is ready and
willing to devalue the military exploits of pagans and
Saracens is unprepared for the phrase 'Baptiz'd or Infidel'.
Again a distinction which had been half-assumed is not
allowed; this 'or' is not disjunctive, but inclusive. Crusader
or anti-Christ, it doesn't matter according to the ideal put
forward by the epic voice, an ideal that is only now beginning
to emerge as the result of the negation of other ideals. The
equality of baptized and infidel, at least as justifications for
the veneration of martial heroism, parallels the earlier
equation of all embodied forces and pygmies; and in both
cases the reader who perceives the identity must give up a
scale of values he probably brings with him. The entire
168 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

scaffolding of Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered falls with

'Baptiz'd or Infidel' and it is never rebuilt in the course of
Paradise Lost. (It falls again when, through the agency of a
parenthesis, the crusading knights are absorbed into the bee
simile, and undergo, with the devils, the diminution that
follows.) 1
Milton is not yet done with us. He makes his point for a
third time in the short distance between Aspramont and
Fontarabbia. The reader moves easily and almost physically
through the l's, r's, s's, and b's of Aspramont, Montalban,
Damasco, Marocco, Trebisond, Biserta toward the comfortable
orthodoxy of Charlemagne whose heroic credentials would
have been considered impeccable but a few moments ago,
only to be halted at ss6 by the syntactical and metrical
stress on 'fell'. The verb, with all the associations it calls up,
forcibly shatters the spell of names, insisting on the sameness
of Charlemagne and all those who have jousted (played) for
whatever cause, reminding us that the roll is called only to
indicate what devilish might can easily surpass. 'Thus far
these beyond/ Compare of mortal prowess' How far? so far
that the differential cannot be graphed. (One should hear
the contempt in 'mortal prowess'.) The simile makes it
all access was throng'd, the Gates
And Porches wide, but chief the spacious Hall
(Though like a cover'd field, where Champions bold
Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldan's chair
Defi'd the best of Paynim chivalry
To mortal combat or career with Lance)
Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,
Brusht with the hiss of rustling wings. As Bees.... '
(1. 761-8)
Because of the parenthesis, it is also the 'Champions bold' (Christian knights)
who 'swarm' in the spacious Hall and are 'as Bees'. There is possibly another
hit at chivalric heroism in Milton's choosing to suggest that Charlemagne fell
at Fontarabbia. In fact, as Newton points out in his note to the line, 'He was
at last victorious over his enemies and died in peace'.
 Baptiz' d or Infidel 169

impossible to locate heroism in the stance of battle, no matter

how noble the standard one follows. Davis Harding empha-
sizes the ambiguity of Milton's allusions to the heroes of
classical epic :
he builds up a cluster of associations around Satan and his
followers which exert a steady pressure upon his readers,
inviting them, almost compelling them, time after time to make
specific acts of comparison and contrast ... if the implied com-
parisons with Achilles, Turnus, Odysseus, Aeneas, Prometheus,
and other heroes serve to magnify our impression of Satan's heroic
grandeur, they also simultaneously provide the grounds for
impugning him both as character and symbol. I

Thus a similarity between a Satanic speech and one of

Sarpedon's is damaging because 'the contrast between the
simple, impassioned eloquence of Sarpedon and Satan's
artful eloquence calls the latter's sincerity into question.' I
would suggest an even more complex and more ambivalent
relationship : for if the devils suffer when their actions and
motives are contrasted with the actions and motives of epic
heroes, these heroes in turn do not escape the taint of
Satanism, since their valour is qualified by its availability to
devils.z The reader who accepts Milton's invitation 'to make
specific acts of comparison and contrast' shuttles back and
forth between two norms that are finally, and in some sense
equally, unsatisfactory. He can only wait on the promise of
something more clearly exemplary.
The 'imbodied force' simile has a visual aspect which
I The Club of Hercules, p. 4+

z Newton, in a note to u. 542, comments on the damage done to Hercules

in one comparison, although he sees this as a fault on Milton's part: 'But as
Mr. Thyer rightly observes, Milton in this simile falls vastly short of his
usual sublimity and propriety. How much does the image of Alcides tearing
up Thessalian pines ... sink below that of the Angels rending up both rocks
and hills.' The point is that Milton is creating a new propriety, in which
Alcides' deeds are shown to be lacking in true sublimity.
170 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

figures importantly in subsequent restatements of the

insight it offers. We see armies arranged in battle lines, one
against another, Satan and his legions against the collected
strength of all humanity, the pygmies against the cranes, the
giants against Jove, the Trojans against the Greeks, Arthur
and his knights against the uncourteous, Charlemagne
against the Saracens. Time and time again in the poem op-
posing forces are marshalled in this way ; they parade their
might and vaunt their vaunts, and just as the lines are about
to join and resolve an issue, some agency steps in to prevent
the encounter or to imply its futility. While it is not technically
military, the debate in Hell can be viewed as such a scene.
(Forensic wars are not unlike real ones.) Each of the speakers
rises with the intention of ending the battle of words at a
single blow, much as Abdiel and Michael hope to decide
the war in Heaven by the strength of their own right arms;
but Beelzebub's victory (which has been staged by Satan) is
hollow, for there can be no victory, rhetorical or otherwise,
in a contest whose goal is the formulation of a plan to be
used against God. The motions of the debate are so much
shadow-boxing ; the conclusion is contrived rather than real
because there can be no conclusion. Like the other exercises
in circularity we see in the poem- Adam's lament, the
recriminations at the end of Book IX, the War in Heaven -
this one finds 'no end, in wand'ring mazes lost'. The council
proceeds on the assumption that the deliberations of created
agents are able to determine the direction of fate ; in short it
ignores the reality of God and the absoluteness of his
control. In a world where God is everywhere all councils of
war are futile because all wars are futile ; and this judgment
is extended into history in Book xi when we are given other
councils and other wars :
On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds.
In other part the scepter'd Heralds call
 Baptiz' d or Infidel I 7I

To Council in the City Gates: anon

Grey-headed men and grave, with Warriors mixt,
Assemble, and Harangues are heard, but soon
In factious opposition.
(659-6+)
When the devils disperse, some play games of war - all
wars are games of the most infantile kind -and they face
each other in the now familiar configuration of battle. Here
the language of Milton's description indicates the contempt
we are supposed to share:
As when to warn proud Cities war appears
Wag'd in the troubl'd Sky and Armies rush
To Battle in the Clouds, before each Van
Prick forth the Aery knights, and couch their spears,
Till thickest legions close.
(n. 533-7, emphasis mine)
When thickest legions do close - in this image, and in the
games the devils play, and in the wars they play at- the
result is the meeting of air with air and a loud report that
is so much sound and fury, signifying nothing. One might
ask what distinguishes these games from the 'Heroic Games'
Gabriel's patrol plays to pass the time:
About him exercis'd Heroic Games
Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand
Celestial Armory, Shields, Helms, and Spears
Hung high with Diamond flaming, and with Gold.
(xv. 55I-+)
The answer is, nothing. As actions (apart from intention) the
exercises of the good angels and the bad angels have the
same value, none at all, and this can be said also of their
respective positions in a military hierarchy. If Satan is unable
to assault Heaven, Gabriel is unable to bar him from Paradise.
To 'Baptiz'd or Infidel' we might add 'Satanic or Angelic'.
172 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

Satan is himself a principal in another 'aery' meeting

when Death challenges him at the gate of Hell:
Whence and what are thou, execrable shape,
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated Front athwart my way
To yonder Gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be assured, without leave askt of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of Heav'n.
(u. 681-7)
This is more than conventional vaunting, or perhaps less ;
it is bombast, and the overformality of 'athwart' and
'yonder gates' is intended to draw a smile. Death replies in
kind ('Back to thy punishment, / False fugitive') and the
stage is again set for a clash that is not forthcoming. The
reader's expectations are deliberately primed:
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on th' other side
Incens't with indignation Satan stood
Unterrifi'd, and like a Comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' Artie Sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes Pestilence and War. Each at the Head
Levell'd his deadly aim; thir fatal hands
No second stroke intend. (u. 704-1 3)
We know before the epic voice tells us that 'each no second
stroke intend' for it is always so in single combat. Nor
are we surprised by the 'fortuitous' intervention (Summers
sees it as comic opera) of the 'Snaky Sorceress', since the
cloud image of line 535 returns to extinguish the 'Comet'
and deflate the 'tenfold shape' :
and such a frown
Each cast at th' other, as when two black Clouds
With Heav'n's Artillery fraught, come rattling on
 Baptiz'd or Infidel 173

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front

Hov'ring a space, till Winds the signal blow
To join thir dark Encounter in mid air. (713-18)
The juxtaposition of 'Heav'n's Artillery fraught' with the
anticlimactic awkwardness of 'rattling on' is deliberate and
effective. The signal blown by winds (perhaps the trumpet
of Aeolus, the servant of the Goddess of Fame and other
emptinesses) to announce the 'dark encounter' in 'mid air' is
inevitable, as is the reconciliation scene when 'horror is
transformed to politic compliments, and the promised battle
evaporates into mutual congratulations'. I Miltonic humour is
never side-splitting, but there is more than a smile in the
way the poet straightfacedly continues with the epic
formulae:
So frown'd the mighty Combatants ...
. . . and now great deeds
Had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung.
(719, 722-3, emphasis mine)
As Joseph Summers observes, the entire episode is a parody
that serves 'to undercut the "heroism" of Hell'.:z In the
context of all that has gone before it, the parody undercuts
all heroism, hellish or otherwise, and the laughter of these
lines is directed at those who aspire to it.
The drama (or is it farce) is replayed for a third time, and
with an intention more obviously didactic, when Zephon
and Ithuriel bring Satan to Gabriel. Again the menacing
gestures of the mighty combatants :
While thus he spake, th' Angelic Squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, sharp'ning in mooned horns
Thir Phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported Spears, as thick as when a field
Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends
Her bearded Grove of ears, which way the wind
I Tht Must's Method, p. 46. :z Tht Must's Method, p. 54·
I 74 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

Sways them; the careful Plowman doubting stands

Lest on the threshing floor his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. On th' other side Satan alarm'd
Collecting all his might dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd:
His stature reacht the Sky, and on his Crest
Sat horror Plum'd; nor wanted in his grasp
What seem'd both Spear and Shield. (rv. 977-90)

The linking phrase that joins this to the encounters noted

previously is 'On th' other side', and it is quickly followed
by another, the 'now had' or 'might have' formula :
now dreadful deeds
Might have ensu'd, nor only Paradise
In this commotion, but the Starry Cope
Of Heav'n perhaps, or all the Elements
At least had gone to rack, disturb'd and torn
With violence of this conflict. (990-5)

In the war between the angels this is exactly what happens;

Heaven does go to rack, disturbed and torn. In the present
instance however, God himself intervenes: 'had not soon I
Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray I Hung forth in
Heav'n his golden Scales' (99 5-7). These scales have been
interpreted as a sign and warning to Satan who is weighed
in the balance and found wanting ; but the judgment
delivered extends to Gabriel in his capacity as a military
functionary. The point about the 'doubting Plowman' simile,
whether the plowman is Satan or Gabriel, is its indetermina-
teness. John Peter sees 'a group of heavenly angels whose
spears an inappropriately debilitating simile has likened to
swaying ears of harvest wheat ... a group of minstrels
armed with toy spears - men, as it were, of straw - and
when God intervenes ... it is even possible ... to feel that
God knows Satan will prevail, and that his method of
avoiding a defeat, even a minor defeat, is underhand and
 Baptiz' d or Infidel 1 75

unfair'. 1 Empson interprets the scene differently: 'I do not

see what the incident can mean except that God was deter-
mined to make man fall, and had supplied a guard only for
show ; as soon as the guards look like succeeding he prevents
them.' 2 Common to both readings is a sense of the futility
of the situation. As Broadbent says, 'the need for sentries in
Paradise, their failure to prevent Satan's approach to Eve,
and God's release of Satan after his arrest, are absurd.' 3
What is absurd is what has been absurd before, the efforts of
any agent to cause effects apart from the will of God. Satan
calls Gabriel 'Proud limitary Cherub' and if Gabriel assumes
that because he has been given an assignment (don't let
anything in) he will be able to carry it out, Satan is correct.
Good intentions and a willingness to serve do not assure
success, which comes only if God wills it. If the existence
of Gabriel's patrol is to be justified only in terms of need and
sufficiency, Empson is right; it is for show.
Amidst all these 'ifs' which are, I believe, the reader's
as well as mine, are some certainties : ( 1) The scales are
tipped against all battles ('all events, f Battles, Realms'), and
against all those who trust in their own strength. (2) Gabriel
knows it:
Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine,
Neither our own, but giv'n; what folly then
To boast what Arms can do, since thine no more
Than Heav'n permits, nor mine though doubl'd now
To trample thee as mire.

(xoo6-xo)
Not that Gabriel's strength has actually been redoubled;
but if it were he could take no credit for the results. This is
an open and direct statement of what has previously been
I A Critique of Paradise Lost, pp. 24-2 5· 2 Milton's God, pp. I I 2-I 3·
J Some Gra'lJer Subject, p. 200, emphasis mine.
I 76 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

implied: Whatever heroism and virtue are, they do not

reside where men have been accustomed to look for them.
Later, when the battles and events of Book VI have unfolded,
we shall realize that Gabriel is heroic here because he admits
that, in the conventional sense, he cannot be.
There are two long-range effects of this series, as it has
been constituted here. (I) The reader is sensitized to the
emptiness of battlefield rhetoric. ( 2) The forestalling of so
many clashes creates a psychological need for a battle that is
fought and concluded. The War in Heaven seems at first
to be such a battle. The usual vaunting is followed by
Abdiel's swift blow and, at the moment of contact, details
from the earlier shadow confrontations are structured into
an account of an actual conflict :

nor stood at gaze

The adverse Legions, nor less hideous join'd
The horrid shock: now storming fury rose,
And clamor such as heard in Heav'n till now
Was never, Arms on Armor clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding Wheels
Of brazen Chariots rag'd; dire was the noise
Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss
Of fiery Darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying vaulted either Host with fire.
So under fiery Cope together rush' d
Both Battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage, all Heav'n
Resounded, and had Earth been then, all Earth
Had to her Centre shook.
(vx. 205-19)

Behind 'nor stood at gaze f The adverse Legions' are all the
times the legions or single foes did nothing else. The rack
and violence that had been held in potential by so many
'might haves' are now present in the 'Horrible discord' and
 Baptiz' d or Infidel I 77

'noise I Of conflict'. In Book IV the epic voice speculates

on the effects of a contest between Satan and Gabriel, and
wonders if the 'Starry Cope of Heav'n' would be disturbed;
in the sixth book, the battle is joined under Heaven's 'fiery
cope'. 'Now great deeds I Had been achiev'd' we hear in
Book n as Satan faces Death, but in the real war, they are
achieved:

deeds of eternal fame

Were done.

Or are they? There is a qualification attached to the

declarative : 'Deeds of eternal fame I Were done, but
infinite.' And later we learn that there will be no record of
these deeds because the good angels need none and the
rebels are granted none. Summers draws the moral: 'In
these lines we can recognize the destruction of the old
heroic tradition. When "deeds of eternal fame" are "in-
finite", it is difficult to choose particular ones for heroic
celebration ... the rationale for poetry concerned ... with
heroic physical action has collapsed.' 1 It has of course
collapsed before; this is merely the final collapse, after which
no reinflation is possible or even imaginable.
One deed chosen for celebration is Michael's wounding
of Satan, the result of the only single combat actually fought
in the epic. For the last time, expectation stands in horror
(306-7) and cosmic disturbances are predicted:

from each hand with speed retir'd

Where erst was thickest fight, th' Angelic throng,
And left large field, unsafe within the wind
Of such commotion, such as, to set forth
Great things by small, if Nature's concord broke,
1 ThcMuse'sMcthod,p. 129.
I 78 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

Among the Constellations war were sprung,

Two Planets rushing from aspect malign
Of fiercest opposition in mid Sky,
Should combat, and thir jarring Spheres confound.
(307-15)
This is more impressive than its predecessors because the
angels themselves attest to the literalness of the hyperbole
by retiring with speed. It is a shock to realize that the small
thing in the simile is the disruption of Nature's concord and
the collision of planets ; how infinitesimally small, then,
must be the reader's sense of horror compared to the reality
of the 'unspeakable fight'. For the last time the adversaries
prepare to deliver 'one stroke' whose force will make a
second unnecessary ('and not need repeat') ; and for once
the stroke falls and draws blood, or at least something
reddish ('A stream of Nectarous humour issuing flow'd /
Sanguine'). Satan is carried away, not, however, to be laid
on a funeral pyre or dragged around the field by his con-
queror's chariot, but to heal, immediately, without aid, like a
puncture-sealing automobile tyre :
Yet soon he heal'd; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In Entrails, Heart or Head, Liver or Reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die;
Nor in thir liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, no more than can the .fluid Air.
(344-9)
This is informative and educational. It adds to the picture
we have of the angel's digestive processes and looks forward
to Raphael's description of angelic love or interpenetration.
But it is also embarrassing, to Michael who had hoped to
end intestine war in Heaven ( 2 58-9 ), to the angels fighting
that war, to the reader who has allowed himself to believe
that this combat is real in a sense the others were not. There
 Baptiz' d or Infidel I 79

is a hint of what is to come in the introduction to the con-

frontation : 'for likest Gods they seem' d, I Stood they or
mov' d, in stature, motion, arms I Fit to decide the Empire
of great Heav'n' (301-3). Like Gods, but not Gods, nor are
they fit to decide the Empire of Heav'n (the influence of
'seem'd' extends into 303) except with respect to their
physical appearances which are irrelevant to the poem's
standard of fitness. There is a way in which Michael does
emerge victorious (and a hero) from this encounter, but it
has nothing to do with the physical trappings of the scene.
When the partisan Raphael says, 'Meanwhile in other parts
like deeds deserv'd I Memorial' (354-5), he is the victim
of a gentle irony, since in context Michael's 'deed' is faintly
ridiculous.
What is true of this particular deed is true also of all the
deeds that make up the most incredible battle ever fought.
The oft-promised contest is one more exercise in futility,
all the more absurd because it is played out in full. Armour
that confers on its wearer vulnerability, an engagement
notable for a run of incredibly bad puns, warriors who
literally put themselves back together and rise again to hurl
hill-size pies at an invincible enemy- all leading up to
what Arnold Stein calls 'the grand finale of physical ridicule', I
Satan's ignominious exit, pursued by a chariot. (The student
of Milton criticism will have observed that I begin by
assuming the validity of Stein's interpretation of the book.)
The battle decides nothing because battles have no real
relationship to the issues one would have them settle. Adam
learns this when he mistakenly expects a final struggle
between God and Satan :
say where and when
Thir fight, what stroke shall bruise the Victor's heel.
(xu. 384-5)
I Answerable Style, p. 2 5.
180 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

And Michael, who knows from experience how inconclusive

any physical contest is, answers :
Dream not of thir fight,
As of a Duel, or the local wounds
Of head or heel ...
. . . nor so IS overcome
Satan, whose fall from Heav'n, a deadlier bruise,
Disabl'd not to give thee thy death's wound:
Which hee, who comes thy Saviour, shall recure,
Not by destroying Satan, but his works
In thee and in thy Seed.
(xu. 386-8, 390-5)
Perhaps Michael is remembering at this moment that the
victor in the struggle against sin (Satan's works) was also the
victor in the war he had hoped to end.

(ii) SERVANT OF GOD, WELL DONE

Clearly, the difficulty of regarding the War in Heaven as

mock heroic is that the heroics of the good angels are also
mocked. Broadbent is uneasy about the language of Book VI
because 'it makes no poetic distinction between Heavenly
and Hellish power'. 1 This is true simply because in terms of
power there is no distinction, or to put it another way, the
superiority of the loyal angels has nothing to do with power.
John Peter doubts Milton's skill; the war is inconclusive
and the poet seems 'hesitant'. On one hand, 'we are led to
expect that Michael's army will soon prevail', yet 'in the
event they can achieve nothing better than a stalemate. The
effect is surely to expose them to our disappointment, to
make "the excellence, the power Which God hath in his
mighty Angels plac'd" (637-8) appear equivocal'z. (Peter
1 Some Grafler Subject, p. 220. z Critirue, p. 78.
 Servant of God, Well Done I 8I

was of course anticipated by Voltaire, who protested in 172 7

at 'the visible Contradiction which reigns in that Episode',
that is at the failure of the angels to drive out the rebels.
'How does it come to pass, after such a positive Order, that
the Battle hangs doubtful ?')I The disappointment the fit
reader feels will be tempered by his understanding of what it
means ; and if he has learned his lessons well, the disap-
pointment will be minimal, since the arousing of expectations
depends on assumptions about the importance and effective-
ness of physical action he no longer holds. Raphael's
evaluation of the first day of battle- 'For strength from
Truth divided and from Just, I Illaudable, naught merits
but dispraise' (38 1-2)- is no surprise to anyone who has
seen Satan v. Death, Satan v. Gabriel, Satan v. Abdiel,
Satan v. Michael, and soon, Satan v. Christ. Strength apart
from God recoils against the agent who relies on it. Strength
in God's service is a gift and not the inevitable reward of
virtue. Strength is nothing. Still, as Peter remarks some-
what irritably, this intuition (that the battle is 'pointless')
hardly justifies the machinery that accompanies it. He
wonders 'what all the fuss has been about, and why the battle
should have been reported with such fidelity and at such
length'.z
Behind Peter's question stands another, more naive, yet
more fundamental, and it is posed forthrightly by H. R.
Swardson, who balks at Milton's claim to sing not of wars
and of tedious battles feigned, but of 'the better fortitude I
Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom' (1x. 3I-32): 'Does
Milton really think', Swardson exclaims, 'he is singing "the
better fortitude of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom" ?
Where? What space and prominence does he give to it ?' 3
I Quoted in Christopher Ricks's Milton's Grand Style, pp. r7-r8.
z Critique, p. 79·
J Pol!try and the Fountain of Light (Columbia, Missouri, r962), p. I43·
N F.s.s.
I 82 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

The answer that immediately suggests itself is Abdiel,

lauded by Raphael in terms unmistakably Miltonic. U n-
doubtedly, Abdiel is the exemplar of a better heroism, but he
is not a figure whose actions, as they are likely to be inter-
preted by the reader, can properly serve as a counterpoint
to the false heroism Milton is at pains to undercut, at least
not in Book v. For, as Broadbent observes, 'the emphasis on
Abdiel's faithfulness ... is obscured by the superficial
political motives and military tactics' of the scene. 1 Abdiel's
faithfulness is obscured because one can respond to his
gesture without being fully aware of the ideal embodied in it.
In terms of the distinction between epic heroism and
Christian heroism, he is too easy to admire. (The fault of
course is the observer's, not his.)
More specifically, there is a discrepancy between the
impression Abdiel makes and the language Raphael uses to
describe him: 'unmov'd I Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'd I
His Loyalty he kept, his Love, his Zeal; I Nor number, nor
example with him wrought I To swerve from truth, or
change his constant mind' (898-902, emphasis mine). The
words suggest a negative action, a reflex of the mind inde-
pendent of any physical effort, a decision in fact not to do
something, but the setting for the action, which determines
our response, is theatrical :

Thus far his bold discourse without control

Had audience, when among the Seraphim
Abdiel, than whom none with more zeal ador'd
The Deity, and divine commands obey'd,
Stood up, and in a flame of zeal severe
The current of his fury thus oppos'd.
(v. 803-8)
1 Some Graver Subject, p. 225. The analysis which follows was first sug-

gested to me by Roger Swearingen, then a student at the University of

California, Berkeley.
 Servant of God, Well Done 18 3

A lone figure rises - and the eye will imitate the movement
of 'Stood up'- to assert himself in the face of overwhelming
odds ('The flaming Seraph fearless though alone I Encom-
pass'd round with foes'). This is undoubtedly impressive-
Abdiel himself will recall the scene in his later meeting with
Satan: 'when I alone I Seem'd in thy World erroneous to
dissent I From all'- so impressive as to win approval for
any action taken within its sphere. There is no difference
between the admiration the reader can feel for Abdiel's
refusal to bow to the tyranny of the majority, and the
admiration he has felt, if only fleetingly, for Satan's refusal
to acknowledge defeat despite the hopelessness of his situa-
tion. Ultimately the two actions are not comparable, but as
stances or gestures, they appear similar, and in poetry
appearances are not only deceiving, they are likely to be
conclusive.
In retrospect, Abdiel's heroism can be isolated from the
circumstances of its exercise. The essentials are on display
in Raphael's first reference to him: 'than whom none with
more zeal ador'd I The Deity, and divine commands obey' d.'
Love God and obey his commands- this comprehends all.
Indeed, the conjunction divides what is really a unity.
Loving God implies obedience, obedience flows from a love
of God ; both are manifestations of an acceptance of God as
the central fact of the universe, and any action rooted in a
determination to bear witness to that fact is an heroic action
even if it is invisible to the naked eye. Abdiel is a hero
because he says 'Shalt thou give Law to God?' (the declara-
tive form would be 'Thy will be done') and he would have
been a hero still had he said it to himself in the privacy of
his study, as Milton does in the sonnet 'When I consider'.
Writing of Mirabeau's resolve to turn highway robber in
order to demonstrate his opposition to the laws of society,
Thoreau declares
184 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

A Saner man would have found himself often enough 'in formal
opposition' to what are deemed 'the most sacred laws of society,'
through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested
his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man
to put himself in such an attitude toward society, but to maintain
himself in whatever attitude he finds himself through obedience
to the laws of his being.

Virtue does not reside in any one stance, nor does heroism
require a particular field of battle. True virtue is a state of
mind - loyalty to the best one knows - and true heroism is
a psychic (wilful) action -the decision, continually made in
a variety of physical situations, to maintain that loyalty. To
fix on any one posture, whether it be opposition to the laws
of society or standing one's ground in a hostile environment,
as the heroic posture is to mistake a possible expression of
heroism (any posture is potentially that) for the only one;
and to seek opportunities to place oneself in that posture is
to confuse self-aggrandizement with virtue (this is what Eve
does when she decides to test her strength). Abdiel has
always been heroic since he has always been free to disavow
his allegiance to God, and to date he has declined to do so,
at every moment of his life. The reader just happens to be
there when Abdiel is being heroic in a conspicuously
dramatic context the emotional (rhetorical) force of which
obscures the significance of his action.
The problem, then, is to separate the drama from the
heroism, an operation which Milton forces on us in Book vr.
He presents Abdiel to us fully aware that we are likely to
accept him uncritically and uncomprehendingly. Once
accepted, the angel is systematically stripped of everything
not directly relevant to his heroism, until we are left to
recognize (if we are willing) the naked essence itself. In
effect, the reader comes to understand heroism by repeatedly
adjusting his idea of what makes one hero heroic.
 Servant of God, Well Done 18 5

Conventionally, heroes are recognizable because they are

successful, not absolutely successful (heroes usually die),
but successful in some way that justifies the effort expended.
Abdiel leaves the North covered with glory, yet as he
approaches friendlier regions, his image begins to lose some
of its lustre. In the first place, the warning he had thought
to give ('All night the dreadless Angel unpursu'd f Through
Heav'n's wide Champaign held his way') is unnecessary:
War he perceiv'd, war in procinct, and found
Already known what he for news had thought
To have reported.
(v1. 19-21)
This is a small disappointment, one felt more by the reader
than by the angel who 'gladly' mixes with his allies. A larger
disappointment awaits him when the actual fighting begins.
When God the Father receives Abdiel amidst joys and
acclamations, he gives him congratulations, assurances, and,
in concert with his fellows, a new assignment :
the easier conquest now
Remains thee, aided by this host of friends,
Back on thy foes more glorious to return
Than scorn'd thou didst depart, and to subdue
By force, who reason for thir Law refuse.
(37-•P)
But the easier conquest does not remain, at least not in the
conclusive way implied by 'subdue' ; although one can
hardly blame Abdiel fortakingGod'spronouncem ent literally
when he challenges Satan :
wherefore should not strength and might
There fail where Virtue fails, or weakest prove
Where boldest; though to sight unconquerable?
His puissance, trusting in th' Almighty's aid,
I mean to try, whose Reason I have tri'd
Unsound and false; nor is it aught but just,
I 86 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

That he who in debate ofT ruth hath won,

Should win in Arms, in both disputes alike
Victor; though brutish that contest and foul,
When Reason hath to deal with force, yet so
Most reason is that Reason overcome.
(II6-26)
'The most striking thing about the War in Heaven', accor-
ding to Summers, 'is that, except for the Father and the Son,
everyone is surprised at one moment or another, no one's
expectations are perfectly fulfilled.' 1 Reasoning that physical
effects should be predictable on the basis of spiritual status,
Abdiel defies Satan 'securely' (with confidence), and the
reader has every reason to expect, as the angel does, victory
and vindication. The beginning is auspicious, even startling,z
as Satan receives Abdiel's greeting on his impious crest and
is displaced :
ten paces huge
He back recoil'd; the tenth on bended knee
His massy Spear upsta y' d; as if on Earth
Winds under ground or waters forcing way
Sidelong, had pusht a Mountain from his seat
Half sunk with all his Pines.
(193-8)
Harding discerns an allusion to The Faerie Queene, 1. ii,
where the serpent falls before the Red Cross Knight's
sword: 'So downe he fell, and forth his life did breth, I ...
So downe he fell and like an heaped mountain lay.' The
parallel, however, is inexact in an important respect: the
serpent is slain, while Milton's Satan gets up again and
within a short time taunts Michael with this unanswerable
question: 'Hast thou turn'd the least of these I To flight, or
1 The Must' I Method, p. 122.
z Peter complains, 'The speed of Abdiel's first blow is so emphasized as
almost to suggest that he struck unfairly' (Critifue, p. 76).
 Servant of God, Well Done I 87

if to fall, but that they rise I U nvanquisht ?' ( 2 84-6) ; adding

a prediction that proves disconcertingly accurate: 'err not
that so shall end I The strife'. Of course, the strife does not
end as Satan thinks it will, but neither does Michael end
intestine war in Heaven, as he hopes to.
The question arises : what advantage does loyalty or
being on the right side confer? Hardly any, it seems. True,
Raphael thinks otherwise: 'Such high advantages thir
innocence I Gave them above thir foes, not to have sinn'd, I
Not to have disobey'd; in fight they stood I Unwearied,
unobnoxious to be pain'd' (401-4). But if the loyal angels
are incapable of pain and cannot be wearied, their ability
to stand in fight is hardly remarkable or praiseworthy.
Indeed this advantage is a disadvantage if 'difficulty' is one
condition of heroism (ultimately, as we shall see, it is not),
for it gives Satan and his followers something to put up
with, something to rise above: 'Some disadvantage we
endur' d and pain, I Till now not known, but known as soon
contemn'd' (43I-2). This is perverted stoicism, not unlike
Belial's argument in Book n, and any attractiveness it might
have does not survive the absurdity of inventing gun-
powder. Still the picture of Satan gritting his teeth and
bearing it does have a certain force, and it is certainly more
visibly impressive than anything we see on the other side.
One is not impressed, for instance, by Abdiel. His
companions interpret his momentary success as a 'Presage
of Victory' ( 20 I) ; this portent, however, is a false one if it
is taken to mean their victory. He himself had thought to
'overcome', but a much weaker verb would do for this minor
skirmish. Sometime later, Satan is said to have 'met in Arms I
No equal' (24 7-8), a silent reflection on Abdiel's military
pretensions. (Newton, Paradise Lost, I 749, comments:
'the poet did not consider Abdiel as equal to Satan, tho' he
gain'd that accidental advantage over him. Satan no doubt
I 88 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

would have prov' d an over-match for Abdiel only for the

general engagement which ensued and broke off the combat
between them'.) What remains, then, of the angel's heroism?
All of it, if we recall Raphael's encomium, 'His Loyalty he
kept', which perhaps is only now properly understood by the
reader. Abdiel is a hero because he keeps loyalty even when
his objective eludes him and his assumptions fail the test of
experience. Believing it only just 'That he who in debate of
Truth hath won, I Should win in Arms', he does not abandon
his post or question the ways of God when his sense of
justice is disappointed ; and his steadfastness is all the more
remarkable because it is in no sense necessary. God, Abdiel
reminds Satan 'with solitary hand I Reaching beyond all
limit, at one blow I Unaided could have finisht thee' (I 3 9-
I 4 I). Or as the poet had written in another place, 'God doth
not need I Either man's work or his own gifts'.
Milton here touches upon a favourite theme of Herbert's,
the temptation inherent in the desire to serve. Herbert con-
templates the cross and feels himself undone by the boundless
love it symbolizes : 'This deare end, I So much desir' d, is
giv'n, to take away I My power to serve ... I One ague
dwelleth in my bones, I Another in my soul (the memorie I
What I would do for thee).' What is left to me, he asks, and
only when he accepts the answer, 'nothing', and sits down to
eat at Love's table can he be said to understand what faith
involves and be truly humble. The desire to serve God is a
particularly subtle form of pride if it is in fact a desire to feel
needed and important. Milton is especially aware of this
danger. In 'When I consider' he murmurs against that decree
of God's which has rendered him 'useless' and unable to
serve, 'though my Soul more bent I To serve therewith my
Maker', finally admitting 'They also serve who only stand
and wait'. The admission, however, is wrung from him with
difficulty, and one wonders how long it will be before the
 Servant of God, Well Done I 89

passion to be useful reasserts itself. In contrast, Abdiel's

acceptance of his uselessness is impressive precisely because
it is unconscious. He is able to regard his own super-
fluousness as a matter of praise and feel no personal injury
(sense of injured merit) at all. The perfection of his faith, of
his willingness to serve God no matter what service may
mean, makes it possible for him to meet unanticipated com-
plications without being demoralized by them. No doubt he
is surprised when Satan returns unimpaired, but surprise is
merely wonder (oh, so that's the way it is), not disillusion-
ment; he adjusts to it and goes on. The reader does not see
'Abdiel surprised' or 'Abdiel adjusting' because there is
nothing visible or dramatic in his continual accommodation
to the circumstances his loyalty thrusts him into. We do see
him once more, although it is easy to overlook him in his
new role (new to us, that is) :
Nor stood unmindful .Abdiel to annoy
The Atheist crew.

How far this is from the glorious picture of 'The flaming

Seraph fearless, though alone f Encompass'd round with
foes'. The passivity now exists in the presentation as well as
in the language. 'Nor stood unmindful' is trussed in nega-
tives and suggests the most limited kind of action, something
auxiliary (nor), even inconsequential, and the verb 'to annoy'
bears the suggestion out. Flies annoy, minor discomfitures
annoy, and mighty angels annoy, if that is what God has in
mind for them. The distance between Abdiel as the only
righteous in a world perverse and Abdiel as irritant amidst
a host of irritants exists only in our eyes, as a consequence of a
false conception of heroism. The stylistic contraries, which in
1 and n reflect the choice between the fleshly and the godly,
are represented here by the physical styles of the two heroic
190 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

ideals, one flamboyant and self-glorifying, the other inward

and humble even when it takes a spectacular form. (As
before, the reader's response measures him.) Abdiel does in
Book VI exactly what he did in v; he obeys God. The situa-
tions differ, but then situations are incidental to the heroic
action which takes place in the mind and the will. Loyalty
can be kept with legions as well as 'single'. Abdiel knows this,
although he probably doesn't know he knows it, since the
distinction is never a problem for him. It is for us, how-
ever, as part of the problem posed generally by the entire
battle. So that if we regard the angel as our chosen hero, and
follow him from episode to episode, we emerge finally
with an insight the pure are born to.
What has been said here of Abdiel applies also to his
fellow warriors who all fight a battle they know to be point-
less, under conditions that can justly be described as
humiliating, for a leader who could do very well without
them. 'They perceive or come to perceive themselves as
agents in an action beyond their anticipations or immediate
comprehensions.' 1 Michael's experience parallels Abdiel's
exactly, the expectation (to end intestine war), the apparent
victory, the final absurdity (Yet soon he healed). Even the
small success of drawing blood must be attributed to a piece
of special equipment 'from the Armory of God I ... giv'n
him temper'd so, that neither keen I Nor solid could resist
that edge' (32 1-3). This bit of gratuitous detail is a concrete
illustration of a point made earlier in the abstract:
th' Eternal King Omnipotent
From his stronghold of Heav'n high over-rul'd
And limited thir might.

God, it seems, will leave his servants nothing but their wills.
t Summers, The Mtue's Method, p. r 36.
 Servant of God, Well Done I 9I

Empson sees this and finds an explanation in the perversity

dwelling in one heavenly breast : 'They know that they
failed to defeat the rebels, and that God need never have
ordered them to try, indeed must have intended to humiliate
them, because as soon as he chose he removed the rebels
with contemptuous omnipotence.' 1 Here indeed is a petty
tyrant, a cosmic puller of butterfly wings, who exposes his
people to ridicule so that he can laugh at them from his
prospect high. Empson cites the analogous action of sending
Raphael on a fool's errand while the solar system is being
created:
Squar'd in full Legion (such command we had)
To see that none thence issued forth a spy ...
Not that they durst without his leave attempt.
(vm. 232-3, 237)
'They knew, and they knew that God knew that they knew
that this tiresome chore was completely useless ... Raphael
says that ... he assumes God gave him a job at the time
merely to disappoint him.' 2 Not quite. What Raphael says is
'us he sends upon his high behests I For state, as Sovran
King, and to enure I Our prompt obedience' (vm. 238-40).
'To enure', to apply to the use of. The high behest and others
like it is an occasion (something to be used) for obedience,
supplied by God as a gift to those who would serve him.
As a patron, God presents a definite problem. One cannot
give him anything, because everything is his in the first place,
that is, proceeds from him. It is equally difficult to render
him a service, since he is by definition self-sufficient. Praise,
in any number of forms, including useless tasks, is the only
commodity the suppliant can offer. The angels need to sing
what Satan calls the servile warblings of Heaven, just as
Adam and Eve need to work (the work does not need them),
I Milton's God, p. I I o. z Ibid.
192 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

for otherwise they have no concrete way of showing their

loyalty and love. As Christ explains in Paradise Regained:
'what could he less expect/ ... From them who could return
himnothingelse'(m. 126, 129). Thebattleunderthesecon-
ditions is an occasion for praise and thus for obedience because
God makes it impossible to regard it as anything else. That is
what the participants learn by fighting it and what we learn
by watching it. 'The voice of God ... called upon them to
exert all their individual strength to attempt an action, the
final accomplishment of which they discover is beyond their
free unaided abilities.' 1 By assigning them a task they cannot
accomplish and an enemy whose disloyalty should be a
crippling liability but is not, and a physical arena designed
to force them into strategic absurdities, God creates a
situation in which the conventional motives for heroic
fortitude- success, glory, personal fulfilment- do not
pertain and perseverance can only be attributed to a faith
in the goodness of the Almighty, to obedience. (Even now
Raphael participates in a similar action, imparting a warning
he knows will go unheeded.) God's insensitivity to the
angels' feelings is a compliment to them because it assumes
their firmness. It is relatively easy to stand up for something
or for someone or with someone, less easy to stand alone,
not alone as Abdiel stands alone, against an evil he can see
and react to, but simply alone, with nothing but an inner
reserve (of faith) to sustain the life of the spirit and stave off
despair. The angels might well have looked around them
and decided, with Empson, that God was amusing himself at
their expense. To their eternal credit (literally) they do not,
preferring instead to believe that God has their best interests
at heart, no matter how inescapable a contrary conclusion
seems to be. (The negative example is available in the
council of war where the rebels infer God's intentions and
1 Summers, The Muu's Method, p. I 26.
 Servant of God, Well Done I 93

circumscribe his power from their experience of one day's

battle.) Faith is an existential assurance of God's love.
When the absurdity of the battle is at its height, God
intervenes :
two days are past,
Two days, as we compute the days of Heav'n,
Since Michael and his Powers went forth to tame
These disobedient; sore hath been thir fight,
As likeliest was, when two such Foes met arm'd;
For to themselves I left them, and thou know'st,
Equal in thir Creation they were form'd,
Save what sin hath impair'd, which yet hath wrought
Insensibly, for I suspend thir doom;
Whence in perpetual fight they needs must last
Endless, and no solution will be found:
War wearied hath perform'd what War can do,
And to disorder'd rage let loose the reins,
With Mountains as with Weapons arm'd, which makes
Wild work in Heav'n, and dangerous to the main.
Two days are therefore past, the third is thine;
For thee I have ordain'd it, and thus far
Have suffer'd, that the Glory may be thine
Of ending this great War, since none but Thou
Can end it.
(68+-703)
This confirms what we have suspected and what the angels
have come to know about the game they have been playing
for two days ; and it also gives us a new piece of information,
more disconcerting than anything hitherto revealed. All
the angels, good and bad, are props in a gigantic stage
setting constructed for the sole purpose of providing a
moment of glory for God's only begotten son. The epic voice
says as much- 'and permitted all ... I That his great pur-
pose he might so fulfil, I To honor his Anointed Son'
(674-6)- and the angels no doubt infer it when they see
his chariot : 'far off his coming shone'. Here is provocation
194 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

and an incitement to resentment if resentment is to be forth-

coming ; but wondrously the angels greet the appearance of
the Messiah and his assumption of their appointed task
with joy:
by his own
First seen, them unexpected joy surpris'd
When the great Ensign of Messiah blaz'd.
(773-5)
As with Abdiel, the important thing is the distance between
the response the angels give and the response one might
have expected (or given in their place), a distance measured
in understanding, faith, and heroism. Whether or not they
have been successful in an absolute sense, Michael's
warriors have successfully discharged their obligations.
Within the framework permitted to them, they do what they
can, and the intervention of a power greater than theirs in no
way alters the reality of their personal achievement. (God
may not need their works, but they do.) The angels are
joyful because Christ's coming signals the completion of
their tour of duty and thus gives them legitimate cause for
self-congratulation. They have responded to God's com-
mand - drive out the rebels - according to their abilities
('each on himself reli'd I As only in his arm the moment lay I
Of victory') and they know it and they know that God, who
knows all his creatures extensively and intensively, knows it,
even before Christ tells them so :
Stand still in bright array ye Saints, here stand
Ye Angelsarm'd, this day from Battle rest;
Faithfu/ hath been your Warfare, and of God
Accepted, fearless in his righteous Cause,
And as ye have receiv'd, so have ye done
Invincibly: but of this cursed crew
The punishment to other hand belongs;
Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints;
 Servant of God, Well Done I 9S

Number to this day's work is not ordain'd

Nor multitude, stand only and behold.
(8oi-Io, emphasis mine)
'Stand only' is the new command, but it has been the old
one as well. Indeed all commands are reducible to this one,
stand firm with God ; and the progressive limiting of the
angels' mobility has the advantage of illustrating how non-
spatial is the area heroism operates in. The imposed limita-
tions of the battle serve to make the angels' physical
situation a mirror of their inward state, since the offensive
is taken from them and they are restricted to a holding
action, to standing only. Such an action does fulfil the
requirements of heroism and can be taken anywhere in any
position- immobilized in the enchanter's lair, fettered in
Gaza - and approved, if not needed, by a benevolent God.
One can stand, for example, while rolling :
none of thir feet might stand,
Though standing else as Rocks, but down they fell
By thousands, Angel on Arch-Angel roll'd.
(592-4)
As with an iconographic configuration, the reader moves
from a perception of the inconsistency of detail on the
literal level to the discovery of the kernel meaning : rolling
and falling, ludicrous and undignified in the extreme, the
angels nevertheless remain upright, because they have
assumed their postures in the service of God. Belial's 'game-
some' punning on 'stand' and 'understand' - 'who receives
them right, I Had need from head to foot well understand ;I
Not understood ... I They show us when our foes walk not
upright' (62 5-7)- is one more sign of his fatal (and
damning) literalism in a context which has been asserting
that 'The way of the Lord is strength to the upright'.
Looking back, one can apply this insight to Gabriel, sitting
on a rock in Paradise, and to the members of his patrol,
 I 96 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

playing at some unnamed heavenly game while they stand

guard vainly against an invisible enemy. These too are heroes
because they are submitting knowingly to a discipline
imposed on them by a power they believe in; in context,
their poses, sitting and playing, signify belief. Looking
forward, one can see that, for Adam and Eve, life in Paradise,
with the forbidden tree always before them, is such a
discipline, calling again for a holding action which is
physically unimpressive. It has been argued that because
Paradise is 'limited to hopelessly inactive virtues' Adam
and Eve must fall before they can be truly heroic, but this is
to define 'active' much too narrowly, and to reduce heroism
to bravado. Obeying God in Paradise is an activity, since
there is every moment a conscious (active) decision not to act
in a certain way. Of course it would be easier to make that
decision in the face of an overt temptation when the lines of
battle are clearly drawn ; more immediately satisfactory also,
since one could afterwards recall the scene. One part of
heroism, however, is an acceptance of the conditions of its
exercise. Seeking spectacular occasions for trial and therefore
for glory is itself a temptation. So that perhaps the ultimate
in heroism, because it bespeaks an unconcern with the false
dignity of self, is the willingness to rest easily and happily
on days when there are no battles, absurd or otherwise,
without yearning to be more than the minstrelsy of Heaven
or the gardeners of Paradise, to sit at God's table without
feeling constrained to earn a place there.

(iii) OTHER WARFARES AND OTHER HEROES

This, then, to return to Peter's question, is what the fuss is

all about ; the battle is 'reported with such fidelity and at such
 Other Warfares and Other Heroes I 97

length' in order to allow the reader time to construct from

its thrusts and parries a working definition of heroism and to
extend it by analogy to the crisis of the Fall. With Abdiel
and Michael and the entire host of loyal angels, the reader
experiences the disappointments of the war and learns from
their response, in so far as it contrasts with his own, to
distinguish between the outward form of a self-glorifying
exhibitionism and the true (inner) heroism of obedience. (Of
course he has the option of persisting in his admiration for
the discredited ideal; again the responsive choice.) In
addition, he is encouraged to see in the battle an image of the
struggle he himself engages in daily. The correspondences
between the military situation as it exists in Book VI and the
concept of spiritual warfare are easily established :
(I) In both contexts, there is a divine imperative, 'be
ye perfect', 'drive out the rebels', which is beyond the
individual's unaided capabilities.
(2) As a result, the individual is involved in a series of
indeterminate actions whose relationship to the desired end
is, from his point of view, oblique. Such actions often appear
ridiculous and base (i.e. the indignities Christian and Faith-
ful suffer at Vanity Fair).
(3) Heroism consists of accepting (I) and ( 2), and con-
tinuing despite them, or, more properly, because of them;
and this continuing is an affirmation of faith in a deity who
judges intent and does not ultimately require more than can
be performed.
There are some discrepancies. In the angels' case the
limitations imposed on them are arbitrary, as arbitrary as
the command not to eat the apple. Fallen man's inability
to respond fully to the imperative, on the other hand, is a
direct consequence of an earlier failure for which he, in
the person of Adam, is responsible. And there is some
question, both historically and in Milton's own statements,
0 F.s.s.
198 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

as to whether fallen man is able even to initiate an action

of the mind, that is, to believe, without the intervention of
grace. 1 In general, however, the analogy holds, especially in
terms of the visual image presented, movement simulta-
neously hesitant and assertive, self-confident and dependent,
absurd and glorious, erring and right.
I refer of course to the image of the wayfaring, warfaring
Christian, the pilgrim who makes such uneven progress in
Bunyan's prose epic and who finds himself again and again
in the position Milton reserves for his heroes. Christian
fights his version of the War in Heaven when he encounters
Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. He considers
retreat - 'Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to
cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground'
- but decides to remain for reasons of strategy: 'he had no
Armour for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the
back to him, might give him greater advantage with ease
to pierce him with his Darts ; therefore he resolved to
venture, and stand his ground. 'z
Apollyon's weapons are the commonplaces of despair and
mistrust which are countered by the more powerful common-
places of faith. Christ, Apollyon argues, cares not for his
servants : 'He never came yet from the place where he is,
to deliver any that served him out of our hands.' Christian
refuses to believe that God regards not his ways and
1 See III. I 67-304, where God and Christ alternately suggest that (I) man
has the option to accept grace but (2) that he is incapable even of seeking it;
(3) that by using 'light after light' well he can arrive safe but (4) that if he is
saved it will be 'not of will in him, but grace in me'. The extent offallen man's
mobility remains unclear. For a contrasting view, see M. Kelley, 'The
Theological Dogma of Paradise Lost, III. I73-202,' PMLA, Iii (I937),
75-79·
z The Pilgrim'! Progrm, ed. J. B. Wharey, rev. Roger Sharrock (revised
edition, Oxford, I96o), P· s6. The following quotations are taken from this
edition, pp. 56-6o, unless otherwise noted.
 Other Warfares and Other Heroes I 99

interprets his 'forbearing to deliver' as proof of his regard :

'His forbearing at present to deliver them, is on purpose to
try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end;
and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most
glorious in their account: For, for present deliverance, they
do not much expect it; for they stay for their Glory, and
then they shall have it, when their Prince comes in his.'
Christian could be speaking for Milton's loyal angels who
find their own glory by caring only for Christ's and accept
the humiliation of their situation as a trial of constancy
'whether they will cleave to him in the end'. The difference
is in the mode of expression. The angels do not verbalize and
the reader must infer their theology from their actions.
Bunyan's technique is more conventionally didactic, though
none the less skilful. The doctrine is given before the battle
which can then be read allegorically without the inter-
pretative effort required in Milton's poem.
In the battle Christian conquers again, and with the same
weapon- faith. Pressed to the point of despair, he reaches
out to find a sword miraculously at hand, 'as God would
have it', and thrusts with it, saying, 'Rejoice not against me,
0 mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise.' The syntax-
'and caught it, saying' - insists on the simultaneity of the
two actions; the sword and the word are one and Apollyon
is pierced by both and by the evidence of Christian's faith.
While quoting from Micah vii. 8, he is bearing witness to
Micah vii. 7 : 'Therefore I will look unto the Lord ; I will
wait for the God of my salvation : my God will hear me.'
Christian acknowledges his dependence and asserts himself
in the same moment ; and when he makes no claim to the
victory soon to be his, Apollyon is completely routed:
'Christian ... made at him again, saying, "Nay in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that
loved us.'' And with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon's
200 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

wings and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw
him no more.' 1 The glory is God's and because Christian
rejoices in that knowledge, it is also his, for a season.
Apollyon will return in many guises and Christian will fall
to him, or almost fall to him, and will resist, or be led to
resist (the distinction is meaningless), until after long travail
and many indignities he arrives safe at the heavenly city, as
God would have it.
For Bunyan's Christian and Milton's angels, forward
progress is a matter of standing ground at the right time and
the shortest distance between two points is an erratic line
and self-reliance means trusting in a God who is simultane-
ously omnipresent and unavailable. These are the conditions
of heroism and as paradoxes they flow from a single paradox,
the belief in the evidence and promise of things not seen,
best exemplified by the description of Abraham in Hebrews
xi. 8 : 'By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into
a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.'
The imperative ('go out') which calls forth an affirmative
response ('and he went') expressed in tentative action ('not
knowing whither he went') sustained by faith ('These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them'). In Book xu, Milton rewrites this passage
slightly, so as to emphasize the curious blend of definiteness
and provisionality he sees as heroic :
he straight obeys,
Not knowing to what Land, yet firm believes:
I see him, but thou canst not, with what Faith
He leaves his Gods, his Friends, and native Soil
Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the Ford
1 The Wharey-Sharrock text omits 'for a season'. Here I follow the text of

Louis Martz's edition (New York, 1949), p. 62.

 Other Warfares and Other Heroes 201

To Haran, after him a cumbrous Train

Of Herds and Flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him, in a land unknown.

The conjunctions and negatives (not-yet-but-not-but) help

the reader to the necessary distinctions and the verbs tell the
story: obeys - not knowing- believes -wandering- trusting.
Wandering, but not wandering since he is led by God's call
and journeys towards God, who is everywhere. Heroic faith
is exercised before an omnipresent deity, who sees all in an
eternal present, by created and finite intelligences who see
only what is permitted to them. Men and angels who perform
God's labours in partial ignorance are blessed by the
limitations which make choice necessary and action possible.
Time, Donne writes (and we might add space) is a short
parenthesis in eternity, but for those who live in it, it is all.
There the problems exist ; there the decisions are made ;
there we are known and judged.
Each of us is judged in the context of his particular calling ;
battles are fought and wildernesses traversed in all walks
of life, including the poet's. His battle, his journey, his
sphere of proving, is the act of composition itself. By per-
severing in his task hard and rare, Milton shows himself to
be one of the heroes he celebrates. The gift of poetic inspira-
tion carries with it an obligation - prophesy, edify, per-
suade - and a situation whose difficulties are familiar -
finite abilities working in an imperfect medium to effect
an impossible goal. In the poem, the problem is articulated
not by the poet in his role as narrator, but by Raphael, who
serves a similar function for an audience of one :

and what surmounts the reach

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
202 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms,

As may express them best. (v. 571-4)
And later:
for who, though with the tongue
Of Angels, can relat e,or to what things
Liken on Earth conspicuous, that may lift
Human imagination to such highth.
(vi. 297-300)
The reference is to I Corinthians xiii. I : 'Though I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.'
Milton's muse, one can assume, does not speak to him in
blank verse ; the illumination granted to the seer is intuitive,
but if it is to be effective beyond the confines of his mind it
must assume a discursive form. What concerns Raphael is
the loss suffered in translation: 'For who ... can relate' is a
serious linguistic and philosophical question, which has its
antecedents in the 'inexpressibility topos' of the courtly lyric
(words fail me when I would describe your beauty).
As a vessel of inspiration, the poet occupies a middle
position between the perfect knowledge of God and the
clouded intellects of lesser men, and his difficulty extends in
both directions : language is inadequate to the reality of his
received intuition and to the task of persuasion he would
bend it to. A partial solution of the problem is to rely on
scripture whenever possible, for scripture is the word of
God ; but it is the word of God accommodated to the powers
of his creatures and therefore not literal or absolute, as
inspiration and grace are absolute :
When we speak of knowing God, it must be understood with
reference to the imperfect comprehension of man; for to know
God as he really is, far transcends the power of man's thoughts,
much more of his perception. I
I Tht WorluofJoiJ?IMilton,xiv. 31.
 Other Warfares and Other Heroes 203

Our safest way is to form in our minds such a conception of God

as shall correspond with his own delineation and representation
of himself in the sacred writings. For ... both in the literal and
figurative descriptions of God, he is exhibited not as he really is,
but in such a manner as may be within the scope of our com-
prehensions. I
The safest way, however, may not be sufficient to the occa-
sion, especially when the audience is recalcitrant and
unresponsive either to scripture or to the urgings of God's
chosen servant. The ministerial office Milton envisions for
the poet ends more often than not in disappointment and
frustration. In Milton's case the personal disappointment
cannot be separated from the national disappointment.
'Methinks', he writes in Areopagitica, 'I see in my mind a
noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man
after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks! No doubt he
also sees himself as the inspired voice who announces this
'rousing', sanctioning it with the seal of prophecy and antici-
pating the inevitable triumph, for 'who ever knew Truth
put to the worse in a free and open encounter?' Michael
Fixler discerns the danger in Milton's early optimism:
'By virtue of the fact that as a poet he had undertaken to
celebrate the providential justice of God and the glories of
his nation, Milton identified his vocation too precariously
with the immediate fate of his country.' 2 As early as I 644,
in the sonnet 'I did but prompt the age', the poet expresses
bafflement and rage at the intractability of his contemporaries.
Classically, 3 there are available two negative responses to
this dilemma, ( 1) despair and inaction (silence) or (2) with-
drawal into self-satisfaction; the latter would be particularly
I For a discussion of the theory of accommodation, seeR. M. Frye's God,

Man, and Satan (Princeton, 196o), pp. 7-17.

z Milton and the Kingdoms of God (London, 1964), p. 73·
J See my discussions of the burden of prophecy in John Skelton's Poetry
(New Haven, 1965), pp. I-35·
204 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

attractive in the Puritan context of the elect and the regene-

rate:
His dilemma was a reflection and symptom of the whole Puritan
position. On the one hand their patriotism, national pride, and
belief in national election was inclusive.... On the other hand
they distrusted and feared all except those who were obvious,
self-evident saints ... at each phase they were to discover that
their allies were also unregenerate and no more fit than their
former enemies to mould the nation into the shape of God's
Kingdom. 1
If our hearers are defective, if the age will not be prompted,
are we not justified in abandoning them? Milton answers
this question by continuing to write Paradise Lost, and thus
accepts, heroically, the confines of the human heart as the
battlefield on which he is now permitted to raise God's
standard. The divine imperative implicit in the prophetic
gift- 'Let all things be done unto edification'- does not
cease to be relevant when success seems unlikely or insigni-
ficant in political terms. When Saint Paul urges charity, he
enjoins communication. For the poet to remain silent or to
retreat into the private security of his vision would be an
abdication of responsibility in the only sphere of action
properly his. Alone, blind, confined to his quarters, depen-
dent on the whims of those who do not understand him,
defeated in terms of the programme he had imagined for
himself and for his countrymen, Milton nevertheless
presses on:
I Sing with mortal voice, unchang'd
To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,
In darkness, and with dangers compast round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Vist'st my slumbers Nightly, or when Morn
1 Fixler, op. cit., p. 74·
 Other Warfares and Other Heroes 205

Purples the East; still govern thou my Song,

Urania, and fit audience find though few.
(VII. 24-3 I)

The image conjured up recalls Abdiel, alone, encompassed

round with foes, yet firm and constant ('unchang' d'). But
the poet has even less manoeuvrability than his hero. He
can hardly predict an imminent victory ('soon expect to feel/
His thunder on thy head') since earlier predictions have
proven incorrect and were perhaps presumptuous ; truth
has been temporarily checked, if not put to the worse, in a
free and open encounter. These 'evil days' will know no
sudden and apocalyptic interruption. Nor can he expect
immediate approval for his resolution and firmness. If God
does say, face to face, 'Servant of God, well done', it will be
in another life in the 'better country' of Hebrews xi when
the veil has been removed from his eyes. Meanwhile, he
resigns himself to physical immobility and a limited
effectiveness and waits patiently for new marching orders
and for inspiration.
The inspired elect trust in the promise of another world,
but they are still faced with the problem of moving about in
this one. Despite their gifts, they share the liabilities and
infirmities of the race. Inspiration is fitful, and when it
comes it may prove too much for the vessel to bear :

Up led by thee
Into the Heav'n of Heav'ns I have presum'd,
An Earthly Guest, and drawn Empyreal Air,
Thy temp'ring; with like safety guided down
Return me to my Native Element:
Lest from this flying Steed unrein'd, (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower Clime)
Dismounted, on th' Aleian Field I fall
Erroneous there to wander and forlorn.
(VII. I 2-20)
206 Standing Only: Christian Heroism

Prophets too can fall, wander uncertainly, perhaps errone-

ously, and feel lost in a world in whose making they do have
a share. The 'fit audience' will be sought by the poet only
if the Muse deigns to visit him and it will be found only if
God chooses to make of his work an instrumentality of
divinity. But by holding himself ready ('the readiness is all'),
by standing and waiting, for inspiration or forever, by
believing himself not alone though in apparent solitude, by
being willing to 'annoy' if that is what is asked of him, by
refusing either to revile deity (be 'hoarse') or to default on
his obligations (be 'mute') when cosmic justice seems
inexplicable, by committing himself to expression when the
words are not his own and their effects beyond his control,
Milton does what he can to make himself worthy of God's
service, should he be called to it (as God would have it). He
is, if it can be said of any man, a true and heroic poem.
There is still another hero to be noted in the universe of
Paradise Lost- the reader, who receives his command
from the poet and meets his Apollyon in the poem. The
stylistic intricacies of the verse and the unexpected turns of
the narrative force him into mental operations which corres-
pond to the physical movements of the warring angels. He
begins confidently, almost complacently, is surprised and
disconcerted by unforeseen difficulties, humbled by the
discovery of his inadequacy, revived by a kind word or a
momentary success, thrown back again by a new error; and
thus he stumbles through the poem, his progress marked by
the many times he is forced to merely stand his ground or
even to retreat. 'He learns', H. R. Swardson remarks with
some irritation, 'that he can't ... give himself up to Milton's
effect in one place without that meaning and effect being
undermined or destroyed by his response in another place ...
The trouble is, he wants us to respond to the words in their
full sense in each place, yet he doesn't want to commit him-
 Other Warfares and Other Heroes 207

self to their full meaning.'• More than that, Milton asks us

to respond fully to each of his effects and yet be prepared to
discount one or all of them in the light of better knowledge.
We must commit ourselves and not commit ourselves at the
same time, moving between the immediate experience of
the poetry and the acknowledged authority of a 'hard and
definite outline', remaining open to the first while awaiting
(not demanding) the guidance of the second. In the face of
this, Swardson concludes, 'We finally give up trying to read
him seriously'. But, surely, this is our temptation, not our
duty or our inevitable fate. Admittedly, the poem is a pro-
foundly disturbing experience which produces something
akin to a neurosis ; the natural inclination to read on vies
with a fear of repeating old errors and encountering new
frustrations. In this, the poem is a microcosm of the world
and the difficulties of reading are to be equated with the
difficulties of the earthly pilgrimage. The reader's sphere of
action is the poem, and his heroism, like Abraham's, is in
going on (or out), in accepting- on faith- the sup-
position that local failures and discomforts are preludes
to a larger success that awaits him under the regis of a
controlling and inspired mind. Submitting to the style of
the poem is an act of self-humiliation. Like all heroic acts it
is a decision to subordinate the self to a higher ideal, one
by-product of which is the discovery of the true self. The
imperative is 'read I' and by not giving up, by not closing
the book, by accepting the challenge of self-criticism and
self-knowledge, one learns how to read, and by extension
how to live, and becomes finally the Christian hero who is,
after all, the only fit reader. In the end, the education of
Milton's reader, the identification of his hero, and the
description of his style, that is, of its effects, are one.

r Swardson, Poetry and the Fountain of Light, pp. 146-7.

5 The Interpretative Choice

(i) VAIN SPECULATIONS

Wondering at the 'blind alleys' readers of Paradise Lost

have been led into, C. S. Lewis moves to 'dismiss that
question which has so much agitated some great critics,
"What is the Fall?" ' by answering, 'The Fall is simply and
solely Disobedience - doing what you have been told not to
do.' Aligning himself with Addison, for whom 'the great
moral which reigns in Milton is ... Obedience to the will
of God makes men happy', Lewis poses a question of his
own : 'How are we to account for the fact that great modern
scholars have missed what is so dazzlingly simple ?'• This
could be profitably rephrased to read, 'How are we to account
for the fact that Adam and Eve, when the time comes, miss
what is so dazzlingly simple?' For the reader, the poem is a
'life situation', analogous to the situation of the happy
couple in Paradise. The 'dazzling simplicity' of the poem's
great moral is the counterpart of the dazzlingly simple
prohibition, and the obligation of the parties in the two
situations is to defend the starkness of the moral choice
against sophistications which seem to make disobedience
attractive ('Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine') or
necessary ('what seem'd remediless'). The opportunities to
yield to such sophistications are provided by God and
Milton, respectively, who wish to try the faith and integrity
of their charges. Lewis hopes to 'prevent the reader from
ever raising certain questions', but Milton insists that the
reader raise them, and then that he answer them, either by
1 A Prifact to Paradise Lost (Oxford, 1942), pp. 69-70.
 Fain Speculations 209

recalling the simplicity of the revealed word or by turning

inward where there are waiting a ready supply of self-
serving rationalizations. These rationalizations become
screens behind which the reader may hide from himself facts
he finds unpleasant, notably the fact of man's culpability for
what happened in Paradise and since. But he is free, on the
other hand, to decline the gambit and accept instead the
'desolating clarity' of 'For still they knew, and ought to
have still remember'd /The high Injunction not to taste that
Fruit' (x. I 2-1 3). Whatever he decides, it is his responsi-
bility, as it was theirs.
Mrs. MacCaffrey observes that in describing the
intellectual vanity of the fallen angels, 'Milton is describing
human preoccupations.' Philosophy may be false, 'but
humanity will go on philosophizing'. 1 Certainly the reader
will go on philosophizing, and his concerns, as the critical
history of the poem proves, are the same as the devils' :
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate,
Fixt Fate, Free will, Foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argu'd then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and Apathy, and glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophy:
Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm
Pain for a while.
(n. 559-67)
How does one reconcile freedom of will with the absolute
foreknowledge of the Creator? How can actions which have
been foreseen be free ? How can evil proceed from a per-
fectly good being ? The declarative forms of these questions
are the staples of anti-Milton criticism :
(1) Adam and Eve were fated to fall. 'I do not see what
1 Paradise Lost as 'Myth', p. I 83.
2 1o The Interpretative Choice

the incident can mean except that God was determined to

make man fall.' (Empson, Milton's God, p. I I 2.)
(2) Their disobedience, as we see it, is determined, partly by
circumstances, partly by their own natures. 'Man yields to
temptation when he is caught in an archetypal net of circum-
stance and mixed motivation, from which, being what he is,
no amount of faith or foreknowledge can extricate him ... .
The enmeshing of the victims is so beautifully contrived .. .
human nature as much as Satan undoes Adam and Eve.'
(Watkins, An Anatomy of Milton's Verse, p. I41.)
(3) They were created with a propensity to fall. 'If they
could fall, were they not already in some sense fallen?'
(Ricks, Milton's Grand Style, p. 99.) 1 Obviously these
arguments represent slightly different paths to the same
conclusion : God, not Adam and Eve, is guilty of the Fall,
and curiously enough, it is God himself who raises them by
gratuitously refuting them :

nor can justly accuse

Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;
As if Predestination over-rul'd
Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Thir own revolt, not I: ifi foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I form'd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
1 Actually the opposite is true: if they could not fall they could not stand;

that is, they would not be doing the standing, consciously and wilfully. The
ability not to fall depends on the ability to fall; free will is a meaningless
concept unless the possibility of wrong choice exists.
 Pain Speculations 2 11

Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree

Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd
Thir freedom: they themselves ordain'd thir fall.
(m. 112-28)

These assertions are made in the course of a methodical

exposition to which the speaker expects no response; but
the effect on his audience of eavesdroppers is to suggest
'inventions' by means of which the Fall can be circumvented.
As David Daiches points out (not in praise, however), 'the
reader, however much he wishes to read Paradise Lost "as a
poem", is forced to read it at this point as logical argument,
and to answer back as he reads. ' 1 Whether or not he
'answers back', in the sense of disagreeing, the reader will be
unable to ignore the difficulties involved in the logic of fore-
knowledge and freedom. These difficulties are acknowledged
(not personally, but as part of a logical proof) by God, and
resolved ; but the reader will have been exposed to the
attractiveness of the evasions God disallows - I ordained
their Fall, the shadow of Fate hangs over them, they were
not 'sufficient to have stood' - and thereafter, whenever an
innocent detail is capable of being twisted so that it seems to
forebode the Fall, whenever an isolated incident can be
(illegitimately) structured into a 'net of circumstance', when-
ever Adam and Eve evidence their ability to fall (the
necessary complement of their ability not to fall), these
evasions, in all their seductiveness, are recalled, and, if we
allow them, they undermine our understanding of the
situation as God and Milton have instituted it.
Undoubtedly, by eliminating some passages and altering
the emphasis of others, Milton could have neutralized the
'pleasing sorcery' of these speculations. That he did not
choose to do so is less an indication of a deficiency in tact
than of a willingness to risk all in order to bring the reader
I Milton (London, 1957), p. 181.
 212 The Interpretative Choice

to self-awareness. One may be proof against the obvious

temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, but fall to
the promptings of the enemy within, to 'the secret deceit
which we perceive not' but which is working all the while in
the 'many blinde corners, the ... turnings and windings, the
perplexe labrynths' 1 of the human heart. 'In clearing our-
selves when guilty', warns Dyke, 'the heart of man is so
subtle that if it can finde out any other thing or person, that
in the least sort may seem to be but the least peece of an
occasion, that shall be sufficient to free itselfe of all manner
of blame.'z (Significantly, one 'tricke' discussed by Dyke is
the imputing of sin to God 3) Milton forces to the surface the
1 Daniel Dyke, The Mystery of 8elfe-Deceifling (r6r5), pp. 355, 7· See

Miller and Johnson, The Puritans(rev. edn., 1963), i. 284: 'A large quantity
of Puritan sermons were devoted ... to exposing not merely the conscious
duplicity of evil men, but the abysmal tricks which the subconscious can play
upon the best of men.'
z The Mystery of 8elfe-Deceifling, p. I 38.
3 'Thus did Adam, when he said in defence of his owne eating, the woma11
thou garJest me, she gafle me it, closely taxing God himselfe, as if hee should
have said, unlesse thou hadst given mee this companion, I had not eaten ...
God that hateth, forbiddeth, threateneth, punisheth sinne, can he possibly
tempt unto sinne? Yea, but thou sayest hee decreed my sinne, for nothing
comes to passe without his will. The second causes move not, unlesse they bee
moved by the .first. I answer the first cause is not the cause of the errour that
is in the motion of the second, though it be the cause of the motion. As in the
wheeles of a clocke, the principall wheele, with its motion, runnes about the
lower, yet if there be any errour in the motion of the lower, it is no cause at
all thereof. Now, sinne is not properly any motion, but an errour in the motion
of thy heart. Gods will being the first cause, is the cause of thy hearts motion
.•• but if there be any sinne, any errour in the motion, thine owne will is the
cause thereof. For all that God hath to doe about it, is his t~o/untary permiuio11
whereby he, withdrawing his grace from thee, leaveth thee to thy selfe, as not
beeing bounde unto thee. He doth not infuse, or instill into thy minde any
wicked motions, as doth 8athan. Hee onely setteth the baite, or the net, and
doth not refraine thy concupiscence from carrying thee to it: for he owes thee
no such service: but he doth not take poles, as Sa than doeth, and drive thee
violently into the net. And yet if 8athans temptation could not excuse Adam,
 rain Speculations 2 I3

deceitful and self-serving thoughts ('the wily suttleties and

refluxes ... from within')' employed by the subconscious to
avoid uncomfortable truths, and insists that they be sub-
mitted to the correction and judgment of the revealed word.
Of course, since these thoughts are manifestations of a
desire to escape judgment ('Self-love makes one rather
excuse what is amiss, than examine it'), 2 the reader may
persist in them, even when their subversiveness has been
made apparent ; but he will at least be conscious of his
temerity in affirming against the authority of the poet and
scripture. 3
how much !esse then Godt dutrtion' (I52-3). See also Richard Baxter, Tht
arrogancy of Rtaton (I655), p. 65, where the same quibble is considered and
rejected: 'Nor is it any deifying of the Creatures will to say it is such a self-
determining principle, and so far a first cause, while it had the power of self-
determination from God, and so absolutely is no first cause.' Obviously, the
various ways of absolving oneself of guilt were much discussed; and this
increases the likelihood that Milton would have expected his readers to
recognize their objections to the doctrine of free will for what they are, the
unlawful urgings of the carnal reason. Another of the 'scapegoats' Dyke
disallows is Satan, in a passage that has relevance for P araditt Lott: 'The
Divell cannot prevaile against us, but by the helpe of our owne corruption.
He might strike fire long enough, ere there would be any burning, did not wee
finde him tinder' (p. I 5 I).
1 Rtaton ojChurciJ Govtrnmtnt, Complttt Prott Workr, i. 8 I7.

z Thomas Watson, Chrittian Soldier, p. 4-8.

3 The possibility of being unconsciously subversive is discussed by Milton
in the Chriftian Doctrint (Tht Workr of John Milton, xiv. IOI, IOJ): 'That
the fall of man was not necessary is admitted on all sides; but if such, never-
theless, was the nature of the divine decree, that his fall became really in-
evitable, both which opinions, hOWtrJtr contradictory, art somttimu hdd by tht
samt ptrsont, then the restoration of man, after he had lapsed of necessity,
became no longer a matter of grace on the part of God, but of simple justice.'
By keeping the two points of belief (the Fall was not necessary, the decree
made it inevitable) in separate compartments, the mind entertains blasphemy
on a subconscious level, while being outwardly orthodox. Milton makes this
manreuvre impossible by forcing an awareness of the contradictions involved
in holding these and like opinions, much as the process of dialectic forces
awareness (and choice) upon the respondent: 'The respondent now is con-
p F.S.S,
z 14 The Interpretative Choice

The result is a reading experience which has been des-

cribed, disapprovingly, by Waldock: 'our reception of a
given passage can be, and often is, a blend of two things :
what we have really read in the passage, and what we know
Milton is wishing us to read into it' (op. cit., p. 26). I would
say instead that our reception is a blend of what, for various
reasons, we would like to read into the passage, and what we
know, from unimpeachable sources, is really there. So that in
any one scene, including the crucial scenes of Book IX, there
are available two interpretations ; one, urged on us by the
epic voice or by our own awareness of the possibilities and
their implications, supports and gives body to the picture of
Edenic reality outlined by God in Book III, while the other
points, however indirectly, to his villainy and our parents'
(technical) innocence.
As before, the subversive response (interpretation) is first
encouraged and then discredited, leaving the reader to come
to terms with the appeal it has for him. At III. 12 7, when God
declares his unwillingness to 'revoke the high Decree I ...
which ordain'd I Thir freedom', the reader is likely to extend
the influence of the decree to the Fall which is also assumed
to be ordained; but immediately, as if he were anticipating
in advance the 'wily suttleties' of the fallen mind, God

fronted with an alternative and a choice. Either he erred in making the

initial and succeeding agreements leading to this evident, albeit discomfiting,
consequence; or his previous opinions were without foundation. If he decides
that he erred in his initial doxa or somewhere along the way, he is obligated
to indicate at what point and why. If he concludes that he was ill-advised in
making concessions to begin with, he is convicted of subordinating truth to
prudential interests. If he determines, willy-nilly, to reaffirm his original
proposition, he must at least concede that he is on record for holding contrary
or contradictory judgments. Eventually he may be led to square himself
with himself. Meanwhile, like Alcibiades in the Symposium, the man will be
self-convicted until he is self-convinced (2 16c).' Robert Cushman, Tlurapeia
(Chapel Hill, 1958), p. 235.
 Pain Speculations 2I S

insists, 'they themselves ordain' d thir Fall'. I The possibility

of disbelieving him still exists, but disbelief can be main-
tained only in the face of God's faultless logic which can be
understood if the reader is willing to make the effort. There
are then two choices before the reader (I) whether or not to
work through the apparent contradiction between fore-
knowledge and freedom to an understanding of the distinc-
tion between what will happen and what must happen (2)
whether or not to reject completely the alternative reading
which has the advantage (from a 'selfish' point of view) of
excusing the frailty of his first parents, 2 and, by extension,
I Cf. III. 128-31: 'they themselves ordain'd thir fall/ The first sort by thir

own suggestion fell, / Self-tempted, self deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd / By th'
other first: Man therefore shall find grace'. The implication in the syntax is
that grace is due man because his error is someone else's responsibility: man
therefore shall find grace. But this is deliberate teasing, if not on God's part,
then on Milton's. The 'therefore' is not logical, but arbitrary; Satan's presence
in the garden is not really an extenuating circumstance; God merely chooses
to make it the basis of an action that proceeds solely from his good will. The
urgings of the Devil may render obedience difficult (or perhaps make it easier)
but never impossible. God points the moral beforehand, 'Sufficient to have
stood, though free to fall' (99), a line that will pursue us into Book IX. Man
does ordain his own fall, and we always know it to be so, but a decoy like
'therefore' is nevertheless able to make us go against our knowledge, for a
moment; we want very much to read 'deserve' instead of'find' grace, and do
so until the word 'mercy' reminds us that grace is gratuitous, cannot be
earned and certainly not deserved: 'But Mercy first and last shall brightest
shine'. The experience of this passage and others like it can be compared to the
experience of making a typing error. Even as the finger presses the wrong key,
something in the mind flashes a warning signal; but the reflexes are too slow,
a mistake is made, and one simultaneously participates in and analyses a
failure in co-ordination.
z As readers of Paradise Lost, we are in a curious position, analogous to that
proposed by one critic for the narrator of Chaucer's Troilu1 and Cri!eide:
'By the beginning of Book IV ••• the narrator's love for Criseide has become
such that when he finds himself forced to face the issue of her perfidy he comes
close to denying the truth of his old books .... It is a strange historian who
becomes so emotionally involved with the personages of his history that he is
willing to impugn the reliability of the sources upon which his whole know·
2 16 The Interpretative Choice

his own frailties. In the middle books (Iv-Ix) these same

choices are structured into a series of scenes which provide a
continuing test of the reader's steadfastness and honesty.
The technique is again the technique of the 'good tempta-
tion' whereby the reader is left to choose, in a controlled
situation, which of two roads he will take. That is to say, the
interpretative choice -which is to be distinguished from
the 'responsive choice' in that it requires a decision con-
cerning the meaning of an action or a scene, and so affects
the reader's understanding of the poem itself- is always
made consciously and wilfully, and is ultimately a choice
between the word of God and the structures reared (self-
defensively) by the reader's reason.

(ii) THE C H 0 I C E S

In Book Iv, when Eve recalls her early life without Adam, the
choice is between two readings of the allusion to Narcissus:
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issu'd from a Cave and spread
Into a liquid Plain, then stood unmov'd
ledge of those personages presumably depends.' (E. T. Donaldson, Chaucer's
Poetry: An Anthology for the Modem Reader, New York, 1958, p. 967.)
This is true to some extent of Milton's narrator, but truer still of his reader
who becomes 'emotionally involved' with the originals of himself. Despite
certain knowledge of the history and a unique commitment to its source (the
sacred text) he finds himself increasingly eager to deny the fact of the Fall and
thus avoid the issue of his own perfidy, either by ascribing it to a natural and
therefore innocent depravity or by fixing the blame on some other agent. The
latter is the more attractive alternative, since it seems to preserve the free will
of the victims, at least superficially; actually there is no difference at all between
believing that Adam and Eve could not help but fall or believing that their
fall was caused by someone else, and in the end this kind of reasoning in-
evitably returns to God.
 The Choices 2I7

Pure as th' expanse ofHeav'n; I thither went

With unexperienc't thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth Lake, that to me seem'd another Sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A Shape within the wat'ry gleam appear'd
Bending to look on me, I started back,
It started back, but pleas'd I soon return'd,
Pleas'd it returned as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love; there I had fixt
Mine eyes till now, and pin'd with vain desire
Had nota voice thus warn'd me. (4-53-67)
One can either conclude with Mrs. Bell that 'we have glimpsed
a dainty vanity in "our general mother" which the serpent
will put to use', or contrive, with Peter and Harding, to
disengage her from the pejorative connotations of the myth:
The incident is actually one of the most engaging glimpses we
have of Eve's artless [innocent] simplicity ... and the childlike
honesty with which she compares the physical appearances of
Adam and herself is wholly disarming.
Eve is saved, as Narcissus is not, by a warning voice, and it
would be a captious reader indeed who ... would be inclined to
read too much into this. 1
There is much in the text itself to support Peter and
Harding. 'Childlike' (or, better still, infantlike) seems
perfectly true to the reaction Eve displays to her newly
discovered image: the curiosity- 'I thither went I With
unexperienc't thought' - the movement back and forth -
'I started back, I It started back, but pleas'd I soon return'd'
(the patterned repetitions lead the reader to imitate the
motion)- and the (innocent) fascination- 'there I had
fixt I Mine eyes'. And Eve's yielding to Adam would seem
to indicate, as Harding implies and Summers insists, that
1 A Critirut of Paradiu Lost, p. ro:z; Tlu Club of Herculn, p. 74-·
218 The Interpretative Choice

'the point ... is the contrast rather than the compar1son

with ... Narcissus':
Narcissus had no 'perfect' partner, no 'other self', and he had no
divine guide ... she has found fulfillment, ... she had not
'pin'd with vain desire'.•
In addition, one should note that, in telling her story, Eve,
far from 'unexperienc't', is mature in wisdom ; she is now
aware, as she may not have been before, of the true signifi-
cance of her yielding :
I yielded, and from that time see
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.
(489-91)
This is obviously 'the professed moral of the episode'. 2
The possibility, however, of not reaching for the contrast
(an effort is required) and not crediting her maturity still
remains. Ignoring the evidence to the contrary, evidence
Milton is always careful to provide, the reader, whose will is
also free, may decide to disbelieve Eve, looking no further
than the surface parallel, and thus begin to ease, conscious at
some level of the error, into the opinion 'that Adam and
Eve must have already contracted ... weaknesses before
they can start on the course of conduct that leads to their
fall.' 3 (Of course, if the will is free, no course of conduct can
lead to the Fall which is a spontaneous, i.e. free, action.)
What the reader cannot possibly do is ignore the problem
(the eighteenth-century commentators were already debating
it) 4 once the Ovidian allusion is recognized. The presence of
1 Tht Muse's Mtthod, p. 98. 2 Harding, loc. cit.

3 W aldock, op. cit., p. 6 r.

4 Newton (Paradist Lost, 1749) notes that Addison asks 'sarcastically
enough [Sptctator, vol. 5, No. 325.) whether some moral is not couch'd
under this place, where the poet lets us know, that the first woman immediately
after her creation ran to a looking-glass, and became so enamour'd of her own
 The Choices 2I9

Narcissus, even at a remove, is a puzzle, which, like the

literal incongruity of some parts of scripture and the
appearance during the creation scene of the phrase 'With
Serpent error wand'ring', is designed to exercise the reader's
mind and to present him with a choice he cannot avoid.
The same pattern is repeated on a larger scale in the
episode of Eve's dream, where the suggestion of a tainted
consciousness is at odds with the moral drawn by Adam.
The suggestion is conveyed to the reader in Book IV, when
Satan is seen 'Assaying ..• I ... if inspiring venom, he
might taint I Th' animal spirits that from pure blood arise I
... thence raise I At least distemper'd, discontented
thoughts, I Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires I
Blown up with high conceits ingend'ring pride' (1v. 801,
804-9). Presumably, this is the basis of a reading like
Northrop Frye's:
The occasion of her dream was Satin whispering in her ear; but
the dream itself, in its manifest content, was a Freudian wish-
fulfilment dream. I

Notice that Frye assumes Satan's success, while the verse

itself leaves the matter in doubt. Satan is assaying to reach
her Fancy, in the hope that he could then 'forge I Illusions
as he list;' or, barring that, he will see if he can infuse
venom into her which might then taint her animal spirits.
There is more than a hint that his calculations may prove
face, that she had never removed to view any of the other works of nature,
had not she been led off to a man.' Newton's defence of Eve sets the pattern
for all subsequent defences: 'This account that Eve gives of her coming to a
lake, and there falling in love with her own image ... is much more probable
and natural as well as more delicate and beautiful, than the famous story of
Narcissus in Ovid, from which our author manifestly took the hint, and has
expertly imitated some passages, but has avoided all his puerilities ... as the
reader may observe by comparing them both together' (emphasis mine).
1 The Return of Eden, p. 75·
220 The Interpretative Choice

incorrect. Of course, a careless reader, or one who is eager

to find trouble in Paradise, can easily detach 'Blown up with
high conceits ingend'ring pride' from the syntax of the
paragraph (Milton allows him that latitude) and accept the
line as a statement of fact, applicable to Eve as she sleeps.
He would, however, be guilty of a (wilful) distortion.
A more reliable insight into Eve's state of mind is pro-
vided, somewhat indirectly I admit, in the word 'startl'd':
'Such whispering wak'd her, but with startl'd eye.'
(v. 26) In Comus, the Lady, oppressed by 'A thousand
fantasies I ... Of calling shapes and beck'ning shadows
dire', waking fancies not unlike Eve's, declares forthrightly:
'These thoughts may startle well, but not astound I The
virtuous mind' (210-1 1). The virtuous mind may be sur-
prised (startled) by an untoward suggestion without
surrendering to it. And even if the body is under evil's spell,
as Eve's is here and will be again when she follows the
serpent to the tree, the virtuous mind is still able to assert
itself:
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind
... although this corporal rind
Thou hast immanacl'd.
(Comus, 663-5)
This is the point Adam will make when he explains to Eve
the significance of her dream, and it is one we should be
prepared to understand. I
I The distinction between 'startle' and 'astound' is the basis of the definition

of virtue offered in the masque. Milton conceives of virtue as a state of inner

composure, a moral readiness that cannot be shaken, even by something
totally unexpected. The virtuous mind may be surprised (startled) at a
possibility hitherto unknown (as Adam will be surprised to discover that he
can disobey) without losing its balance; it will absorb and assimilate new facts
and situations, not disintegrate before them. On the other hand, a mind that is
astounded has allowed the weight of external pressures to paralyse and rout it;
it has become the plaything of circumstances instead of their master. The
fallen angels are 'astounded' or stupefied by their situation in Hell (r. 28 r).
 The Choices 22 I

The dream is a carefully woven web of echoing and anti-

cipatory detail. Satan's opening 'Why sleep'st thou Eve' is a
slightly altered version of his 'earlier' address to Beelzebub,
'Sleep'st thou companion dear?' (673). (The relationship
between the two temptations is confused for us since we
have not yet been told of the revolt which has already occur-
red when Satan squats at the ear of Eve.) His first appeal is a
parody of Adam's parody of The Song of Songs, with a
significant difference : Adam invites Eve to enjoy the
wonders of God's nature, 'Awake, the morning shines and
the fresh field I Calls us' ( 20-2 1) ; Satan invites her to be wor-
shipped, 'Heaven wakes with all his eyes, I Whom to behold
but thee?' (44-4 5). Is this merely another instance, we ask,
of the fiend's inability to imagine motives not rooted in self-
love, or is it that he knows Eve better than Adam does and
can fashion an argument which will sway her? The answer
any reader gives will depend to some extent on the meaning
he has assigned to the incident at the pool. The angel whose
dewy locks distil ambrosia is of course Satan as he was in the
meeting with Uriel. Does one deception have any bearing on
the probable success of the other? The question will certainly
raise itself, and again, the answer will depend on the care
the reader is willing to exercise in the drawing of conclusions.
Satan's approach is leisurely, as it will be in Book IX.
Flattery ('fair Angelic Eve') and Godhead ('be henceforth
among the Gods') are the twin prongs of his strategy,
merging in a final appeal, 'Ascend to Heav'n, by merit
thine' (So). The logic is familiar, as it has been rehearsed for
us in Book IV :
Knowledge forbidd'n?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should thir Lord
Envy them that?
(xv. 515-17)
is Knowledge so despis'd?
Or envy, or what reserve forbids to taste? (v. 6o-6x)
222 The Interpretative Choice

And will be heard again in IX :

What can your knowledge hurt him, or this Tree

Impart against his will if all be his?
Oris it envy? (xx. 727-9)

The temptation builds slowly, heightening the reader's

anticipation of the climax. At the crucial moment, a sensory
lure ('Even to my mouth of that same fruit held part I
Which he had pluck't') is added to the rhetoric. Eve de-
scribes the effect on her physiological processes and on her
will:
the pleasant savory smell
So quick'n'd appetite, that I, methought,
Could not but taste. Forthwith ...
(v. 84-86)
Here the interpretative choice is offered in small. 'Me-
thought' and 'Could not but taste' suggest imminent
consent, but not consent itself. (I felt as if I had to do it.)
One expects 'Forthwith' ('immediately after which' or
simply 'then') to be followed by 'I reached' or 'I ate' or even
'I decided to eat.' Instead we read
Forthwith up to the Clouds
With him I flew.

We have missed the deed itself and passed to its effects, the
literal illusion foreshadowing the metaphorical reality :
'They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel I Divinity
within them breeding wings I Wherewith to scorn the
Earth' (zx. 1009-1 1). How are we to account for this
omission? The simplest explanation consonant with the
evidence is one which does credit to Eve and to her virtuous
mind. Satan is unable to make Eve go through the motions
of disobedience, even in her fancy,just as hypnotic suggestion
 The Choices 223

cannot induce actions contrary to one's moral code. The

irrevocable gesture is not reported because it does not
happen. Thus Adam : 'Which gives me hope I That what in
sleep thou didst abhor to dream, I Waking thou never wilt
consent to do' (I I 9-2 I). But some readers, intent on the
Fall and on analogies which reflect 'the subconscious desires
and longings' of the dreamer/ will hear only the irony in
Adam's hope, and will assume that Eve has eaten, perhaps
in the interval between 'could not but taste' and 'Forth-
with', and will assume also, that, because she has, she will
again, inevitably.
This interpretation of the dream, implying as it does
Satan's success and Eve's involuntary compliance, is
challenged at once by her disclaimer : 'but 0 how glad I
wak'd I To find this but a dream' (92-93), which Wayne
Shumaker cites as proof of 'the innocence of her will'. 2 Eve's
innocence, real and technical, is even more strongly insisted
on by Adam, who, with the authority displayed by the epic
voice on other occasions, moves to promulgate official
doctrine. (Again Milton has allowed us the latitude of
speculation, and so induced a train of thought whose wrong-
ness can now be more forcefully exposed.) Evil is present, he
acknowledges, but its source can in no way be Eve: 'in thee
can harbor none I Created pure' (98-99). And what of an
Eve whose subconscious has been violated without her
knowing it, against her will? Adam's answer is simply im-
possible:
Evil into the mind of God or Man
May come and go, so unapprov'd, and leave
No spot or blame behind. (I I 7- I 9)

Eve could not now be the repository of evil unless her

conscious will has wished it so ; since her will is otherwise
1 Harding, op. cit., p. 8 3.
2 'The Fallacy of the Fall in Paradiu Lo1t', PMLA, Ixx (1955), I r86.
224 The Interpretative Choice

inclined ('0 how glad'), she remains untouched (startled,

not astounded) by her experience. Moreover the fact of the
assault does not reflect on her firmness ; rather her resistance,
like the resistance of the Lady in Comus, affirms dramatically
a basic tenet of Milton's moral philosophy:
Virtue may be assail'd but never hurt,
Surpris'd by unjust force but not enthrall'd,
Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.
But evil on itself shall back recoil.
(589--q3)
(So Satan recoils at the touch of Ithuriel's spear, returning
to 'his own shape', when he is discovered in the happy
couple's bower.) One critic describes the dream as 'a wedge
for separating Eve from Adam by returning her to her
mirror state', 1 but if the incident is considered apart from
the Fall (as it should be), the opposite seems to be true. The
fact of the dream has afforded Adam and Eve an opportunity
to exercise their joint responsibilities in the manner God
ordained for them. Disturbed by something she does not
understand, Eve at once seeks guidance and counsel from
Adam, who responds to her need with his superior wisdom. 2
The result is the strengthening of the hierarchical relation-
ship which is the basis of their happiness and the dispelling
of the anxiety occasioned by the intrusion of an alien
influence. The comment of the epic voice is unequivocal :
So all was clear'd, and to the Field they haste.
(136)
1 Stein, AniWerable Style, p. 93·
2 When we first meet Eve she is receiving instruction from Adam's lips;

later she is said to prefer his teaching to the angel Raphael's (vm. so-57). In
Book IX, Eve will again seek Adam's approval or counsel, and for the first
time he handles the situation badly with what results we know (the separation,
not the Fall). Appropriately, the reconciliation scene in Book x is a re-
establishment of the old relationship.
 The Choices 225

Of the two invitations (to worship and to be worshipped)

Eve has accepted Adam's.
The alternative reading, in which the dream is a 'portal
of temptation', opened by 'some pre-existing sympathy' and
leading inexorably to the Fall, I rests primarily on the
detailed correspondences between the two passages in v
and IX. Yet, reasoning from the same details, one can see,
with Arthur Barker, how the incident, 'far from fore-
boding the Fall ... stands in the sharpest ... contrast
[to] it', 2 just as Narcissus' behaviour, properlyviewed, stands
in contrast to Eve's. Whereas in Book IX Eve will linger at
the tree, allowing Satan's logic a too easy entrance, here,
even in sleep, she hears him with horror, escaping gladly
to Adam's better guidance. Presumably on some other
occasion, when she is not a captive audience, her rejection
of the same appeal will be even more emphatic. (One more
area has been removed in which virtue can be even surprised.)
'Knowing already the outcome of the story,' asserts Mrs.
Bell, 'we cannot believe' Adam when he 'tells her soothingly
that "evil into the mind of God or Man J May come and
go." ' 3 But if we do believe him, as Milton clearly intends us
to, our foreknowledge points in quite another direction
'to ... the fact that the Fall is, as to right action, a parodic
obliquity and anomaly.' 4 That is, the response of Adam and
Eve to this situation militates against the inevitability (not
the fact) of their later failure. As always, the pattern the
details fall into is determined by the reader, who can either
labour to bring the poetic moment into line with the larger
perspective, or reverse the priorities by bending the poem's
I Millicent Bell, 'The Fallacy of the Fall in Paradise Lost', PMLA, lxviii

( 1953), 871; E. M. W. Tillyard, Studies in Milton (London, 195 r), p. I J.

2 'Structural and Doctrinal Patterns in Milton's Later Poems', in Essays in

English Literature From the Renaissance to the Pictorian Age preunted to A. 8.

P. Woodhouse, ed. Maclure and Watt (Toronto, 1964), p. 190.
J Loc. cit. 4 Barker, loc. cit.
226 The Interpretative Choice

moral structure to fit a conclusion drawn too hastily from

a local context. Ultimately the choice is between experience,
the mould of the perceiving mind, and revelation, a choice
mirrored here in the alternatives of believing or disbelieving
Adam, and in the further obligation, if we decide to believe
him, of understanding what his statement tells us about the
Fall.
The episode is meant to show what Adam and Eve are
capable of doing, rather than what they must inevitably do.
The reader who makes the dream a cause or even a predic-
tion of the Fall compromises prelapsarian freedom, and
renders himself incapable of understanding what the loss of
that freedom involves. Innocence, Raphael tells Adam and
Eve, far from being static, includes large possibilities for
growth as well as the possibility of declining to grow. By
continuing to obey and by maturing in wisdom, as Eve
matures when she recognizes Adam's superior fairness, they
may ascend 'in tract of time' from the perfection of Paradise
to a higher perfection ;1 and while they continue to respond
to their opportunities as we see them responding here,

1 The term 'perfection' has been the cause of some confusion. Mrs. Bell

argues, 'the mind can not accept the fact that perfection was capable of cor-
ruption without denying the absoluteness of perfection' (op. cit., p. 863). But
if Adam and Eve are perfect, they are perfect with respect to their species,
not absolutely perfect. Absolute perfection belongs to God; human perfection
demands that man be able (free) to make mistakes. One must distinguish
between flaws and limitations; man's limitations (his distance from absolute
perfection) are the basis of his dignity and therefore one aspect of his perfection.
See Summers, The Muu's Method, p. 14-9: 'We have already noted some of the
ways in which the poem presents perfection as moving rather than static, as
relative rather than absolute. Adam and Eve are created perfect for their place
(although the place may change); they are endowed with the possession or the
possibility of perfect fulfilment in time, of perfect happiness and joy and the
perfection of all the knowledge of which they are capable in their state; and
they are also endowed with the ability to doubt or distrust or forget their
happiness and perfection, the ability to deny and to destroy it all.'
 The Choices '227

affirming the hierarchy they were created in and labouring

to do God's will, the Fall is impossible. The small crises of
the middle books have been defended misleadingly as an
instance of 'necessary faking' in order to avoid too abrupt
a transition from innocence to sin. 1 The abruptness of the
falling away, in relation to the movement of the narrative
before that time, is what Milton wishes to emphasize; and
he leaves us to work out the implications of these domestic
adventures in the hope that we will use them to counter-
point, not circumscribe, the fatal act. The difficulty and the
1 'In Book Four of Paradiu Lost Milton pictured his state of innocence ....

But he could not possibly have conducted his account of the Fall with that
picture for sole starting point; the effect would have been sudden and violent
and would have carried no conviction .... Instead he resorts to some faking;
perfectly legitimate in a poem, yet faking nevertheless. He anticipates the Fall
by attributing to Eve and Adam feelings which though nominally felt in the
state of innocence are actually not compatible with it.' (Tillyard, Studies in
Milton, pp. ro-n.) 'Theologically and symbolically he (Adam] is innocent
until he has to act. But Milton could not construct his fiction entirely from
that perspective; he needed a scope of action sufficient for conflict and he
needed both direct and symbolic action that could borrow meaning, as it were,
by anticipating human experience after the Fall.' (Stein, Answerable Style,
p. 99·) 'As a theologian, Milton was compelled to maintain a spotless innocence
in Adam and Eve until that precise moment when Eve actually eats the Fruit.
As a poet, he was compelled to anticipate the Fall by implying in both our
first parents not only a predisposition to sin but the specific frailty out of which
the sin could grow .... These two aims are clearly incompatible.... To
accomplish by artifice what could not be accomplished in fact, Milton sought
to implant in the minds of his readers a secret, furtive, tentative uneasiness
about Adam and Eve- not so much doubts as the shadow of doubts-
while simultaneously maintaining the illusion of their entire sinlessness.'
(Harding, The Club of Hercules, pp. 68-69.) Implied in these statements is a
confusion between the ability to fall and the process of actually falling.
Harding's 'entire sinlessness' is equivalent to Mrs. Bell's 'absolute perfection';
They both assume the staticness of innocence. When Tillyard writes of'feelings
incompatible with the state of innocence' he is much more purist than Milton
or his God. The only feeling incompatible with innocence is the I-must-eat-
the-apple feeling, and even there the psychic decision to do so and the physical
commission of the deed must follow before innocence is lost.
228 The Interpretative Choice

temptation (for us) reside in our foreknowledge, which is

a liability if we ask of every word or gesture, how does this
assure the Fall, and an asset if we ask instead, given the
freedom of the Fall, what does this mean? Foreknowledge,
like innocence, is a gift whose rewards (or hazards) are
commensurate with the degree of responsibility exercised
towards it. Thus if we read properly and refuse to rest in
superficial resemblances, the Fall is continually thrown
into brilliant relief as an incomprehensible phenomenon ;
otherwise we comprehend it, and by comprehending,
deny it.
The tension between a responsible reading and one which
results from carelessly inferring backwards from the event
is particularly noticeable and significant when Adam
describes his reaction to Eve:
here passion first I felt,
Commotion strange, in all enjoyments else
Superior and unmov'd, here only weak
Against the charm of Beauty's powerful glance.
Or Nature fail'd in mee, and left some part
Not proof enough such Object to sustain,
Or from my side subducting, took perhaps
More than enough; at least on her bestow'd
Too much of Ornament, in outward show
Elaborate, of inward less exact.
For well I understand in the prime end
Of Nature her th' inferior, in the mind
And inward Faculties, which most excel,
In outward also her resembling less
His Image who made both, and less expressing
The character of that Dominion giv'n
O'er other Creatures; yet when I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
 The Choices 229

All higher knowledge in her presence falls

Degraded.
(vm. 530-52)
Again we see, or should see, the unfallen consciousness
rising to the challenge of its environment. Earlier Adam
had asked in his ignorance, 'What meant that caution
join•d, if ye be found/ Obedient? Can we want obedience
then / To him or possibly his love desert?• (v. 513-15).
Now, in the light of what Raphael has told him ('That thou
art happy, owe to God; / That thou continu•st such, owe
to thyself), he is able to pinpoint the area of danger (here
passion first I felf) and relate it to his obligations and to his
answering capabilities. He admits 'strange commotions',
as Eve admits her disturbing night phantasms, but, like
her, he keeps his balance (startled not astounded) and
retains his hold on the truth of things as he knows them to be
('For well I understand'). Higher knowledge has not fallen
degraded in Eve•s presence, and, because the possibility has
been noted, it is less likely to fall in the future. The delicacy
(not frailty) of Adam•s understanding is mirrored in the
word 'seems•, a verbal extension of his will through which
he controls the illusion of Eve•s superiority by insisting on
its status as illusion. ('Seems' is the equivalent of Eve's
'0 how glad I wak'd / To find this but a dream•.) The
parallelism of the two experiences extends to the eagerness
in each case to consult with higher intelligences, Eve with
Adam, Adam with Raphael, who, in turn, receives his
information from God. Thus the entire sequence, from the
first words Adam speaks in Book IV ('needs must the
Power / That made us ... / Be infinitely good•) to the
sociable angel•s departing warning at the close of Book vm
('stand fast; to stand or fall/ Free in thine own Arbitrement
it lies•) is an image of the harmonious co-operation possible
between creatures of differing capacities who are united in
Q F.s.s.
230 The Interpretative Choice

their desire to understand and be faithful to the will of God.

The misgivings the captious reader may have are rep-
resented by Raphael, who, struggling as we are with the
burden of foreknowledge, reacts against a future he cannot
hold back and does less than justice to Adam's 'seems'. 'In
loving thou dost well, in passion not', he warns. God did not
intend you to be 'sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause I
Among the Beasts no Mate for thee was found.' 'Half
abash't', largely, I think, because he has failed to make him-
self clear to someone he is anxious to please, Adam replies
with new care, describing in analytical fashion the right
working of his faculties :
(1) Eve's beauty, of form ('her outside ... so fair') and
manner ('those graceful acts, I Those thousand decencies
that daily flow I From all her words and actions'), is admired
as the visible sign of an inner probity ; her words and
actions 'declare unfeign'd I Union of Mind, or in us both
one Soul' (603-4).
(2) Even so, his consciousness of her worth does not
make him her captive, because he retains his powers of
judgment:
Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose
What inward thence I feel, not therefore foil'd,
Who meet with various objects, from the sense
Variously representing. (607-10)
(3) And he concludes by declaring his awareness of the
priorities one must follow if reason is to remain right :
still free
Approve the best, and follow what I approve.
(610-1 1)
Love (following) waits on the discernment of the best by
the reason (approving) and a commitment to this order makes
one free. This is the concept of love which is to be applied to
 The Choices 2 31

the crtsts of the poem, and it is delivered crisply and

authoritatively here by Adam himself.
Had these words been spoken earlier, they would have
been accepted as a true indication of Adam's state of mind.
But here in Book vm, shortly (in poem time) before he is
said to be fondly overcome with female charm, the reader
may be tempted (literally) to reason as Arnold Stein does:
That statement, preceding so briefly the events of the following
morning and noon, cannot be a satisfactory reflection of unfallen
knowledge ... from the event and our consequent perspective
Adam is already undergoing the conflict of temptation.
(Answerable Style, p. 99·)
Because we know Adam will soon fall, the argument goes, he
could not now be as firm as he seems to be ; already cor-
ruption has occurred. This is an example of the blind alleys
foreknowledge can lead us into if we use it illegitimately to
determine the significance of present actions which, with
'bad recompense', then become the cause of what is fore-
known. Rushing to meet 'our consequent perspective',
Stein slips past the paradox Milton is at pains to impress on
us at this conspicuously late stage - Adam is firm, yet
Adam falls -and substitutes for it an intelligible sequence
of events. Immediately, the uniqueness of the Fall as an
action unrelated to its antecedents is obscured, and the focus
of temptation is transferred from the will to a temporal
process. (The implication that the Fall must have ante-
cedents is a denial of the freedom of the will. Watching Eve
leave Adam's side in Book IX Stein comments, 'The eating
of the apple is as good as done', thereby assuming, incorrectly,
that neither of them can reverse the process their separation
has set in motion.) 1 The subversiveness of this reading,
1 Answerable Style, p. 102. The decision to separate is unfortunate, but not
fatal. Separation no more assures the Fall than staying together would certainly
have prevented it. Adam explains to Eve that they will be 'most likely'
232 The Interpretative Choice

which can hardly be avoided as a possibility, is apparent

when one sees the ease of reasoning backward from it to
the occasions when Adam feels the weakness he confesses,
and backward still further from those occasions to the
creation of that weakness (the creation of Eve) and finally
to God, who becomes the prime mover in a line of cause
and effect which ends in Adam's yielding. (Stein would
certainly not follow his analysis to this conclusion.) If the
culpability of the sinners is to be maintained as a point of
belief, and understood in the framework of the poem's
legalistic theology, the status of the Fall as an unforced and
wholly free act must be preserved, although the effort
required to isolate it from the circumstances surrounding it
becomes greater as Book IX draws nearer. (The tendency of
the reader to pre-date the corruption of the fallen pair is
seen in another form in his infection of their language ; and
there is a corresponding pressure to let in fallen meanings
as the crisis approaches.) The effort must be made, however,
if the reader is to have a meaningful perspective on what does
occur. In the context of the trial the poem represents for
him, the penalty for not making it is failure.

(iii) T H E C 0 N SEQ U EN C E S

One can see from this how cumulative are the effects of the
interpretative choices offered by the scenes this chapter
examines. Accept the Narcissus parallel in a superficial way
(IX. 36 5) to avoid temptation if they do not separate. All actions save one are
lawful in Paradise, although some are inadvisable. No sequence of inadvisable
actions (physical or mental) can overwhelm the unfallen will and determine
its direction, for at any point it can disengage itself from the pressures that
seek to influence it, whether they originate from the outside or from within.
The free will is absolutely free.
 The Consequences 233

and Eve's dream is almost certain to receive a Freudian

reading. Decide that Adam dismisses the presence of evil too
easily in Book v and you are halfway to deciding that he is
similarly insensitive to the danger of his feelings for Eve in
Book vm. Soon Adam and Eve become the passive victims
of Fate, put upon children of destiny, enmeshed, in Watkins'
words, 'in an archetypal net of circumstance and mixed
motivation'. They need not even be present to be further
entangled. When Satan deceives U riel, 'The sharpest
sighted Spirit of all in Heav'n', who is beguiled we are told
because 'neither Man nor Angel can discern f Hypocrisy',
the reader is invited to ask himself if Eve, in an analogous
situation, should be expected to be more discerning than
one of God's eyes. The reader who has answered the
question (in the negative) before he asks it will have forged
another link in the chain which leads Eve to the tree. He
may even suppose that Satan's entrance into Paradise, per-
mitted by God in the incompetent persons of Uriel and
Gabriel, is decisive. Yet only an instant's reflection serves to
discredit the parallel and to illuminate the conditions of
Eve's temptation by emphasizing the differences between
the two situations. Hypocrisy is not a problem for Eve since
she need only recall what God has said in response to any
tempter no matter what his appearance. Uriel's failure is
excusable, because he is by nature incapable of piercing
Satan's disguise; in fact, his virtue works to maximize the
probability of his deception. But Eve's failure is a failure
of the will, inexcusable because the sufficiency of her will is
not affected by the ability of an enemy to appear other than
he is. Consequently Satan's presence in the garden does not
in any sense assure the outcome. Again the scene is con-
structed in layers; on the surface one comes upon meanings
which challenge the poem's overriding moral; but a slight
shift of perspective and the challenge is met by the discovery
234 The Interpretative Choice

of deeper and truer meanings which send us back in a new

way to the truths God and Milton have proclaimed. The
layer any reader reaches depends on the strength of his will
and on the quality of his dedication. One may either rest in
the deadening implications of the letter or penetrate to the
life of the spirit.
'The great events in Paradise Lost', Northrop Frye has
said, 'should be read ... as a discontinuous series of crises,
in each of which ... the important factor is not the conse-
quences of previous actions, but the confrontation, across a
vast apocalyptic gulf, with the source of deliverance.' 1 The
reader must not only see this, he must continually affirm it by
refusing at every point to accede to any suggestion which
impairs the freedom of such confrontations. The strain is
considerable, since the basis of all his inferences is a know-
ledge of what is to come, and, as we have seen, that know-
ledge can either be well used or it can be twisted into an
indictment of God. The narrator, who is also a reader, feels
the strain as well as we do and we occasionally hear him
labouring under it. Watching Satan light on Mt. Niphates,
he cries '0 for that warning voice, which he who saw I Th'
Apocalypse, heard cry in Heav'n aloud, I ... that now, I
While time was, our first Parents had been warn'd I The
coming of thir secret foe, and scap'd' (xv. I-2, s-7)· The
assumption is of a causal relationship between Satan's
presence in Paradise and the Fall, and of a corresponding
relationship between the availability of a warning voice and
the hope of escape. But the narrator corrects himself by
adding a qualification, 'Haply so scap'd', perhaps they would
have escaped, admitting in effect that warning or no warning,
with or without Satan, escape still depends on the exercise
of their wills. His 'vain speculation' is an involuntary
expression of his concern and sorrow, understandable, but
I Tlze Return of Eden, pp. 102-3.
 The Consequences 235

irrelevant with respect to the point of doctrine (the freedom

of the unfallen will) he accepts intellectually, and he draws
back from it as we must draw back from it. Later, when Eve,
'like a Wood-Nymph light', moves off into the groves, alone,
the narrator's empathy again threatens his self-control, but
only for a moment :
0 much deceiv'd, much failing, hapless Eve,
Of thy presum'd return! event perverse!
Thou never from that hour in Paradise
F ound'st either sweet repast, or sound repose;
Such ambush hid among sweet Flow'rs and Shades
Waited with hellish rancor imminent
To intercept thy way, or send thee back
Despoil'd oflnnocence, ofFaith, of Bliss.
For now, and since first break of dawn the Fiend,
Mere Serpent in appearance, forth was come.
(IX. 404- I 3)
Ricks describes perfectly the effect of the 'hesitating syntax' :
'At first, one takes "deceav'd" and "failing" as absolute in
their application to Eve- the poet's imagination is absor-
bing the full bitterness of the imminent Fall. But then the
next line- "Of thy presum'd return I"- declares that
she is deceived in the one present circumstance : her presumed
return.' But his conclusion seems to me to be wrong :
And the hesitation, as to whether 'deceav'd' and 'failing' are
absolute or particular, is resolved here by our realizing that there
are not in fact two paths at all, but only one. For Eve to be
wrong about anything (even that she would soon be back) is for
her to be wrong about everything. Before the Fall, the distinc-
tion of absolute or particular failing does not exist.
(Milton's Grand Style, p. 97)
But the lines in question are making just that distinction.
Eve's failing here is like Uriel's in Book m, innocent, and in
relation to the Fall, oblique. The epic voice leaps ahead
236 The Interpretative Choice

(with every reader) to what he knows will happen, not

to what must happen. For Eve in the present the 'event
perverse' is the event she can still prevent; this event (her
leaving) is perverse only for the narrator who, yielding for
an instant to the pressures generated by the narrative,
imagines a necessary connection between actions which are
only contiguous in time. The verse illuminates the path of
error, but bars access to it, insisting even now that disaster
could be avoided. When the epic voice cries, in anticipation,
'Thou never from that hour in Paradise', the reader in-
voluntarily completes the thought with 'knew innocence' or
something equally final. 'Found'st ... sweet repast' is
dramatically disappointing, but morally bracing, since it
effectively checks a precipitous rush toward an encounter
that will come all too soon. 'Despoiled of Innocence, of
Faith, of Bliss' seems absolute and present in isolation, but
in context, it is controlled by the disjunctive 'or' and thus
has the status of one possibility among other possibilities,
including perseverance and the non-loss of innocence. The
past participle 'despoil'd' is a fact held in potential despite
the teasing availability of 'for now' which applies only to the
coming forth of Satan. Some two hundred lines later as she
contemplates the forbidden tree and considers the serpent's
arguments Eve is 'yet sinless' (6 59), the distance between
her and sin measured, as always, by the strength of her will,
which is, as always, sufficient ; just as the reader's will is
sufficient to his task, which is to keep in mind, always, her
sufficiency.

This pattern, in which the reader is presented with a

series of interpretative puzzles whose solution either con-
tributes to or undermines his understanding of the poem's
great issues, spans seven books. The boundary lines are
God's first speech in III and Adam's final admonition to Eve
 The Consequences 2 37

in IX. (Significantly, Eve has been urging the half-truths and

sophistries with which the reader has been tempted; she is,
at this point, the spokesman for his subversive self, and
Adam is the voice of his erected wit.) 1 These utterances share
a method and a purpose. The method is logical definition,
reflected stylistically in the predominance of a schematic
rhetoric, and the purpose is to establish, with precision and
conciseness, the capabilities and limitations of Edenic virtue
(innocence). Addressing himself to the inferior intelligence
of Eve and anxious to make his point unmistakable, Adam
lingers longer over his argument than God does :
his creating hand
Nothing imperfet or deficient left
Of all that he Created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy State secure,
Secure from outward force: within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power.
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the Will ...
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve.
(343-51, 359)
The important distinction is made in the play on the word
'secure'. For a moment 'his happy state secure' is read as
a self-contained unit asserting the absolute security of man's
position in Paradise. (This would be true whether we take
'secure' as an adjective- 'or aught that might his happy
1 Eve confuses heroic virtue with prideful self-assertion when she asks,

'And what is Faith, Love, Virtue unassay'd I Alone, without exterior help
sustain'd !' (33 5-6). She also mistakes the flexibility of the free will for im-
perfection: 'Let us not then suspect our happy State I Left so imperfet by
the Maker wise, I As not secure so single or combin'd. I Frail is our hap-
piness, if this be so, I And Eden were no Ede11 thus expos'd.' Her arguments
correspond to the speculations entertained by the reader (heroism requires a
dramatic situation, if they could fall, they were already in some sense fallen)
and he must reject them or agree with Adam's rejection of them. The tension
in the scene is a reflection of the tension within him.
238 The Interpretative Choice

state which is secure .. . ' - or as a verb- 'or aught that

might his happy state keep safe'.) But the repetition of
'secure' with the addition of 'from outward force' qualifies
the absoluteness of their security by delimiting it (secure
from outward force, but vulnerable to ...) and the qualifica-
tion is immediately given body in 'within himself / The
danger lies'. The first within ('within himself') points to the
location of the danger, and the second within ('yet lies
within') refuses to locate i t - physically. 'Withinness'
becomes an area of spiritual dimension, non-spatial and
boundless, defensible even though it is indeterminate.
('Lies' also participates in this concept.) Security for Adam
and Eve is a form of anxiety; it is a state not without care,
and therefore, strictly speaking, insecure. In the confines of
the figure ('antanaclasis' or the 'rebound') 'secure' breaks
free of its literalness to take on the flexibility of a paradox,
'secure, but not secure, yet secure as long as .. .'. While
they do not enjoy the false security of high walls (their walls
are high, but not high enough) or effectively deployed
sentries, they do enjoy the true security of a virtuous mind.
'Against his will he can receive no harm' is a conclusion
that springs proven from the distinctions made in the
preceding lines. The flexibility of the will is then empha-
sized- 'But God left free the Will'- before a reformula-
tion of the original statement is put forward : 'Firm we
subsist, yet possible to swerve'.
The speech of thirty-five lines is essentially an expansion
of God's 'Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall'.
Properly interpreted, the intervening scenes
(1) give body to God's aphorism by dramatizing the
delicate balance between the sufficiency to stand and
the freedom to fall, and
(2) underline the incomprehensibility of the event.
Carelessly (subversively) interpreted, they
 The Consequences 2 39

( 1) contribute to the confusion of the ability to fall with

the certainty of falling, and
(2) circumscribe the Fall in a network of circumstance.
In one set of readings, the complementary delicacy and
strength of innocence are emphasized, and the responsibility
of the unfallen pair is insisted upon; in the other, the reader
assents to various oversimplifications which support the
version of the story he would prefer to believe in. These
oversimplifications are reflections of a desire to cheat the
poem's morality, and Milton evokes them so that they can
(hopefully) be exorcised. This is the most subtle of the forms
the poet's 'good temptation' takes and perhaps the most
'to be desired', because by it the reader is forced to acknow-
ledge a tendency of mind of which he may have been
(consciously) unaware, and which, undetected and un-
judged, could have done him irreparable harm. The
temptation is baited with self-love. By the end of Book m,
Satan is no longer sufficiently attractive to serve as a recipient
of the reader's misguided sympathy, and he is replaced by
Adam and Eve, and thus by the reader himself. For, by
finding a way to transfer the responsibility for his first
parents' sin to a substitute villain (Satan) or a 'natural'
process (fate, circumstances), the reader in effect disclaims
responsibility for the sins he himself commits ; their
'technical' innocence becomes his, as does their subsequent
assertion of a guilty God ('thy terms too hard').
The quality of the reader's response to these smaller
actions (the deception of U riel, the incident at the pool,
Eve's dream, Adam's confession of weakness, the morning
quarrel) affects his response to the Fall itself, which will
either be seen in its proper light as a contrast to true virtue
and right action, or misinterpreted as a necessary, and
perhaps desirable, consequence of the universe's structure.
Waldock observes, 'There was no way for Milton of making
240 The Interpretative Choice

the transition from sinlessness to sin perfectly intelligible'

(Paradise Lost and its Critics, p. 61 ). The unintelligibility,
and hence the freedom, of the transition is Milton's thesis.
Making it intelligible, and hence excusable, either by com-
promising the sufficiency of the will or by forging a chain of
causality, is the reader's temptation. The seat of temptation
is the reason, which, in the service of self-love, begets
arguments in accord with the inclination of the affections
(reason plays a flatterer's role, not unlike rhetoric's); but
temptation can be resisted if the reason is directed to police
itself by exposing the speciousness of its own inventions.
The path taken is determined, as always, by the will. For
the reader too, the danger lies within, 'yet lies within his
power./ Against his will he can receive no harm.'
6 What Cause?:
Faith and Reason
The corrupt nature of man is more prone to
question the truth of God's word, then to see
and confess their own ignorance and incapa·
city.- Richard Baxter The arrogancy of
Reason against Divine Revelations repressed:
or proud Ignorance the cause of Infidelity, anti of
mens quarreling with the word of God. x6 55·

(i) CARNAL REASON

To fall not deceived is to fall because you are not deceived, to

fall to your own analysis of what is involved in a decision to
break union with God. In this study, much has been made
of the danger of rhetoric as an instrument of deception and
as an appeal which panders to the worst in man. But for
those who are able to resist the lure of the rhetorical there
is a greater danger still : the over-valuing of the faculty
one has recourse to when an obvious temptation presents
itself. I refer, of course, to the rational faculty, which
distinguishes man from the animals and testifies to the
residence within him of the image of God. The exercis-
ing of reason is its own temptation ; its perverse sweetness
ravishes the intellect and diverts one's thoughts from
Heaven 'whose sweetness would make us blessed'. It is
the inquiring and discriminating mind which betrays the
reader in Book n, as he is led to distinguish between
speeches which are united in blasphemy, a blasphemy he
tacitly approves and shares if he judges them on any other
basis (rhetorical effectiveness, strategical soundness).
In terms of the divine imperative - Thou shalt have no
242 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

other Gods before me - reason-logic has the same ambi-

valent status as passion-rhetoric. 'As long as it was kept
subservient to orthodoxy', Miller writes of rhetoric, and by
extension of the affections, 'it was admirable, but whenever
it became an end in itself, ... whenever through too fre-
quent excitation of passion it tended to undermine the empire
of reason, then it became "carnal eloquence".' 1 In the same
way, reason can become 'carnal' reason if its reach is extended
to include the mysteries of divinity and the points of faith.
If the light of reason coincides with the word of God, well
and good ; if not, reason must retire, and not fall into the
presumption of denying or questioning what it cannot
explain:
When God hath put his Seal to it, and proved it to be his own;
if after this you will be questioning it, because of the seeming
contradictions or improbabilities, you do but question the wisdom
and power of the Lord: As if he had no more wisdom then you
can reach and fathom: yea then you can censure and reprove?
Or, as if he could do no more, then you can see the way and
reason of, and are fit to take an account of.
(Baxter, The arrogancy of Reason, p. 46)

Reason serves Adam and Eve well in their round of daily

tasks. Had they exercised reason on the morning of the
fateful day, the imprudence of separation would have been
immediately obvious, and an unpleasant situation could have
been avoided. But if reason is right, its rightness is irrele-
vant to any decision concerning the forbidden fruit. The
arbitrariness of God's command, that is to say, its unreason-
ableness, is necessary if compliance is to be regarded as an
affirmation of loyalty springing from an act of the will :
It was necessary that something should be forbidden or com-
manded as a test of fidelity, and that an act in its own nature
1 The New England Mind, p. 307.
 Carnal Reason 243

indifferent [quod neque bonum in se esset, neque malum], in order

that man's obedience might be thereby manifested. For since it
was the disposition of man to do what was right, as a being
naturally good and holy, it was not necessary that he should be
bound by the obligation of a covenant to perform that to which
he was of himself inclined; nor would he have given any proof of
obedience by the performance of works to which he was led by
a natural impulse, independently of the divine command.
(The Works of John Milton, xv. 1 13-15.)

The 'natural' impulse which leads man to good works is

reason. If Adam and Eve agree that it is reasonable and, as
far as they can see, attractive to not eat the apple, obedience
is not only possible, but easy, and an inadequate test of
faith. They are capable of questioning both the reasonable-
ness (as Satan invites) and the attractiveness (this is the
consideration in Adam's case) and thus of finding all kinds
of reasons- intellectual and emotional - to eat. At that
point, obedience to a command beyond reason will not be
easy ; but it is still possible, since the nature of the command
makes the assent of reason and emotion unnecessary and
perhaps even suspect. The question of whether or not
Adam and Eve are convinced of the rightness of their
action is beside the point, and should not be asked, though
it surely will be. The more unreasonable seems the com-
mand, the more obvious it should be that its rationale lies
in its source. This holds true also for fallen man who must
affirm his faith in the same way, independently of reason.
The explanation is Webster's:

But if man gave his assent unto, or believed the things of Christ,
either because, and as they are taught of and by men, or because
they appear probable ... to his reason, then would his faith be
... upon the rotten basis of humane authority, or else he might
be said to assent unto and believe the things, because of their
appearing probable, and because of the verissimilitude of them,
244 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

but not solely and onely to believe in and upon the author and
promise of them, for his faithfulness and truths sake, and nothing
elu. (The Examination of Academies, p. 17, emphasis mine.)
This last is a perfect description of what the loyal angels do
in Book VI.
The parallelism between the situation in Paradise and the
reader's situation extends to the ambiguous position of
reason, at once a source of strength and, in one well-defined
circumstance, a portal of temptation. In the context of the
reading experience, the bounds of presumption are set by the
assertions of the epic voice ('Man, with strength entire,
and free will arm'd / ... deserv'd to fall') and by God,
and any attempt to reformulate the terms of the narrative
situation in order to bring it within the compass of human
understanding represents an illegitimate intrusion of the
analytical faculty on areas closed to it. The freedom of the
Fall (and therefore man's responsibility for it) is a point of
doctrine, and the reader must resist the temptation to submit
it to the scrutiny of reason, just as Adam and Eve must
maintain the irrelevancy of reason to the one easy pro-
hibition. Like them also, the reader is able to discern (or
invent) any number of 'seeming contradictions' with which
to question divine justice. 'What abundance of seeming
contradictions ... do rise up in the eyes of an Ignorant
Infidel' cries Baxter (The arrogancy of Reason, p. 2 1); and
Thomas Sutton's list of 'curious and unnecessarie questions'
includes several that will occur to every reader of the poem :
Why did God create man apt to fall? why did hee not keepe him
from falling? ... Why doth God condemne men for unbeleefe,
seeing no man can beleeve, except God conferre faith upon
him? ... Is not God unjust and cruell to predestinate men ...
before they have done any evil?
(Lectures Upon the Eleventh Chapter to the Romans, London,
1632, p. 460.)
 Eve: 'With Reason to her Seeming' 24 5

Endowed with 'minds that can wander beyond all limit and
satiety' (Areopagitica), we come naturally to these questions;
but it is our duty, once they have arisen and shown them-
selves unanswerable except by blasphemies, to give them
over and 'rest satisfied in the bare Word of God' (Baxter,
p. 57), accepting on faith what we are unable to understand:
Let us passe by curious questions, bid adieu to all vaine specula-
tions. Let us exercise our selves in searching the scripture.
(Sutton, Lectures, p. 461.)

So that, at some point, assenting to the authoritative inter-

pretation of the poem (in contradiction of 'that to which he
is himself inclined') is as much an act of faith for the reader
as keeping the divine command is for his first parents; and
in both cases reason's best service is to admit its lack of
jurisdiction.
In slightly varying situations, but with the same troubled
awareness, Eve, Adam, and (possibly) the reader fall when
they do not affirm the primacy of revelation against the
claims of present circumstances as they are urged by the
affections and interpreted by the reason. They fail (un-
accountably) to make a leap of faith. Their failure (not its
explanation) is the subject of this chapter.

(ii) EVE ; ' WITH REA S 0 N T 0 H E R SEEM I N G'

The limits of reason are established in the discussion of

astronomy in Book vm. 1 Adam explains to Raphael how
1 For a full discussion of the subject, see Howard Schultz, Milto11 a11d

Forbidde11 K11owledge (New York, 1955), esp. chap. iii: 'God's justice was a
datum to be accepted on faith, even when the Almighty behaved question-
ably .... "Down reason, then "-William Twisse and the rest of Job's
comforters would have gone no further, but Milton's Chorus finished the
sentence- "at least vain reasonings down". While reason could still absolve
R F.S.S.
246 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

reason has led him to doubt the wisdom of God's disposing

of the heavens :
reasoning I oft admire,
How Nature wise and frugal could commit
Such disproportions. (25-27)
Casting his eye about, he has taken the measure of the
universe by confining it within his idea of space and move-
ment. Raphael will allow such speculations ; they are lawful :
'To ask or search I blame thee not.' What is unlawful or
unwise is a conclusion which in effect appoints heavenly
disposition. Apparent disproportions may not be real. Or if
they are real, they merely testify to the distance between
man's sense of what should be and God's limitless power.
Raphael imagines God moved to laughter at the sight of his
creatures' vain attempts to circumscribe him: 'or if they
list to try I Conjecture, he his Fabric of the Heav'ns I
Hath left to thir disputes, perhaps to move, I His laughter
at thir quaint Opinions wide' (7 5-78). Adam must be
'lowly wise' and reject an anxiety which is a thinly disguised
desire for godhead. As Raphael slyly reminds him, however
the heavens are disposed, their movements 'need not thy
belief' (136). 'He must not be haunted by the fear that the
universe or his own individual world will go to wrack unless
he consciously understands all its details.' 1 Knowledge is not
sinful if it is sought, as it is in Book vn, so that God can be
further praised : 'not to explore the secrets ask I Of his
God from guilt, it had work to do; it was the vain reasoning that doubted
God's ways justifiable to men that must down. Mere human morality had
no case against God for having driven the Nazarite into the arms of the
Timnian bride: "Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his." If God moved
Samson in mysterious ways, to a Timnian woman or to suicide, reason had a
simple choice: to render a moral verdict in God's favor and support it by logic,
or to render the same verdict and be silent and assenting, confessing its own
feebleness as an advocate' (pp. r 32-3).
1 Summers, Tht Must's Mtthod, p. r6r.
 Eve: 'With Reason to her Seeming' 24 7

Eternal Empire, but the more/ To magnify his works, the

more we know' (95-97); but neither is it necessary to God's
plan or to the keeping of his commandments. 1 The status of
knowledge (knowing facts) is perfectly illustrated by
Raphael's final refusal to answer Adam's proposed 'doubt':
But this I urge,
Admitting Motion in the Heav'ns, to show
Invalid that which thee to doubt it mov'd;
Not that I so affirm, though so it seem
To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth.
God to remove his ways from human sense,
Plac'd Heav'n from Earth so far. (114-20)
From the earthly perspective, anything can be proven
(affirmed); but proof or affirming here is merely 'seeming'
somewhere else where there is a better vantage point for
viewing (knowing) ; and God has instituted it thus so that
man will exercise his reason, and, through reason, discover
its inadequacy. As always, the lesson is one of humility, and
it is, as Richardson saw, for us as well as for Adam:
Thus near 200 Lines are Excellently Employ'd. and are So far
Useful to Us, that Neither should We presume beyond the
Means God has been pleas'd to Furnish us with.
(Explanatory Notes on Paradise Lost, p. 351.)
Although Eve is not present when Adam is instructed in
the limitations of 'earthly sight' (reason), her response at
IX. 6 5 I indicates that she has received instruction from him
in the interim:
But of this Tree we may not taste nor touch;
God so commanded, and left that Command
Sole Daughter of his voice; the rest we live
Law to ourselves, our Reason is our Law.
(6 51-4, emphasis mine)
1 In Paradise Regained, Christ rejects non-biblical knowledge not because

it is sinful, but because Satan offers it as a substitute for the revealed word of
God.
248 What Cause P: Faith and Reason

Yet for all her self-awareness, Eve falls to the reason which
is not her law in this one circumstance. I remarked earlier
on the significance of the 'though' in 'Into the Heart of Eve
his words made way, f Though at the voice much marvel-
ling' (5so- I). What Eve marvels at are the logistics of the
phenomena. How can this beast speak, if the laws of nature
- the evidence of everything she has ever seen - declare it
an impossibility :
What may this mean? Language of Man pronounc'd
By tongue of Brute, and human sense exprest?
The first at least of these I thought deni'd
To Beasts.
(553-6)
The question is lawful, but the state of mind is dangerous.
Eve speaks 'Not unamazed' (552); the double negative
suspends the reader between the two alternatives, amaze-
ment and unamazement, as Eve is suspended between them.
Being amazed is being 'overwhelmed by wonder' so that
nothing but the stimulus to wonder occupies the conscious
mind ; there is no room for anything else, especially for a
reality that is not immediately visible or insistent. On the
other hand, there is room for the untruths and half-
blasphemies- 'Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair',
'sole wonder', 'A Goddess among Gods'- that Eve allows
to pass unchallenged because her attention is absorbed by
the mechanical problem before her. 'Into the heart of Eve
his words made way.' At the beginning she still has the
presence of mind to remember the divine command and thus
to protect herself against a surrender to her wonder ; but
the longer she dwells on this or any other natural phenomena
to the exclusion of all else, the easier it is to lose sight of
higher considerations, although higher considerations can
always be recalled by a simple act of the will (memory). As
Eve continues to listen to Satan, she becomes 'yet more
 Eve:' With Reason to her Seeming' 249

amaz'd' (6 1 4), until finally, that is, at some point of time

which follows other points of time, but not necessarily, she
fails to remember what she knows.
Satan's formal temptation builds on the success he has
achieved merely by appearing and attracting Eve's attention.
His entire argument is contained in two phrases :
look on me
do not believe
'Look on me'. This is what Eve has been doing all along,
and Satan now urges her openly to infer the truth about God
and his conditional decree from what she sees, and not to
believe anything which does not tally with that evidence :
'Thenceforth to Speculations high or deep I I turn'd my
thoughts, and with capacious mind f Consider' d all things
visible' (602-4, emphasis mine). By all things visible Satan
means all things ; all there is in a universe whose limits
correspond to his capacious mind. This is, of course, an
inversion of the proper relationship between the two spheres
of reality, in which experience and the machinery which
gives us experience becomes the measure of belief, and
therefore of God's power. By offering himself as a model,
Satan invites Eve to taste of his experience, a metaphor
made literal by her subsequent action, and offered in turn to
Adam ; 'that what of sweet before f Hath toucht my sense,
flat seems to this, and harsh. I On my experience, Adam,
freely taste' (986-8). 'M.:v experience'. The value Eve finds
in experience (things seen) is the value she assigns to it, and
that will be whatever she wants it to be. Experience is only a
word for what happens to reality when it is filtered through
the medium of time and space- Man's medium not God's.
God accommodates himself to man : 'Immediate are the Acts
of God, more swift/Than time or motion, but to human ears I
Cannot without process of speech be told, f So told as earthly
2 so What Cause?: Faith and Reason

notion can receive' (vn. I 76-9). And man repays this

courtesy by confining him within 'earthly notions', within
experience. Satan attempts to mask this solipsism by taking
away from man the responsibility for interpreting experience
and giving it to something called science :
0 Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant
Mother of Science, Now I feel thy Power
Within me clear, not only to discern
Things in thir Causes, but to trace the ways
Of highest Agents, deem'd however wise.
Queen of this Universe, do not believe
Those rigid threats of death.
(679-85)
With the words 'discern' and 'trace' Satan proceeds to
initiate Eve into the mysteries of empirical science. He
will determine the truth about higher agents by applying
the proper method of 'collecting and concluding upon the
senses' to the raw material of experience. Thus: I have
eaten ; I have not been visited by death, 'whatever thing
Death be'; therefore if you eat, you will not be visited b"f
death. Do not believe what science does not affirm. As usual
Satan is not even reliable within the areas he marks out as his
own. Aside from the matter of fact - he lies, he has not
eaten - his conclusion is premature, since there are not
enough instances to provide data for the formulation of a
general rule that could anticipate the effect of an analogous
action. Eve herself seems to doubt the sufficiency of the
evidence when she says at line 6 so
'Wondrous indeed, if
cause of such effects' (emphasis mine). In logic, the effect of
an efficient cause depends on the nature of the form receiving
it (the material cause). What holds for a serpent, even if it
did hold, may not hold for man. Of course in this case, Eve
need not look to logical analysis for guidance, since the
pattern of cause and effect is known to her from an infallible
 Eve: 'With Reason to her Seeming' 251

source: 'for know, I The day thou eat'st thereof, my sole

command I Transgrest, inevitably thou shalt die' (vm.
328-30). The true objection to Satan's method is the pre-
sumption, which the word 'science' is meant to conceal, of
assuming that God cannot work effects contrary to those his
creatures are able to discern in nature, 'As if they would
confine th' interminable' (Samson Agonistes, 307). Eve is
told, 'these and many more I Causes import your need of
this fair Fruit' (730-r), but a thousand causes seen operating
in nature would count as nothing against the certainty of the
divine command. 1 (By making Satan an empiricist, Milton
dramatizes for the seventeenth-century projectors the
traditional warning against intellectual pride.)
The causes Satan pretends to discern and to trace in
things are second causes, if they are causes at all and not
accidents of conjunction taken for causes by an observer
who sees only part of the picture. The first cause remains
forever a mystery, not discoverable by the reason and there-
fore not to be confined within the limitations of the reason,
that is within its own effects. 'No philosopher', David Hume
will write in the next century, 'who is rational and modest,
has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any
natural operation ... It is confessed, that the utmost effort
of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of
natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve
the many particular effects into a few general [second]
causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience,
and observation. But as to the causes of these general
1 See Baxter, The a"ogancy of Reason, p. r8: 'Moreover this corruption

doth often discover itself in that men will not believe the truth of the thing
revealed, because they cannot reach to understand the causes of it'; also, p. 2 2:
'These self-conceited ignorant Souls do imagine all to be impossible which
exceedeth their knowledge.' For Milton on the relationship between natural
law and God's prerogative, see Samson Agonistu, 30o-2 5 where the chorus
explains that the operation of natural causes does not bind God.
2 52 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall

we ever be able to satisfy ourselves.'' Satan eliminates first
(unchartable) causes by refusing to admit the existence of any-
thing he cannot see :'that all from them proceeds, I I question it
for this fair Earth I see,IWarm'd by the Sun, producing every
kind, I Them nothing' (719-22). Throughout the scene the
metaphor which controls his temptation is sight : 'Your
Eyes that seem so clear, I Yet are but dim, shall perfetly
be then I Op'n'd and clear'd' (706-8). The purview of
mortal sight, whose deficiencies have been emphasized in the
ambiguous praises of Galileo and his glass, 'less assured',
is here extended by Satan to take in all reality, and self-
worship is introduced in another guise. Believing in
experience, in reason, in things seen, in the patterns (causes)
the mind discerns (or creates) in nature, is believing in oneself,
and urging that belief is the ultimate in flattery. 'Queen of
the Universe' is a form of flattery easily resisted because it is
so obvious, but as soon as Eve begins even to consider the
prohibition as a subject for rational discourse, she accepts
the same title with a slight variation :'Judge of the Universe.'
Even as Satan speaks, the counter-argument to his
blasphemies emerges in the double sense of his words, as in
a medieval punctuation poem. 'Wonder not, sovran Mistress'
(53 2) could be read as a command and should be received as
one by Eve. If 'Queen of this Universe, do not believe'
is separated from 'Those rigid threats' (68 5), and we allow
for a characteristically Miltonic inversion, Satan is saying
to Eve, under God's direction, 'do not believe me when I
call you Queen of this Universe.' A few seconds later, he
promises her godhead on the basis of a proportional analogy :
'That ye should be as Gods, since I as Man, I ... is but
1 An En7uiry Concerning Human Undtrstanding, section iv, part r, in Tht

English Plzilosophtrsfrom Bacon to Mill, ed. E. A. Burtt (New York, 1939),

p.6or.
 Eve: 'With Reason to her Seeminl 2 53

proportion meet, / I of brute human, yee of human Gods'

( 7 I o- I 2 ). All too true in a sense Satan does not intend : if he
is human, he is brutishly human, sub-human, less than
human, and as is meet, they will become human Gods,
humans posing as Gods, not Gods at all. Satan is unaware of
these meanings, but they are available to any attentive
reader, and to Eve, if she is willing to reach for them. (She
too is faced with an interpretative choice.) Unfortunately,
Eve takes Satan at face value in more ways than one, and
when she stands before Adam, her speech is a tissue of
Satanic echoes :
But strange
Hath been the cause.
(861-2)
This tree is ...
of Divine effect
To open Eyes, and make them Gods who taste.
(863, 865-6)
the Serpent wise ...
Reasoning to admiration, and with mee
Persuasively hath so prevail'd, that I
Have also tasted, and have also found
Th' effects to correspond, opener mine eyes.
(867, 872-5)
On my experience, Adam, freely taste.
(988)
Satan shows himself to Eve and bids successfully for her
undivided attention ; and Eve in turn approaches Adam
with only one argument :
Lookonme.
Do not believe.

The last question she asks herself before deciding to eat is

'How dies the Serpent?', an indication of how thoroughly
2 54 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

she is committed to the empiricism Satan preaches. She does

not reproduce any of his questionable syllogisms in her
appeal to Adam, because they are less important than her
willingness to listen to them. The moral Raphael draws
from the battle in Heaven is, 'listen not to his Temptations'.
Listening is not sinning, but it does signify a tacit acceptance
of the situation and of the relevance of logical or experi-
mental inquiry to a commandment of God's. Eve need not
be won by reasons, merely won to reason. The proper
response to the tempter's sophistries and to her own
doubts is not a counter-argument, but Abdiel's simple
declaration, 'Shalt thou give Law to God?'

(iii) T H E READER : WHAT C AU S E ?

The error of substituting the law of reason and the evidence

of things seen for the law of God is repeated by the reader
if he regards Eve's failure as a failure of reason and declines
to judge her in accordance with the terms of God's decree.
Eve loses herself in reason's wandering mazes, forgetting
that, in this instance alone, reason is not her law ; and by
following her in an attempt to 'trace the ways' of her
defection, the reader exposes himself to the temptation of the
process whose danger he is charting. His responsibility
parallels hers: she must remember that the reasonableness
of eating does not alter the status of the divine prohibition ;
he must remember that she is required to perform an act of
the will, signifying faith, not understanding, and that
lapses in logic do not affect her sufficiency ('the seat of faith
is not in the understanding, but in the wi11') 1 ; she has merely
to pull back at any point from the invitation to reason, and
assert, 'God said not to'; he has merely to recall at every
I Tlzt Works ofJol111 Milto11, xv. 407.
 The Reader: What Cause? 2 S5

point that the dialogue he is reading is a tactical diversion,

intended, like the marvellous speaking of the serpent, to
obscure the real issue (obedience to an absolute command).
The difficulties are considerable. First of all, he must hold
in abeyance the analytical powers whose use the poem has
encouraged elsewhere. Specifically, he must distance him-
self from the rhythm of the exchange, and not fall into the
mistake of considering Satan's propositions on his terms,
that is as if they were relevant either to the question of
eating or to the intelligibility of Eve's action.
The temptation to argue with Satan is real enough,
especially since so much of the poem has been devoted to
exposing the fallacies he urges. To the phrase 'dauntless
virtue' (694) one can oppose the example of the faithful
angels who equate virtue with obedience ; to the question
'what is evil?' (698) the knowledgeable reader can reply
'breaking union' and the bondage of purposeless freedom;
the syllogism 'God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; f
Not just, not God' (700-1) is false, as we learn in Book m;
for by punishing man, God accords him the respect due a
free agent, and is therefore just ; and the proper response to
Satan's 'What can your knowledge hurt him?' (727) is
Raphael's:
Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her Temperance over Appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain,
Oppresses else with Surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Wind.
(vu. 126-30)
At this point, the ambivalent status of reason is mirrored in
the reader's situation. Wholly intent on detecting Eve's
errors of omission, he himself may slip into the error of
believing that she might not have fallen, had she been a
better logician. While she is busily inquiring into the ways
2 56 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

of higher agents, he is in danger of imitating her action by

presuming to anatomize (understand) it; for both, empiricism
is the vehicle of temptation. Once the events antecedent to
her decision are allowed any real (determining) importance,
the pressure is removed from her and transferred surrepti-
tiously to the situation as a whole. The reality of the Fall as
a failure of will, free and spontaneous, gives way gradually to
the appearance of a succession of smaller and understandable
failures which divide between them the blame that belongs
properly to Eve; and it is this appearance, or the possibility
of creating it, which holds out a temptation in the reader.
The reader's dilemma has been recognized by John
Peter: 'to brand her [Eve] as infamous requires an effort,
and one which the reader is encouraged to neglect.' Merely
to analyse the process by which she arrives at her decision,
he continues, 'is to go part of the way toward excusing her ...
tout comprendre, c' est tout pardonner'. 1 Here Peter touches
inadvertently on the place of this scene in the poem's most
rarefied temptation, the temptation to inquire into the
causes of matters which are specifically exempted from such
inquiries. The Fall is no more an object of understanding
than the prohibition it violates. Both are to be accepted as
articles of faith in their respective contexts (the poem and
Paradise), primary points of reference from which other
points may be examined, but themselves not subject to
examination. If the command of God is submitted to rational
analysis, the meaning God has stipulated for it ('the Tree ...
I ... which I have set I The Pledge of thy Obedience and
thy Faith') is rejected in favour of the meaning reason may
discover ; the reason gives law to God. ('When ye received
the word of God ... ye received it not as the word of men,
but as it is in truth, the word of God.'Y If the Fall is
1 A Critique of Paradise Lost, pp. I 2 8-9.
z The WorluofJohnMilton,xv. 399·
 The Reader: What Cause? 2 57

explained or 'understood' it is no longer tree, but the result

of some analysable 'process' which attracts to itself a part
of the guilt. Thus freedom of will is denied, the obloquy of
the action returns to God (who set the process in motion),
and again reason - the reader's reason - has given law
to God. Old errors return in a new guise as the reader's
analytical powers betray him into a position those same
powers had previously rejected. Eve keeps faith if she
upholds God's word against the urgings of her reason; the
reader keeps faith if he continues to affirm the spontaneous-
ness of the Fall (and her culpability) in the face of the alter-
natives his reason presents to him. And the crisis for both
occurs simultaneously, at the moment of eating, for 'if the
circumstances of this crime are duly [ attentiusJconsidered' by
the reader, he will acknowledge it 'to have been a most
heinous offense', and, making the effort required, he will
'brand her as infamous'. 1
The reader who loses sight of Eve's crime in a maze of
reasons will have been prompted in part by the poet's
declaration of purpose :
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
This is usually interpreted as a promise to defend God in
terms men will find comprehensible and logically satis-
factory, but a more accurate reading is provided by L. A.
Cormican:
... by justification Milton did not mean a merely logical
demonstration which would prove an intellectual conclusion
and bring God within the framework of the rational universe.
He uses the word with the overtones it acquired from New
Testament usage, where it implies a divine, not a human or
1 Christian Doctrine, Tht WorlsofJohn Milton, xv. r8t.
2 58 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

logical understanding, a supernal illumination from the Holy

Spirit. . . . If the ways of God can be justified, it must be
through a purification of the heart rather than by the reasonings
of the intell~ct.I
Undoubtedly, this is the meaning Milton intends us to
attach to justification, but only after 'to show the reasonable-
ness of' has been tried and found wanting. In conjunction
with the lines 'Say first ... I ... what cause I Mov'd our
Grand Parents ... I ... to fall off', justify the ways of God
to men is a deliberate invitation to 'give the reins to wand'-
ring thought' 2 by prying into areas where speculation is
fruitless, an invitation accepted by most readers. 'When
Milton's Adam ate the forbidden fruit', Paul Turner wrote
in 1948, 'he created a number of problems for posterity; and
not the least of these was the task of discovering what,
exactly, caused his Fall.' 3 To the list of 'causes' Turner
reviews we can now add six or seven additional, no one of
which is finally more satisfactory than those offered in the
poem:
not deceiv'd
But fondly overcome with Female charm. (1x. 998--9)
For still they knew, and ought to have still remember' d.
(x. 12)

The first, as has often been remarked, is lamentably weak ;

the second, simply uninformative (they forgot). Together
they assert what every reader should have by now realized :
there is no cause of the Fall as it has been sought, merely
an ever-expanding description of what is comprehended in the
act, a description Milton anticipated when he answered his
1 'Milton's Religious Verse', in The Pelican Guide to English Literature,

Polume Ill, From Donne to Marvell, ed. Boris Ford (Penguin Books, revised
edition, 1960), p. 17 5·
z Samson Agonistu, 302.
3 'Woman and the Fall of Man', English Studiu, nix (1948), t.
 The Reader: What Cause? 259

own question, 'For what sin can be named, which was not
included in this one act?' Each of the sins he enumerates
- gluttony, uxoriousness, sacrilege, pride, arrogance -
has been taken up at some time, but the result is always a
deeper insight into what the Fall means, and not the dis-
covery of 'what exactly caused the Fall'. The answer to the
question, 'what cause?' is given in the first line, 'Of Man's
First Disobedience'. Mrs. Bell objects, 'it is no explanation
that our Grandparents disobeyed because they were dis-
obedient' . 1 Exactly I It is no explanation, and because no
one could take it for one, it has the advantage of preserving
the autonomy of the Fall as an expression of free will, unlike
other 'explanations' which transfer the onus from Adam
and Eve to an abstraction. The reader who finds a cause for
the Fall denies it by denying its freedom, and succumbs to
still another form of Milton's 'good temptation'.z
For if the search for cause goes on, and, along with it, the
attempt at a rational justification, it is because Milton
promotes them. Just as God mocks the presumption of man
by placing the heavens far from human sense, so the poet
dangles before us the bait of justifying God's ways and the
1 'The Fallacy of the Fall in Paradiu Lost', PMLA, lx:viii (1953), 864.

z Properly seen, these more sophisticated analyses of cause are merely

amplifications of the word 'disobedience', indicating, variously, what dis-
obedience involves (presumption, ingratitude), what Adam and Eve commit
themselves to by disobeying (lust, anxiety), which parts of their personalities
are dominant when disobedience occurs (the aifections), the extent to which
disobedience implies a distortion of perspective or a misunderstanding of the
structure of the universe, and so on. To any one of these we can still demand,
why? (what cause) and receive no satisfactory reply. It is the habit of criticism
to use one description of the Fall to explain another. Thus Adam disobeys
because he makes Eve his God; he makes Eve his God because he undervalues
himself; he undervalues himself because he does not exercise his reason
properly; he does not exercise his reason properly because he allows his passion
for Eve to dictate his choice; he allows his passion for Eve to dictate his choice
because he has made her his God.
260 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

ignis fatuus of cause, designedly perplexing the reason with

riddles it cannot possibly solve. Those who 'trouble their
braines' in curious and vain speculations, warns Sutton,
'shall be oppressed by the brightnesse of Gods Majestie
and confounded in [their] owne imaginations' ; they find
themselves 'plunged ... into such inextricable labrynths and
mazes, that they have never been able to come out of them' 1
except by returning in humility to the revealed word. This is
the motion Milton hopes to induce in the reader by allowing
the reason scope to discover its own insufficiency. The
technique may be unorthodox, but the moralitas is not :
'How unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past
finding out' (Romans xi. 33). The reader proves the truth
of this commonplace himself by trying for nine books to
find a formula 'which would ... bring God within the
framework of the rational universe' and at all times he has
the option of preferring the formulas his reason manu-
factures, transparently circular though they may be, to the
conclusion Milton wishes him to reach : man disobeys by
exercising, without constraint, the free will God gave him,
and to describe the Fall in any other way, to find a cause for it,
is to imply that God can only institute conditions which we,
as fallen men, can imagine or participate in. As we have seen,
the easy rationalizations with which the reader is tempted in
the middle books- circumstances (fate) undo Adam and
Eve; an inherent weakness debilitates them; they comport
themselves heroically by breaking free of a dependent
passivity- correspond to the 'causes' he seeks in an effort
to soften the fact of the Fall; and, as we have seen, these are
continually made available to those who wish to embrace
(discover) them; but at every point the authoritative
counter-assertion (they have sinned inexcusably and must
be judged) is also available, in the reminders of the narrative
I Luturu Upon the EltrJmth Chapter to the Romans, pp. 45<)-60.
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 261

voice, in the symbolism of the action, and, above all, in the

memory (will) of the reader, who is repeatedly asked to
choose between the interpretation which comforts him and
the interpretation which is true. The choice is made difficult
by the persuasiveness of local contexts, and it is particularly
difficult in Book IX where the lure of Satan's scientism is
joined to the appeal Eve has as a fellow creature who is, in
effect, falling toward her judges. So that, provided with
reasons of his own invention, as Eve is provided with Satan's
reasons, the reader may decline to look beyond them for
guidance, and, by excusing her, resolve to fall with her, not
deceived. Concerning his obligations, the epic voice is
silent, leaving him, in Arthur Barker's words, 'to decide, in
terms of his response to the controlled mimetic movement,
what is happening and is meant' .1 He may possibly decide
to look on her and not believe.

(iv) ADAM: WHAT SEEM' D REMEDILESS

The third figure in this triptych of wilful self-deception (the

reader may escape this category) is, of course, Adam. The
manceuvre by which he too chooses to close his eyes to the
true significance of what he sees is on display in the interior
soliloquy oflines 896-917:
0 fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's Works, Creature in whom excell'd
Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
1 'Structural and Doctrinal Pattern in Milton's Later Poems', in Euay1

in English Littraturt from tht Rtnaiuanct to tht l'ictorian Agt Prutnttd to

A. 8. P. Woodhouu, ed. Millar Maclure and F. W. Watt (Toronto, 1964-),
P· I78.
s F.s.s.
262 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

Defac't, deflow'r'd, and now to Death devote?

Rather how hast thou yielded to transgress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred Fruit forbidd'n! some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown
And mee with thee hath ruin'd, for with thee
Certain my resolution is to Die;
How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild Woods forlorn ?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link ofNature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

At first his participles ('Defac't, deflow'r'd') make Eve the

victim of an evil external to her; but Adam, who knows very
well what must have happened, immediately corrects the
distortion in his language with the word 'rather', and returns
the responsibility to her: 'how hast thou yielded'. Yet,
within three lines, Eve is again the object of the action
('beguil'd'), which ruins her and with her Adam, who enters
into a conspiracy with himself by pretending to believe in
his own linguistic sleight of hand. To protect himself from
pain he has conferred on the fact of disobedience a meaning
he will feel comfortable with : Eve does not sin, she is un-
done by 'some cursed fraud'. Presented with a fact too un-
pleasant to contemplate directly, but too large and insistent
to suppress, Adam finds a way to think about it without
truly confronting it, just as the reader does if he turns away
from the Fall to concentrate on its anticipations and finds
its cause in some past action or in Eve's flawed nature. In
both cases the mind confers on disobedience a meaning it
feels comfortable with - Eve, Adam decides, does not sin,
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 263

she is undone by 'some cursed fraud' -ignoring the

meaning stipulated by God and so exalting itself above His
Word. Once Adam has excused Eve by foisting her sin on
the yet undiscovered sin, he can proceed to educe additional
'reasons' for following her, all of them equally specious. The
question, 'How can I live without thee?', is answered by
Adam himself. He can live without her as he has before ('to
live again'). As a serious query this cry has no more force
than Eve's obviously rhetorical address to her flowers:
'from thee f How shall I part?' (xr. 28 1-2). His appropria-
tion of Genesis is similarly irrelevant, an instance of the
devil, or someone about to enter his service, quoting
scripture. Nor is his action an expression of love, as Eve
believes it to be when she cries '0 glorious trial of exceeding
Love'. Eve is the victim of Adam's passion, for by choosing
her he implicates her in his idolatry, absorbing her into a
love that is self-love. 'To lose thee were to lose myself.' Even
this is a distortion or an equivocation, for the self as a stable
entity is lost as soon as it breaks union with God :

The human integer ... can maintain wholeness only by main-

taining a common allegiance to the source of all integrity. In the
fall men rebel as parts against unity and, in consequence, become
isolated and antagonistic fragments.
(R. M. Frye, God, Man and Satan, p. 56.)

What we see here is the construction by Adam of the

'Cycles' and 'Epicycles' of his 'frame' (vm. 8 3), the means
by which he contrives to 'save the appearances' (vm. 82) of
the lie he decides to believe in.
The epic voice's comment on Adam's resolution is muted
but telling. Adam, he informs us, submitted 'to what seem'd
remediless'. Submitting to what seems remediless is a blend
of resignation and wilfulness, the colloquial equivalent of
264 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

which is, 'as far as I can see, there is no way out'. Usually,
however, 'as far as I can see' is an equivocation for 'I would
rather not see further'. Adam looks on Eve, fills his mind
with her and fashions a dilemma to accommodate his
disinclination to take into account anything but the need he
feels at the moment : Eve or God. In a God-centred universe
this is obviously a false dilemma, since it divides a link of
nature from the source and support of nature. When all
values proceed from and are defined in terms of God, the
assumption of a clash between any two of them (love and
obedience) is possible only if the situation is considered
from a point of view that excludes God, and a point of view
delimiting alternatives to what is seen does exactly that.
This is what 'submitting to what seem'd remediless' means:
acquiescing in the appearance of remedilessness without
questioning it or turning to someone who might see beyond
it to remedies not yet discovered. Adam, no less than Eve,
arrogates Godhead when he accepts the horizon of his own
perspective as final. He, too, is an empiricist. The important
word in the epic voice's summary phrase is 'seem'd', because
it insists on the modesty of the claim being made. Like as
far as I can see, 'what seem' d remediless' is a statement about
the observer and not necessarily an accurate description of the
situation ; one should not stake too much on it. The dis-
position of the heavens may correspond either to Copernican
or Ptolemaic principles, or, more probably, Raphael implies,
to neither. Earthly sight presumes by limiting possibilities
to those immediately visible. What is required is a willing-
ness to infer (illogically) the probable existence of a frame of
reference other than that assumed in the formulation of the
problem. If Adam is unable to conceive of an alternative
to opposing courses of action which seem equally disastrous
he should seek counsel from higher intelligences before
committing himself to either of them. He does not because
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 265

the insolubility of the dilemma, as his reason poses it to

him, is attractive and useful. I

The circumstances of Adam's crisis establish a pattern

which is repeated in Samson Agonistes and Paradise Regained.
For seven hundred lines Samson 'labors his mind' (I 298) in
order to extricate himself from his slough of despond: 'Nor
am I in the list of them that hope ; I Hopeless are all my
evils, all remediless' (64 7-8, emphasis mine). His progress is
at first slow and uneven and then dramatically swift when
Harapha's taunt of 'Heav'n's desertion' draws a reaffirma-
tion of faith :
these evils I deserve and more,
Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon
Whose ear is ever open; and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant;
In confidence whereof! once again
Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight. ( 1169-7 5)

As it is formulated here, Samson's new faith is part of a

reflex response to the physical challenge Harapha represents.
Will it survive the test of a more difficult situation, one
Samson cannot meet with a boast or a threat? The answer
comes with the Philistine messenger who presents the
revived hero with a problem for which there is no ready
solution, and, in the terms he first conceives of it, no solution
at all. Matters are now, as the chorus points out, 'strain'd I
Up to the height' (I 348-9). Refusing the Philistine
command may result in new orders and further humiliations ;
going to the temple will involve him in a violation of Hebraic
law, 'By prostituting holy things to idols; I A Nazarite
in place abominable' ( 1 3 58-9 ). Samson's first instinct is to
answer this challenge with the same peremptoriness he
I Cf. Mrs. Ferry, Milton's Epic Poice, p. 6r.
266 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

has shown to Dalilah and Harapha: 'Can they think me so

broken, so debas'd I With corporal servitude, that my mind
ever I Will condescend to such absurd commands? I ...
I will not come' (I 335-7, I 342). Here the matter might have
rested had not the Chorus interposed itself to dispute with
Samson the interpretation of the law :
Sams. 'Vaunting my strength in honor to thir Dagon? ... '
Chor. 'Yet with this strength thou serv'st the Philistines .. .'
Sams. 'Not in thir Idol-Worship, but by labor Honest ... '
Chor. 'Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not ... '
Sams. 'Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds,
But who constrains me to the Temple of Dagon?'
One feels the dialogue could go on forever and still be incon-
clusive, defining first outward acts, and then constraint, and
then the conditions necessary to establish the existence of a
state of constraint, and so on. As it is, the exercise leads
Samson in a circle to his original position : 'If I obey them, I
I do it freely; venturing to displease I God for the fear of
Man, and Man prefer I ... which in his jealousy I Shall
never, unrepented, find forgiveness' (I 3 72-6). Apparently
Samson remains locked in the rigidity of mind which has
already borne fruit in the excessive over-justness and self-
critical rigour of his despairing speeches (it is not for
Samson to say what God will allow or when he will forgive).
The discussion of the alternatives seemingly open to him
has served only to sharpen the sense of dilemma.
And then, without preparation or logic, suddenly, Samson
breaks free of the restrictions imposed by his own view of
the matter to assert
ret that he may dispense with me or thee
Present in Temples at Idolatrous Rites
For some important cause, thou needst not douht.
(1377-9, emphasis mine)
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 267

This resolution does not follow or spring from the distinc-

tions made in the preceding lines. It comes despite them,
completely outside the limits of choice set by Samson and
the Chorus and the law. 'Yet' means putting aside all we
have said, and, along with 'may' it admits the existence of
possibilities not presently available or even discoverable to
the intellect. In short it admits the existence and omni-
potence of God, complementing the intuition of the Chorus
at line 309:
Who made our Laws to bind us, not himself,
And hath full right to exempt
Whom so it pleases him by choice.
At this moment Samson joins the worthies of Hebrews xi,
who take provisional actions (going out not knowing
whither they go) in the name of a certain faith. Samson still
does not know what will follow when he goes to the temple;
what need not be doubted, however, is the power of God to
do anything, through anyone, in any circumstance. And it is
trust in that power rather than in the calculation of prob-
abilities or knowledge of the law which is the motive force
behind Samson's 'I with this Messenger will go along'
(1384). This is the truly heroic moment in the play, as it
could have been for Adam in Paradise Lost, when the spirit
declares its independence of the terrestrial mould and of the
visibilia which press in on it, looking homeward and moving
forward, impelled by its own assurance of the goodness and
graciousness of God.
In the second book of Paradise Regained Satan prepares
a banquet for Christ and set5 up a choice which is itself a
trap. The meats, Satan explains, are not 'by the Law
unclean' (327), therefore Jesus may eat of them. But in fact
they are unclean. Michael Fixler explains the dilemma :
... the banquet which Satan offers was intended to lure Jesus into
knowingly violating the Jewish dietary laws or into confessing
268 What Cause P: Faith and Reason

that he who came as the Messiah to abrogate the Mosaic

law could not eat because the same laws bound him to the
scrupulous observance of ritual purity.
(Milton and the Kingdoms of God, p. 256)
Christ eludes Satan by neither accepting nor rejecting the
food ; instead he declares his independence of it and of the
problem Satan invents. 'With my hunger what hast thou to
do?' (389) Christ asks pointedly. He has already declared
his intention to put himself into the hands of the Father, to
trust in him for sustenance, physical and spiritual; and since
his hunger is not yet a source of real distress ('Without this
body's wasting, I content me, I And from the sting of Famine
fear no harm'), he need not risk even the appearance of
depending on someone else ('Mee hung'ring more to do my
Father's will'). Nor is he obliged to answer the riddle posed
by its status under the law. The action taken is, as Fixler
remarks, evasive, denying the claim of the situation as it
seems to be ; it is an affirmation of faith and trust, and does
not reflect at all on the issues Satan tries to attach to it.
Later, Satan places Christ on the pinnacle of the temple,
hoping in this way to force Christ to reveal himself: either
he will fall and prove himself mere man ('for Honors,
Riches, Kingdoms, Glory I Have been before contemn'd,
and may again') or he will cast himself down in anticipation
of heavenly intervention and seem to claim his divinity
before the time God has appointed for its revelation. There
is a third possibility, one, however, which Satan does not
take seriously; 'to stand upright I Will ask thee skill'
(1v. 551-2). But Christ does stand, or as Barbara Lewalski
brilliantly says, he quietly maintains 'the position into which
he has been thrust by violence', I and waits for a sign of
God's will. Thus his standing is a perfect expression of
I 'Theme and Structure in Paradise Regained', Studies in Philology, lvii

(t96o), n8.
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 269

resignation, of his willingness to forgo action until God

calls him to action, of his faith, which dissolves the Gordian
knot of Satan's riddle. As he continues to 'await the ful-
filling' (n. 108) he does not know, any more than Samson
knows, how the situation will resolve itself. But he knows
that God knows, and this knowledge which is not knowledge
through reason, but through faith, is his stay against the
illusion, however compelling, of remedilessness.

What, then, ought Adam to have done? Any number of

things, all of which, admittedly, would seem forced and
'unnatural' in comparison to what he does do. He might
have said to Eve, 'what you say is persuasive (impregn'd
with reason to my seeming), but I would rather not make
such a momentous decision without further reflection.' Or,
as Lewis suggested, he might have 'chastised Eve and then
interceded with God on her behalf' . 1 The second course of
action recommends itself particularly because it would
accord with everything Adam knows about God. 'Whatever
was to be risked', Irene Samuel explains, 'demanded only
Adam's faith that the benevolence he had always known
would remain benevolent ... Eve was not irredeemably lost,
as Adam at once concluded in his immediate assumption of a
hostile universe. ' 2 (Nor does this necessarily involve
believing that God has lied when he promulgated his abso-
lute decree, for it is not inconceivable that the Almighty
should find a way both to fulfil justice and to show mercy.)
Christ, continues Miss Samuel, offers himself as a sacrifice
confidently, declaring 'I shall rise Victorious', not because he
foreknows his resurrection, but because he trusts in 'the

I A Prifact to Paradise Lost, p. 123.

2 'The Dialogue in Heaven: A Reconsideration of Paradist Losl, m,
t-•P7', PMLA, luii (1957), 6ot-II, reprinted in Mi!to11: Modtr11 Essays
;, Criticism, ed. Arthur E. Barker (New York, 1965), p. 2+3·
2 70 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

omnipotence and perfect benevolence of the Father'. 'Adam

... might, like the Son, have risked himself to redeem Eve.' 1
Of course Adam does not know anything of Christ, but as an
analogue which argues for the 'possibility ... for every
being' of 'the trust that confronts and by confronting
changes', 2 the example of Christ is pertinent, as is the more
available example of the good angels, who stand their ground
although circumstances and appearances would seem to
dictate otherwise. This is surely the moral Adam draws
from Raphael's narrative: obedience founded on a base of
boundless trust which is proof against the evidence of sense
or reason. It is a moral he could have remembered and
acted on, and on that basis we must judge him.
To this Empson would reply, 'The poem somehow does
not encourage us to think of an alternative plan', 3 and Milton
would say in return : true, the poem does not encourage you
to think of an alternative plan, just as the situation (as it
seems to be) does not encourage Adam to think of an
alternative plan ; but I require you to think of one yourself,
drawing encouragement from an inner resource which pre-
vails against the claims of a dramatically persuasive moment,
even if the moment is one I have provided; and God requires
the same of Adam. The inner resource is, of course, faith,
which is what remains to Adam and the reader (and to Eve)
when circumstances and their own intelligences misinform
them. Faith supplies the strength of will that enables us to
recall the simplicity and inclusiveness of the moral issue-
God or not God - in the face of the more immediate claims
of subordinate and, in some sense, illusory, issues. (A leap of
faith is always a refusal to accede to what, at the moment,
seems remediless.) Here is the ultimate 'responsive choice',
where the spiritual ideal, to which the reader's faculties
should be answerable, is absent, and must be supplied by his
1 Ibid., p. :Zf2. 2 Ibid., p. 243· J Milton's God, p. I 89.
 Adam: What Seem'd Remediless 271

own sense of what is real and truly beautiful. Again the poet
is silent, except for the mild and muted disapproval of
'fondly overcome with Female charm', leaving us 'to decide,
in terms of [ourJ response to the controlled mimetic move-
ment, what is happening and is meant'. With Adam we may
decide to believe in the appearances which flatter our desires
(choosing Adam, we choose ourselves, or at least our baser
selves) or we may insist that he cling with us to the dazzling
clarity of the divine word and see things truly. The relevance
of our decision to Milton's great purpose can be seen in the
fact that, while in the analogues (Jerusalem Delivered and
The Aeneid) and in his other poems, we are asked to measure
our response against that of the hero, in Paradise Lost we are
asked to condemn the hero's response, and, moreover, to
condemn it because, at the moment of crisis, he is too much
like ourselves. John Peter says as much: 'only by inverting
our own natures and values can we even begin to reproach
him.'' But the inversion of our natures is exactly what the
poem hopes to achieve by bringing us to put off the Old
Adam - the body of sin, the conformity to the world, the
inborn tendency to evil- and to put on the New. Here, in
Book IX, looking in fact on the Old Adam and having to
judge him, we are given that (interpretative) choice, and, as
before, our response measures us.
This is the terminal point of the reader's education, the
trial to which he will be adequate only if he has succeeded in
recovering the vision Adam now proceeds to shatter. The
specific act he is asked to perform is literary, simply the
determination of meaning ; but by deciding, as he has had to
decide before, exactly what the poem means, he decides
between the philosophical and moral alternatives mirrored
in the interpretative possibilities (Adam is right, Adam is
wrong), and in this instance these possibilities embrace the
' A Critique of Paradise Lost, p. I 3I.
272 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

full range of contraries whose differentiation has been his

concern in the body of the poem - true and false heroism,
true love and love of self, freedom and licence, in sum, union
with divinity and therefore with everything of value, or
thraldom to the false values created by a distorting per-
spective. In short, if the reader has applied himself assiduously
to the lessons the poem would teach him, and so effected the
purging of his intellectual ray, the superficial appeal of
Adam's gesture will be neutralized by his understanding of
what it means - a transgression of the whole law and there-
fore of those obligations in whose name the sin is committed;
but if, on the other hand, he has been slack and inattentive,
and so failed to penetrate 'far below the surface' to the truth
Milton encloses in his knotty riddle, the Fall will appear to
him in one or all of the guises discoverable to a still-unre-
generate reason. Not that the poem is finally ambiguous, at
least as a moral statement; rather, its readers are ambiguous,
and their ambiguities (crookednesses) are reflected in the
interpretations they arrive at. There is, however, only one
true interpretation of Paradise Lost, and it is the reward of
those readers who have entered into the spirit of Milton's
'good temptation' and so 'become wiser by experience':
others 'sport in the shade' with half-truths and self-serving
equivocations and end by accusing God or by writing
volumes to expose the illogic of His ways.

(v) DEXT'ROUSLY THOU AIM'ST

While Adam and Eve fail us as models in Book Ix, accepting

the promptings of carnal reason before the law of God, after
the Fall they do perform truly heroic actions. Left to his
own devices when Christ re-ascends to join the Father,
 Dexlrously Thou Aim'st 273

Adam quickly falls into a variation of his original error and

laments a new remedilessness. Haunted by the anticipated
reproaches of his progeny ('Ill fare our Ancestor impure, I
For this we may thank Adam'), he implores God to blame
him only 'as the source and spring I Of all corruption'
(x. 832-3), but in the same moment realizes how 'fond' his
wish is: 'couldst thou support f That burden heavier than
the Earth to bear?' Once again he thinks himself trapped by
an insoluble problem :
Thus what thou desir'st,
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable ...
0 Conscience, into what Abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd!
(837-9, 842-.4, emphasis mine)
The conclusion of misery, arrived at through a logical
analysis of his plight, is inescapable only if Adam ignores
the possibility, and on the basis of what he knows of God,
probability, of mercy. There is a way out, though it will not
be found in the abyss of despair or in the mazes of his
reason. It is finally Eve who points Adam in the right
direction (and by Eve we are to understand the Holy Spirit
working through her) by suing for his forgiveness when
there is no reason to believe he will grant it :
Forsake me not thus, Adam, witness Heav'n
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
Unhappily deceiv'd; thy suppliant
I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid.
(x. 914-19)
The parallel to his own case with respect to God is too
obvious to go unnoticed. Eve has heard Adam's lament and
274 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

now hears his impassioned rejection of her : 'Out of my

sight, thou Serpent ... I ... But for thee I I had persisted
happy, had not thy pride I And wand'ring vanity, when
least was safe, I Rejected my forewarning' (867, 873-6).
This is no more than a continuation of the quarrel Adam and
Eve initiate when they awaken from the drugged sleep of
sin, a 'vain contest' of which it is said there 'appear'd no
end'. But Eve breaks the cycle by gesturing beyond the
contest to a reconciliation rooted not in justice 01 in adjudi-
cation, but merely in love. She asks for pardon even though
she deserves none (does one ever deserve a pardon) and more
importantly expects none. She denies nothing ('unweeting
have offended') and appeals in the name of the dependency
she had earlier rejected : 'forlorn of thee, I Whither shall
I betake me?' (92 I-2). As a tactic this would seem calculated
to draw a hostile response (i.e. you might have thought of
that before) ; indeed the entire speech is strategically un-
sound, delivered to the wrong person at the worst possible
time, when the desired end is least likely to be effected. In a
similar situation, Dalilah makes essentially the same appeal
('Let weakness then with weakness come to parle') with
disastrous results.
But this is not reasoned strategy, no more than a cry for
help or a prayer is strategy. Eve's speech is occasioned by a
genuine need and informed 'by a love sincere' (this distin-
guishes her from Dalilah) whose expression takes precedence
over the reckoning of probable effects. As an action, Eve's
speech is foolish, absurd, and technically in error (she cannot
take the punishment on herself and is wrong to want to,
'too desirous, as before ... who desir'st I The punishment
all on thyself'), but its inappropriateness is one measure of
its value. That is, what Eve does is important because she
does it, 'not so repulsed' by Adam's professed enmity. Like
the faithful, Eve 'against hope believed in hope' (Romans
 Dext'rously Thou Aim'st 275

iv. 1 8) and moves forward, blindly, haltingly and finally, as

God would have it, effectively. 1 The merit of this speech and
the one that follows it does not reside in their literal content ;
in rapid succession Eve counsels abstinence and suicide as
means of avoiding the consequences of her sin ; yet even in
'vehement despair' her words are acceptable, because mis-
taken as they are, they are the product of remorse and con-
trition. (Eve's despair is not so reprehensible as Adam's
which proceeds from a conviction of eternal misery and is
thus a mortal sin : 'Despair is a mortal sin when it arises
from distrust of God's goodness and fidelity; venial when
due to melancholy or to fear of one's own weakness.' The
latter is clearly Eve's case.) It would be too much to expect
Eve to be right; she herself assumes quite the opposite :
'Adam, by sad experiment I know I How little weight my
words with thee can find, I Found so erroneous.' 'Neverthe-
less', 'hopeful' (the words are hers), she hides not her
thoughts, but offers them tentatively, trusting in a reality
larger than her mind, one which can accommodate her
probable errors and make of them something good. Eve is
looking outside herself beyond what her reason tells her is
possible and soon Adam is doing the same, also tentatively,
certain only of the power and benevolence of a deity who
can find remedies where there appear to be none: 'As the
feasibility of Eve's attempt at Adam's redemption did not
matter, so now the actual speech of Adam and Eve does not
matter : only the position, the attitude, the state of the heart
are important.' 2 Thus Adam abandons his own negativity
and begins to search for a way out of the abyss that had
become his living tomb. Eve's remedies are rejected because
they would eliminate occasions for grace: 'No more be
mention'd then of violence I Against ourselves, and wilful
I That is, the effectiveness is God's. See Chapter I, p. I 8.
2 Summers, T h~ Muu' i M~thod, pp. I 8 3-4.
2 76 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

barrenness, I That cuts us off from hope' (1041-3, emphasis

mine). With no more information than he had earlier,
Adam now 'conjectures' as to the true identity of the serpent
('our grand Foe I Satan, who in the Serpent') and with Eve
begins to seek 'Some safer resolution'. What has changed is
his orientation and with this change old facts and impossible
dilemmas rearrange themselves into new patterns of hope.
Adam sees with the eyes of faith and at once the visible
world is transfigured; the 'assumption of a hostile universe'
is replaced by its exact opposite and all things (situations are
also things) are interpreted as opportunities for the granting
of grace, instances of God's benevolence at work in the world.
Adam's regeneration, the creation afresh, 'as it were' of
'the inward man', of 'a new creature' 1 is complete when he
declares of God: 'Undoubtedly he will relent' (1093) and
comes full circle from the conviction of remedilessness.
Relenting is God's prerogative and his inclination, not man's
desert; yet Adam's 'undoubtedly' is not presumption or
even prophecy, but an expression of his faith in God's
infinite mercy (like Samson's 'I with this Messenger will go
along' and Christ's standing). ' "Faith is the substance of
things hoped for," ' writes Milton in the Christian Doctrine,
'where by "substance" is understood as certain a persuasion
of things hoped for, as if they were not only existing, but
actually present.' 2 True faith sees the objects of hope and
believes them ours ; true faith places Lycidas in Heaven on
the sole authority of God's promise, 'that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have eternal life' ; true faith
would have entrusted Eve willingly and confidently to God;
true faith hopes against hope and affirms against reason and
leads one to say 'undoubtedly'.
In the first part of Book XI Adam grows in faith : he
recognizes the literal improbability of God's concern (what
1 Tlzr WorluofJoA11 Milto11, xv. 367. 2 Ibid., pp. 395• 397·
 Dext'rously Thou Aim'st 277

is man that thou art mindful of him?) but is persuaded,

nevertheless, that his prayers have been heard favourably :
that from us aught should ascend to Heav'n
So prevalent as to concern the mind
Of God high-blest, or to incline his will,
Hard to beliefmay seem; yet this will prayer ...
( 1 +3-6, emphasis mine)

A sequence like 'hard to belief may seem, yet' contains all

the linguistic signs of faith, the independence of belief from
what seems logical and from appearances ('may seem'), and
the willingness to break out of the visibly relevant to another
level of discourse ('yet'). Again Adam operates largely on a
conviction of God's placability and mildness and this
certainty allows him to conjecture concerning matters less
certain : 'persuasion in me grew I That I was heard ... I ...
Assures me that the bitterness of death I Is past, and we shall
live' (I 52-3, I 57-8, emphasis mine).
Adam continues to interpret the 'mute signs in Nature'
correctly, concluding from the flight of beasts and fowl and
from the sudden eclipse that 'some furder change awaits us
nigh' (I9J). The epic voice comments approvingly, 'He
err' d not', a statement which is increasingly ironic in retro-
spect since from this moment on Adam errs in every respect
possible, slipping by degrees, as fallen man always does, into
his old ways. First, he laments his exile from the presence of
God and is reminded, benignly, by Michael, not to confine
the deity in the spatial limitations which apply to man :
'Adam, thou know'st Heav'n his, and all the Earth, I Not
this Rock only ... I ... surmise not then I His presence to
these narrow bounds confin'd' (335-6, 340-I). 'Surmise not
then' is equivalent to 'appoint not heavenly disposition'; the
bounds Adam would set on God correspond to the area his
own consciousness is aware of. In the course of his conversa-
tions with Michael, Adam will repeatedly appoint heavenly
T F.s.s.
2 78 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

disposition until he has once again fallen into an 'Abyss of

fears' out of which he can find no way. Repeatedly he draws
the wrong conclusions from what he sees because he relies
too much on what he sees. Thus the sight of Cain slaying
Abel draws this question : 'have I now seen Death?' (462,
emphasis mine). Many shapes has death, replies Michael,
who might have added that incorporeal beings are only
imperfectly known through their physical manifestations.
The point is a small one, but the same way of thinking can
be dangerous if it is extended into the sphere of moral
decision. When Adam is shown some of the miseries life
holds for his children, he turns stoic with alacrity: 'Hence-
forth I fly not Death, nor would prolong / Life much, bent
rather how I may be quit/ Fairest and easiest of this cumbrous
charge' (54 7-9). Adam conceives of his options too narrowly
('Nor love thy Life, nor hate') because he conceives of his
obligations as merely terrestrial. Mortality is not a self-
contained (rhetorical, rational) experience to be met with
an easy formula or a morality whose end is comfort ('fairest
and easiest') ; it is, rather, the medium within which man
attests to his commitment to God, and every action taken
must be taken in the name of that commitment. By limiting
his choice to a short and quiet life or a long and uncomfort-
able one, Adam ignores the possibility of living for God,
which is what Michael counsels when he advises 'what thou
liv'st/ Live well' (553-4).
The same turn of mind characterizes Adam's attitude
towards history which becomes a series of isolated events,
existing independently of each other and emptied of all
significance beyond the physically immediate. Inevitably,
his emotional state varies with each new appearance, since
no single vision unites them for him ; and his response to
these appearances is consistently unfortunate. In the beget-
ting of the race of giants he finds joy and hope : 'True opener
 Dext'rously Thou Aim'st 279

of mine eyes, prime Angel blest, I Much better seems this

Vision, and more hope I ... Here Nature seems fulfill'd in
all her ends' (598-9, 6o2). Not so, corrects Michael; the
ends of nature have nothing to do with what you see here,
since nature begins and ends in the divine: Judge not what is
best I By pleasure, though to Nature seeming meet, I Created,
as thou art, to nobler end I Holy and pure, conformity
divine' (603-6). The eyes Adam thinks open are the eyes of
the flesh ; he has lost the interior illumination which had
brought him to 'humiliation meek' at the close of Book x.
From hope and joy his tendency to overreaction brings him
full cycle to despair and a new complaint. The evidence of
visions seen leads him to assume the end of mankind. How
could there possibly be a future for the race when so few have
survived the flood? The 'undoubtedly' of faith now becomes
the assurance of disaster and the universe is once again
hostile: 'Man is not whom to warn; those few escap't I
Famine and anguish will at last consume I Wand'ring that
wat'ry Desert' (777-9). Adam is now not to be distinguished
from Sarah, who as 'the type of carnal reason, laughed at the
promise, conceiving it impossible in reason that she should
have a child'. I He goes so far as to place himself in the list
of those who no longer hope: 'I had hope I ... peace would
have crown' d / With length of happy days the race of man ; I
But I was far deceiv'd' (779, 78 1-3). If Adam is deceived
it is not by hope, but by the deductive (carnal) reasoning he
substitutes for hope. 'Hard to belief' may seem the salvation
of the few against such odds ; but to true belief, which asserts
independently of the probable and even of the possible,
nothing is too hard, since nothing is too hard for the Lord.z
I John Webster, The Examination ofAcademies, p. 17.
2 In the opening lines of Book xr, Adam and Eve are compared to Deucalion
and Pyrrha, who against reason obey an apparently absurd command and
thereby effect the restoration of mankind. For a discussion of another use of
280 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

Once again Adam is in danger of losing sight of this truth

because of the illusion of remedilessness. Noah and his sons
do, of course, reach dry land, and Adam sees them, and
above them a rainbow, and for the first time his response is
true to the situation as it is sub specie aeternitatis :
over his head beholds
A dewy Cloud, and in the Cloud a Bow
Conspicuous with three listed colors gay,
Betok'ning peace from God, and Cov'nant new.
Whereat the heart of Adam erst so sad
Greatly rejoic'd, and thus his joy broke forth.
0 thou who future things canst represent
As present, Heav'nly instructor, I revive
At this last sight, assur' d that Man shall live.

Adam's breaking forth of joy can hardly be the result only

of the 'sight' before him. Noah may be saved, but what of
those who have perished amidst the destruction of an entire
world, and those who may perish if new floods pour down?
Louis Martz, for one, 'finds it hard to share in Adam's joy
at the ending of the Flood', for 'in the circumstances the
cry may well strike the reader as the unfatherly utterance of
a rigorous doctrinaire.'' The point is that Adam now reads
the world and everything in it as an expression of God's
goodness, that is figuratively ; and the reader must now
measure his own response against that of his first parent's,
the reverse of his obligation in Book IX. Adam's joy, like
the joy of the good angels who welcome the appearance of
Christ in Book vi, is inexplicable only to those who are still
in bondage to the evidence of things seen. Life as fallen man
knows it is filled with facts - disease, war, pain, death -
this mythological parallel as an illustration of faith operating in the world see
my John Skelton's Poetry (Yale, 1965), pp. r6r-z.
1 The Paradise Within (New Haven, 1964), p. I 54·
 Dext'rously Thou Aim'st 281

which on their face are irreconcilable with the idea of a God

who is love. The problem is directly analogous to the
problem of interpreting scripture in those places where the
literal meaning appears to be blasphemous or conducive to
cupidity. Such locutions, counsels Augustine 'should be
subjected to diligent scrutiny until an interpretation con-
tributing to the reign of charity is produced'. The words of
scripture are the signs of God, invested with his meaning
which is available to those who are willing to search for it;
the phenomena of experience are his signs also, the words of
the book that is his universe and they too must be diligently
scrutinized before their true meaning emerges, lest the
observer become 'subjected to the flesh in pursuit of the
letter', taking 'figurative expressions as though they were
literal ... a miserable servitude of the spirit ... so that one
is not able to raise the eye of the mind above things that are
corporal and created to drink in eternal light.' 1 To Adam,
who knows nothing yet of covenants ('Whereat' in line 868
refers to the dewy cloud, not to 'Cov'nant new' in 867;
another trap for the careless reader), the rainbow might have
signified any number of things, if he had sought its meaning
on the surface or made it the reflection of his own small
faith. (The binding of the watery cloud could be a silent
threat.) Instead, he chooses -there is no other word for i t -
to see in it the signification a merciful God must have
intended:
But say, what mean those color'd streaks in Heav'n,
Distended as the Brow of God appeas'd,
Or serve they as a llow'ry verge to bind
The fluid skirts of that same wat'ry Cloud,
Lest it again dissolve and show'r the Earth?

1011 Christia11 Doctrine, trans. and ed. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (New York,
1958), P· 84.
2 82 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

Adam hazards a guess, but it is an informed guess, informed

by a conviction of a fortunate universe benevolently ruled,
a conviction which springs quite illogically (it is literally
a leap of faith) from a context of violence and punishment :
'I revive f At this last sight, assur' d that Man shall live.'
It is the sight transfigured by his faith, affirming against
reason, which assures him. And Michael approves his new
way of seeing, as one approves an archer who, suddenly, after
long trial and many misses, finds the mark: Dext'rously thou
aim'st. (8 84). Later, when the angel reports on the progress
of Abraham's journey from Ur, he says, 'I see him, but thou
canst not, with what Faith', and in context, 'with what Faith'
refers simultaneously to Abraham who moves with faith
(not knowing whither he went) and to Adam who sees with
faith (not seeing).

The final word on reason and rationalizations as they are

related to the 'contemplation of eternal things' is quite
properly Adam's in the lament of x. 720-844. Here all the
will-o'-the-wisps the mind has pursued through ten books
are collected and judged. Adam poses directly the questions
we may have only half formulated. Does he deserve his
punishment? Can God be justified? What is the cause of
the Fall? And the answers are familiar because they have
at times been ours :

Did I request thee, Maker, from my Clay

To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious Garden? as my Will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign, and render back
All I receiv'd, unable to perform
Thy terms too hard by which I was to hold
 Dext'rously Thou Aim'st 283

The good I sought not. To the loss of that,

Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes? inexplicable
Thy Justice seems.
(7+3-55)
In other words, why was I born, a cry each of us has echoed
when the burden of living seems too heavy. The accom-
panying accusations, half angry, half defensive- it isn't
fair ('Thy terms too hard'), I couldn't help it ('unable to
perform')- are Adam's version of the argument from
necessity, to which every reader has at least partially assented
despite its manifest absurdity. And the conclusion (in the
formal sense)- 'inexplicable I Thy justice seems'- mocks
the promise of that early statement of intention : 'and justify
the ways of God to men'. Have we come this far only to hear
a confirmation of our darkest suspicions?
Adam, however, is still not deceived or self-deceiving;
he easily disposes of his own arguments : 'yet to say truth'
the terms were understood and accepted : 'too late I I thus
contest' ; besides, the creature can hardly be a party to his own
creation : 'God made thee of choice his own, and of his own I
To serve him, thy reward was of his grace, I Thy punishment
then justly is at his Will. I Be it so, for I submit, his doom is
fair' (766-9). Thus far has his reason brought him, to a
conviction of his own guilt which can no longer be in doubt
when the defendant himself admits it. The search for cause
ends here, discredited by Adam's terse and unequivocal 'his
doom is fair', a conclusion he reaches in only twenty-five
lines although most readers conscientiously avoid it for nine
and one half books. That problem solved, however, merely
raises another: 'Ah, why should all mankind I For one man's
fault thus guiltless be condemn'd I If Guiltless?' (822-4).
There is a tendency to place the question-mark after
'condemn'd' with the end of the line, but Adam's 'If guilt-
Z84 What Cause?: Faith and Reason

less' questions his question and shows that he is already

preparing an answer to it: 'But from me what can proceed, I
But all corrupt, both Mind and Will deprav'd I ... how can
they then acquitted stand I In sight of God? Him after all
Disputes I Forc't I absolve' (82+-S, 827-9). Again reason
is triumphant, but in the ambiguity of 'Forc't'- have his
reasonings forced him to absolve God or were his doubts the
results of forced (strained) reasoning- one hears Adam's
awareness of how meaningless his success is :

all my evasions vain

And reasonings, though through Mazes, lead me still
But to my own conviction.

Reasonings and evasions are carefully distinguished : the

fancy (wishful thinking) begets evasions on itself which are
then scrutinized and rejected by the reason (the sequence is
one the reader knows well from his experience of the poem).
One cannot fault the workings of the mind - the Mazes
have been negotiated - but the process is hopelessly
circular, and it leaves Adam where he began, 'To sorrow
abandon'd':

0 Conscience, into what Abyss of fears

And horrors hast thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way.

The way out is there, but not through reason, which con-
spires, like rhetoric, to prevent the mind from looking beyond
the artificial coherence of a limited system. What is required
is 'the faith of Abraham', not the reasonings of Sarah, 'a
simple and naked believing and relying upon the bare and
sole word of the Lord, though reason & mans wisdom can
 Dexlrously Thou Aim'st 2 85

see no way how possibly it can come to pass ... for reason is
a monster, and the very root and ground of all infidelity ;for
the carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the
law of God.' 1 Imprisoned in the mazes of his rational
intellect, Adam can only await the redeeming inappositeness
of Eve's unthinking gesture.
I Webster,op.cit.,p. 17.
7 So God with Man
Unites
The works of Milton cannot be comprehended
or enjoyed unless the mind of the reader co-
operate with that of the writer..•• He strikes
the Keynote, and expects his hearers to make
out the melody.
MACAULAY

(i) NOT SO MUCH AN INTANGLING AS A TEACHING

With Adam's lament the reader enters into the last phase of
his relationship with the poem. No longer a participant, he is
here returned to the more conventional role of spectator,
concerned, but detached. It is Adam who must now adjust
to circumstances of which he has had no prior knowledge,
and his struggles with difficulties (physical and intellectual)
the reader has already encountered, in life and in the poem,
are interesting and significant, but not unexpected. One can
almost feel comfortable with his distress because it is
familiar as innocence never was. In some ways the poem
demands less of the reader here than it has before, and this
continues to be true in the final books where he is asked to
provide traditional interpretations for a succession of biblio-
historical tableaux. Few new revelations await him in these
books ; instead, the series of exempla offers a restatement, in a
manner frankly didactic, of the lessons he has proven on his
pulse in the body of the poem. So that, paradoxically, the
narrative is felt less personally and immediately as it expands
to include the events of fallen human history. At the same
time, however, a different kind of vigilance must be exer-
cised, less self-conscious, but conscious nevertheless : with
 Not so much an Intangling as a Teaching 287

the addition of the historical perspective, which also includes

or is absorbed into the eschatological perspective, new levels
of reference are created to which everything must now be
referred. Thus Adam's education, the nominal subject of xr
and xn, is to be read simultaneously as an extension of his
personal story, as an image of the racial experience, and as a
conveniently concise summary of what the poem has taught
diffusely. His failures parallel our own at every point and his
successes recreate the process by which we as readers have
attained the unity of vision he must now regain ; at the end
of Book xn, as Richardson saw, he is brought 'into the
Condition in Which We Are, on Even Ground with Us'. 1
The chronicle of human backslidings, relieved only by the
sporadic appearance of a single Nazarite, is on its surface a
linear progression of events which occur in time; but it is
also decidedly cyclical, a depressing testimony to the per-
sistence of sin and corruption ('sinful man') even in the face
of a benevolent deity ('supernal grace') and thus a corrobora-
tion in history of the doctrine of natural depravity ; the
reader sees the weaknesses he has acknowledged in himself
writ large in the calendar of nations. In addition, the
chronicle is an extended argument for the necessity of the
intervention of Christ, the last of the only righteous in a
world perverse, the substance of whom the others are but a
shadowy promise. At each point in the narrative, the reader
must keep separate these multiple significances and yet look
forward to their ultimate unity in the person of Christ (this
has always been his duty). Obviously this involves consider-
able effort of intellect and will, but the effort is well rewarded
when Michael's relentlessly low-keyed presentation takes
on the resonance and power of its anticipations. Then the
personal drama of Adam's regeneration, the national drama
of God's chosen people, and the final drama of the unfolding
1 Explanatory Notes on Paradise Lost, p. 535·
2 88 So God with Man Unites

gospel, merge for the reader in a poetic intuition of oneness

which is beyond poetry and outside time.

Much of what is usually thought to be unsatisfactory in

Books XI and xn results from the substitution of Adam for
the reader in the dialectic of trial and error which is the
basis of Milton's method. There is still to be sure a drama of
the mind, but it is Adam's, and the reader stands in relation
to him as an advanced pupil to a novice. The pedagogical
aspect of the situation is formalized and objectified to a
degree we have not seen before. Michael assumes the duties
of the epic voice, but with a difference. He is given a
physical classroom which is its own image, a hill of learning
from whose summit the instructor can literally point to the
material to be studied. More important, his function as a
teacher (Adam gives him that title at xr, line 450) both
defines and limits him. Unlike the epic voice, that great
amphibian whose personal involvement complicates and
enriches the discharging of his public obligation, the angel's
individual presence is hardly felt. His performance is con-
trolled by the divine command : 'Dismiss them not disconso-
late; reveal I To Adam what shall come in future days, I
As I shall thee enlighten, intermix I My Cov'nant in the
woman's seed renew'd; I So send them forth, though sorrow-
ing, yet in peace' (xr. I I 3-I 7); and his tone ranges from
mild reproof to still milder approval. His methods are more
forthright than those of Milton's persona; in place of the
indirect rebuke, the delayed verb or adverb appearing
diffidently, almost impersonally, to correct an impression too
easily acquiesced in, Michael delivers formal admonitions
sententiously: 'Nor love thy Life, nor hate', 'From Man's
effeminate slackness it begins', and in another vein, but with
the same patiently detached condescension, 'Dext'rously
thou aim'st'. And instead of disappointing the expectations
 Not so much an Intangling as a Teaching 289

he has aroused, the angel remains faithful to his announced

syllabus:
that thou may'st believe, and be confirm'd,
Ere thou from hence depart, know I am sent
To show thee what shall come in future days
To thee and to thy Offspring; good with bad
Expect to hear, supernal Grace contending
With sinfulness of Men; thereby to learn
True patience, and to temper joy with fear
And pious sorrow, equally inur'd
By moderation either state to bear,
Prosperous or adverse.
(xx. 355-64)

This is the straightforward declaration of purpose and

method ('thereby' is Michael's shorthand for 'as a result of
your reacting to and reflecting on') Milton might have
offered earlier were it not for the advantage he discerned in
equivocation and surprise. 'That thou may'st believe and be
confirm' d' would have been a more honest -literal is the
better word - propositio than 'justify the ways of God to
men', just as 'supernal Grace contending f With sinfulness
of Men' is more truly descriptive of what the reader should
expect to hear than 'Of Man's First Disobedience'. Of man's
first disobedience we learn, finally, very little, except for the
fact itself, undeniably there, but inexplicable ; of the sinful-
ness of men as a consequence of that disobedience we learn
a great deal, especially when the sinful men are ourselves,
contending with or at least resisting the guidance and
counsel of supernal grace in the person of the inspired epic
voice. The true patience Adam will acquire, the quiet,
unemotional (because it is beyond emotion) confidence which
is sustained by nothing visible but by a promise, is exactly
the patience we as readers have become inured to, as first
one and then another of the supports held out to us in the
290 So God with Man Unites

world of 'things which do appear' is taken away. And the

moderation Adam will be taught to practise is the Christian
virtue of fortitude as it has been exemplified for us in the
loyal angels' indifference to all ('Prosperous or adverse') but
the will of God. 1
There is again a difference. Adam is not erratic and
unreliable as we tend to be. His mistakes, once corrected,
are not repeated whenever slightly altered circumstances
make their repetition possible. His progress is regular and
measurable, marked by the experiencing of insights which
do not desert him under pressure. Once he has guessed at
the significance of the rainbow, he ceases to be the captive
of the appearances which temporarily dominate his field of
vision. Henceforth he abhors 'justly' (xu. 79), discerns
'with ... joy' (xu. 372), and understands clearly (xu. 376).z
A great deal has been made of Michael's decision to alter
the manner of his narration: 'Much thou hast yet to see, but
I perceive I Thy mortal sight to fail ... I Henceforth what is
to come I will relate' (xu. 8-9, I I). The explanation is
simply that it is no longer necessary to expose Adam to the
misleading evidence of things seen. If his mortal sight now
fails, it has been replaced, in the course of the conditioning
process he undergoes in Book xr, by the interior illumination
the epic voice prays for in the invocation to Book m.
Significantly, Michael retains the verb: 'Much thou hast
yet to see', although you are unable to see. A favourite
Miltonic metaphor is made physical as it will be again in
Samson Agonistes. The present circumstances do not allow
' For a discussion of fortitude as the virtue which 'strengthens one against
both prosperity and adversity', see William 0. Harris, Skelton's Magnyfycence
and the Cardinal F'irtue Tradition (Chapel Hill, 1965), pp. 71-126.
z Not that Adam's performance is letter perfect in Book xu. As H. R. Mac-
Callum points out, he still tends 'to overleap the mark' (Milton and Sacred
History, p. 164). But the problem is simply to extend the insight he has
achieved at the end of XI into all levels of action and thought.
 Not so much an lntangling as a Teaching 291

the explicitness of the gloss provided by the Semi-chorus in

its comment on Samson's triumph- 'he though blind of
sight, / ... With inward eyes illuminated' - but the
situations are spiritually analogous. (Later Adam himself will
proclaim, 'now first I find I Mine eyes true op'ning' .) 1
The division of the original tenth book into the eleventh
and twelfth is meant to call the reader's attention to this
turning point in Adam's education (renovation) which
proceeds so much more rapidly than his own. Within
thirteen hundred lines of Michael's benign reproof-
'surmise not then I His presence to these narrow bounds
confin'd'- Adam has advanced sufficiently to be able to
deliver a speech praised by the angel as 'the sum of wisdom' :

Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best

And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend.
(xu. 561-4)

'To obey is best'. 'And on him sole depend'. The reader will
have remarked on the unity of the universe as Milton sees
it and as he tries to make his readers see it: each attempt to
locate a virtue ends in the person of God, the source of all
virtue ; any action which seems worthy is shown to have been
initiated by God or for the sake of his glory ; all truly merito-
rious actions are merely expressions of obedience to God ;
all poetic styles strain toward a wordless (styleless) genu-
flection to God. It is, in a sense, easy to say with Herbert
and with others who have understood this, 'Thy will be
done'; but the gesture is one many readers find impossible
to make, even after twelve books written to convince them
of its wisdom. Adam is truly wise.
1 See Barbara Lewalski, 'Structure and Symbolism in Michael's Prophecy',

Philological Quarttrly, :rlii (1963), 30-3 I.

2 92 So God with Man Unites

In essence, then, this extended scene gives us the poem

again, but without the irregular movement and exquisite
shading which make reading it so much like living it. In
stylistic terms it is the difference between the representation
of experience as it rushes upon the perceiving mind and the
subsequent arrangement of it into easily graspable patterns.
Adam's education is not only formal, it is schematic,
following closely the process of regeneration as Milton out-
lines it in The Christian Doctrine: renewed in spirit (as Adam
and Eve are renewed when Prevenient Grace removes the
stony from their hearts), sinful man repents of the sins he
now detests and turns humbly to God (as Adam submits
himself humbly to Michael's instruction), believing on the
promise of salvation and eternal life (as Adam will believe
when he descends from the mount of speculation). The
reader is expected to recognize the stages of his growth and
to relate them to his own spiritual history :
... 'tis Delightful to see how Finely Milton observes all the
Growth of the New Man. Creation was all at Once, Regenera-
tion is like the Natural Progression, we are Babes, and come by
Degrees to be Strong Men in Christ. 1

Negatively viewed, this stylized formality has been seen as

evidence of a 'decline in poetic power', but one should
understand that the regularity and predictability of the
pattern allow the reader to use it as a framework within
which he gathers together and orders the disparate intuitions
he has brought with him from the earlier books.
Let us examine, by way of illustration, one of the episodes
in Book xi, keeping in mind the two audiences (Adam and
the reader) who are continually responding to its stimuli.
Adam is shown the courtship and marriage rites of the sons
1 Richardson, Explanatory Notts, p. 484. See also the note to xn. 270:

'Regeneration goes On, the New Man is Strengthened More and more' (5 16).
 Not so much an lntangling as a Teaching 293

of Seth and the daughters of Cain, a union which results in

the race of giants who perish in the flood. In his enthusiasm,
he confuses sensual delight with true happiness, and hears
Michael reply swiftly, 'Judge not what is best f By pleasure'
(603-4). The sequence is familiar- the untutored response
to a fair-appearing good which is immediately corrected by
an authoritative voice. But here the reader is allowed to
stand outside the centre of the temptation where he is able
to predict its development and draw the moral long before
Michael speaks ; in this way he is protected from errors he
would have surely fallen into earlier. As before, some lines
are delicately balanced between the innocence isolation lends
them and the taint they acquire retroactively when the
context is fuller :
Such happy interview and fair event
Oflove and youth not lost, Songs, Garlands, Flow'rs,
And charming Symphonies attach'd the heart
Of Adam, soon inclin'd to admit delight
The bentofNature.
(593-7)
Until the ambiguity of 'charming' (either attractive or
spellbinding) this could surely be a catalogue of 'unreproved
pleasures free'. Even 'The bent of Nature' is a sinister
phrase only if the adjective 'fallen' is silently added to it.
There is no danger, however, for the reader because the
scene is disarmed of its surface allure before these innocent
seeming lines can exercise their potentially seductive effect :
They on the Plain
Long had not walkt, when from the Tents behold
A Bevy of fair Women, richly gay
In Gems and wanton dress; to the Harp they sung
Soft amorous Ditties, and in dance came on:
The Men though grave, ey'd them, and let thir eyes
Rove without rein, till in the amorous Net
u F.s.s.
294 So God with Man Unites

Fast caught, they lik'd, and each his liking chose;

And now oflove they treat till th' Ev'ning Star
Love's Harbinger appear'd; then all in heat
They light the Nuptial Torch, and bid invoke
Hymen, then first to marriage Rites invok't.
(580-C)I)

The women approach 'richly gay' ; alone either modifier

would be disturbing; together they are accusing, especially
in connection with the following half line, 'In Gems and
wanton dress'. The men greet them with glances rather than
words : 'The men though grave, ey' d them, and let thir eyes I
Rove without rein'. The eye is traditionally the entry place
for the arrow of lust : 'For all that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not
of the Father' (1 John ii. 16). By giving themselves to their
own cupidity, they weave a net and fall victims to it : 'till in
the amorous Net I Fast caught' ('Let the wicked fall into
their own Nets'. Psalm 141) as Adam does when he applauds
their actions. Of course Adam sees the vision directly,
without the intervening (and corrective) screen of Milton's
weighted vocabulary. One can only guess at what he would
substitute for 'richly gay' or 'wanton'. Certainly he would
not use the words 'in heat' to describe the joys of the nuptial
ceremonies. Adam's heart here is attached by the sense of
touch whose pleasures Raphael had reminded him are 'the
same voutsaf't I To Cattle and ... beast' and are also the
same he has succumbed to, in heat, only yesterday: 'Carnal
desire inflaming hee on Eve I Began to cast lascivious eyes,
she him I As wantonly repaid; in Lust they burn.' These
allusions to the scriptures and to previous moments in the
poem are not recondite ; every reader will be aware of most
of them and come to Adam's 'True opener of mine eyes' in
full control of the irony Milton intends.
Any superiority we enjoy in respect to Adam is, of course,
 Not so much an lntangling as a Teaching 295

accidental, the result of having been granted information

deliberately withheld from him. This too is deliberate, less
a reward or a privilege than a way of assuring that our
attention is not distracted by considerations which are now
secondary. The direct involvement of the reader in the
experience of a problem is no longer the function of the
verse. Truths apprehended in the excitement and insularity
of self-discovery are now to be extended in application to
include larger units of being until the entire universe
becomes a receptacle for them, as it is from the vantage point
of eternity. To this end, the reader must have both the time
and the leisure to make the kind of connections I describe
in the preceding paragraphs. To keep him in suspense would
be beside the point, much like reading the Book of Job with-
out the introductory scene and thus without the advantage
of knowing whether or not Job is, after all, righteous ; one
would simply worry about the wrong things. The impact of
the scene depends on our being distanced from it, and the
stylistic virtues of another book would be liabilities here.
The reverse also is true: taken by itself, Michael's
moralitas is 'bad poetry', dull, overlong, and unnecessary
since it has been anticipated and discounted even before
Adam speaks.

Those Tents thou saw'st so pleasant, were the Tents

Of wickedness, wherein shall dwell his Race
Who slew his Brother; studious they appear
Of Arts that polish Life, Inventors rare,
Unmindful of thir Maker, ...
. . . that fair female Troop thou saw'st, that seem'd
Of Goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, ...
Bred only and completed to the taste
Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance,
To dress, and troll the Tongue, and roll the Eye.
To these that sober Race of Men, whose lives
296 So God with Man Unites

Religious titl'd them the Sons of God,

Shall yield up all thir virtue.
(607-1 I, 6I+-I5, 618-23)
Yet these 'faults' are positive assets because we are freed by
them from our obligation to the immediate context and
allowed instead to concentrate on the associations it recalls
for us, associations which take their place in a pattern that
has already begun to emerge. Adam is no doubt surprised to
learn that the 'Inventors rare' whose art he has admired, are,
in truth, atheists, 'Unmindful of thir Maker' ( 6 1 1) ; but for
the reader, this information merely confirms an identifica-
tion he makes tentatively when the scene is introduced :
He look'd and saw a spacious Plain ...
whence the sound
Of Instruments that made melodious chime
Was heard, of Harp and Organ; and who mov'd
Thir stops and chords was seen; his volant touch
Instinct through all proportions low and high
Fled and pursu'd transverse the resonant fugue.
In other part stood one who at the Forge
Laboring, two massy clods of Iron and Brass
Had melted (whether found where casual fire
Had wasted woods on Mountain or in Vale,
Down to the veins of Earth, thence gliding hot
To some Cave's mouth, or whether washt by stream
From underground); the liquid Ore he drain'd
Into fit moulds prepar'd; from which he form'd
First his own Tools; then what might else be wrought
Fusile or grav'n in metal.
(556, 558-73)
These lines reproduce almost all of the details found in the
description of the building of pandemonium :
Nigh on the Plain in many cells prepar'd
That underneath had veins ofliquid fire
Sluic 'd from the Lake, a second multitude
 Not so much an lntangling as a Teaching 297

With wondrous Art founded the massy Ore,

Severing each kind, and scumm'd the Bullion dross:
A third as soon had form'd within the ground
A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook;
As in an Organ from one blast of wind
To many a row of Pipes the sound board breathes.
Anon out of the earth a Fabric huge
Rose like an Exhalation, with the sound
Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a Temple.
(1. 70o-13)
The correspondences are not exact. The organ metaphor of
the earlier passage is made literal in Book XI where fugues
are built instead of temples, but with the same impiety. The
accompanying symphonies in Book I are the charming
symphonies which attach Adam's heart. Generally, the
impression is of a slightly blurred echo in which phrases are
disjointed and then reassembled in new but related group-
ings. Thus the 'massy ore' founded from 'liquid fire' is
poured by Mulciber's workers into 'A various mould' while
the sons of Lamech drain 'liquid ore' which is 'gliding hot'
into 'fit moulds prepar' d' ; both processes begin in the earth,
proceed through water and end in fire ; the setting for both
is a plain. Pandemonium rises after 'veins of liquid fire' are
'Sluic'd from the Lake' (if it be lake); the materials brought
to Tubal's forge are 'massy clods' which have been conveyed
by 'veins of earth' and then, perhaps, 'washt by stream'.
The pattern of recombinations is not static; single words
move back and forth between the two contexts- 'massy
ore', 'massy clods'; 'massy ore', 'liquid ore'; 'liquid fire',
'gliding hot'; 'veins of liquid fire', 'liquid ore'; 'veins of
liquid fire', 'veins of earth'; 'Anon out of the earth', 'veins
of earth'- until the scenes merge in the reader's con-
sciousness to form a single and continuing comment on the
298 So God with Man Unites

activities they separately describe. The building of temples

and the practising of the 'arts that polish life' are alike
meretricious if they are undertaken for their own sake and not
for the glory of God. 'Unmindful of their maker' is a judg-
ment applying equally to the artisans Adam sees and to the
infernal host which finds its spokesman in Mammon's
'And what can Heav'n show more?' There is finally no
distinction to be made between them, despite their apparent
separation in time, especially when one remembers, with
William Massey, that Mulciber and Tubal-Cain are one
and the same :
Mulciber is another Latin Name for J7ulcan. His Name amongst
the Greeks was Hepaistus and in Hebrew (as some suppose)
Tubal-Cain; from which some learned Men are of Opinion that
the Name J7ulcan had its Origin.
Remarks Upon Milton's Paradise Lost (1761), p. 46
Since Hebrew is what remains of the original language, this
is a truer version of the story from which pagan fablers
depart to err. 1
Another link between the race of Cain and the fallen
angels is provided in the designation 'Inventors rare', a
reference, no doubt, to Satan, who becomes the father of
invention when he 'concocts' gunpowder:
Th' invention all admir'd, and each, how hee
To beth' inventor miss'd, so easy it seem'd
Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought
Impossible: yet haply of thy Race
In future days, if Malice should abound,
Some one intent on mischief, or inspir'd
With dev'lish machination might devise
Like instrument to plague the Sons of men.

t See 1. 7 4o-5 I. Samuel Mather also alludes to the identification ofMulciber

and Tubal-Cain in The Figures or Types of the 0/dTutament, 1683.
 Not so much an lntangling as a Teaching 299

This is chronologically the first triumph of technology or

'subtle Art' (5 I 3) and like the others in the poem, it proceeds
in two stages (I) a movement downward ('deep under-
ground') in search of 'materials dark and crude' and (2) the
application of fire : 1
up they turn'd
Wide the Celestial soil ...
. . . Sulphurous and Nitrous Foam
They found, they mingl'd ...
Part hidd'n veins digg'd up (nor hath this Earth
Entrails unlike) of Mineral and Stone ...
. . . part incentive reed
Provide, pernicious with one touch to fire.
(VI. 509-10,512-13,516-17, 519-20)
The pattern reappears in the building of Babel : 'The Plain,
wherein a black bituminous gurge I Boils out from under
ground, the mouth of Hell ; I Of Brick, and of that stuff
they cast to build I A City and Tow'r, whose top may reach
to Heav'n' (xu. 41-44). In the background of all these
passages is the panorama of Hell with its subterranean close-
ness ('a Dungeon horrible') and livid flames ; also Spenser's
Cave of Mammon, similarly endowed with a 'hundred
fournaces burning bright' and 'golden metall, ready to be
tryde'.
Once these associations suggest themselves, the way is
open to read the vision allegorically : Cain-Satan begets
Daughters-Sin (Eve is another possibility here, one which
occurs readily to Adam) 2 who then seduce(s) sons of Seth-
Adam-Mankind. The sober race of religious men surrender
1 See Mrs. MacCaffrey, Paradiu Lost as 'Myth', p. 165: 'Whenever ...

Milton prepares to explore the underground regions in Paradist Lost, we

become aware of a sense of danger.'
2 'But still I see the tenor of Man's woe/ Holds on the same, from Woman
to begin' (xi. 632-3). Michael replies sharply: 'From Man's effeminate
slackness it begins.'
300 So God with Man Unites

their virtue in imitation of Adam who now compounds his

original sin by condoning theirs. More abstractly, the
marriage represents an unholy union of complementary
idolatries, the worship of sensual pleasure ('lustful appe-
tance') and the worship of art; both are symbolized in the
scene by the element of fire (the forge and the torch of
nuptial passion) and their union releases evil energies which
are destroyed finally by a deluge from Heaven :
for which
The world erelong a world of tears must weep.
(x1. 626-7)
With this prophecy, which alerts the reader to the next
vision, Michael concludes his sermon to take up again the
thread of the narrative proper. He leaves both his audiences
in his debt, albeit in different ways: Adam is chastened and
instructed ; the reader, if he has been attentive, brings
together within a single framework incidents he has not
connected previously, thereby gaining an insight into the
sameness of all spiritual experience. Despite its predictability
then, the sequence is illuminating and even moving.

(il) ALTERED STYLE

A number of critics have addressed themselves in recent

years to the rehabilitation of Books XI and xu. Mrs. Lewalski
and Messrs. Prince, Sasek, Summers, and MacCallum
have succeeded in establishing the coherence of Milton's
design and in doing so have countered Lewis's criticism
that the historical survey is an 'untransmuted lump of
futurity'! Another of Lewis's contentions, 'that the actual
1 A Prifact to Paradist Lost, p. I 2 5·
 Altered Style 301

writing in this passage is curiously bad' still finds its ad-

herents. As recently as 1964, Louis Martz, after conceding
that Milton's plan is clear and theologically sound, concludes
reluctantly, 'poetically it is a disaster' . 1 Without question
the verse exhibits few of the characteristics usually thought
of as Miltonic - the sonorous richness of sound, the
intricate but precise syntax, the wealth of pointedly relevant
ambiguities ; in their place, in the words of a critic who comes
to praise, there is substituted 'a rhetoric that consistently
avoids all deeper imaginative surprise ; the surface of things
dominates, clear, cold, hard.' 2 Also, I might add, bare, not in
the sense exactly of 'unadorned' (the watchword of Puritan
pulpit rhetoric) but more nearly as a synonym for 'toneless'.
There is, once or twice, an echo of the earlier manner, but
exaggerated to the extent almost of self-parody, as if Milton
were telling us that while spectacular effects are still within
his scope, they are no longer necessary or desirable. An
example is the studied virtuosity of the roll-call of cities and
empires to whose organ tones Michael and Adam ascend.
The excess, as Martz observes, is obvious, indeed Asiatic, so
much so that the reader is able to see the falseness beneath
the glitter long before it is exposed formally by the deliberate
anti-climax of 'but to nobler sights' :
Rich Mexico the seat of Montezume,
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoil'd
Guiana, whose great City Geryon's Sons
Call ElDorado: but to nobler sights ...
(xr. 407-1 1)3
1 Tlu Paradite Within, p. r 50.
2 Arnold Stein in a review of Martz' The Paradite Within, Modern
Language Quarterly (December, 1965), p. 599·
3 See the excellent study by Robert A. Bryan of this passage in relation to
the trantlatio imperii and trantlatio Jtudii traditions ('Adam's Tragic Vision
in 'Paradise LoJt', Btudiu i11 Philology, xi, 1965, 197-214). Bryan argues
302 So God with Man Unites

'But to nobler sights' flicks out contemptuously (like the

verb 'fell' at 1. 586) to mock the pomp and decadence of
false earthly paradises, and to dismiss along with them the
'swelling epithets' ofliterary styles. For the reader, however,
there is no surprise at this dismissal ; he has long ago put
away these childish things. The entire sequence is orna-
mental, though instructively so, and even as ornament it is
the exception rather than the rule. For the most part there is
merely the straightforward narration of the course of man's
woe and misery, 'not unlike a bad dream remembered with
relentless accuracy'. 1
The justification of a style characterized by its controlled
anonymity must come from the context. In this case, the
bareness, the avoidance of 'all deeper imaginative surprise',
make it the perfect conductor for the reserves of emotion
stored up in the reader in the course of a long poem, and also
a perfect (i.e., unobtrusive) medium for the conveyance of
doctrine. Lewis observes of Milton's Paradise: 'We are his
organ: when he appears to be describing Paradise he is in
fact drawing out the Paradisial stop in us.' 2 Presumably the
paradisial stop is one we all have because it is rooted in an
archetypal myth; there are also local 'stops', tied to patterns
of association that do not antedate the artifact, but are
established within its confines ; and these are particularly
numerous in Paradise Lost where so much is involved in
that in these lines the 'honorific design' of these concepts is inverted to show
'that sin and corruption, rather than art, learning, and empire have moved
from east to west' (zor). Surveying the contemporary associations of the
place-names Milton marshals, he concludes: 'the places Adam sees in the vision
bring to mind the one clearly discernible common denominator of the
travellers' accounts from which they are taken: in their painful record of the
failure of man's frail reason to control his animal passion, these accounts are
reinactments of that first great failure - and fall- in the Garden of Eden
(z 14).
I Stein, loc. cit. z A Preface to Paraditt Lost, p. 47·
 Altered Style 303

pattern. In order to draw forth a response rooted in any one

pattern, that is, in order to pull out a particular stop, the poet
need only provide a link between the text at hand and the
sources of energy existing in his reader's mind. The impact
of the verbal texture resides not in the arrangement of the
words on the page or in the moral commonplaces the words
present, but in the reader who responds to them as he
responds to old melodies which have become a part of him
by having been a part of his experience. Of course the reader
in whom the melody finds no answering strain will not be
moved by the verse at all. The force generated by the
'altered style' of Books XI and xn will vary in proportion to
the effort the reader has expended in reaching them. If they
fail now, it is because he has failed before.
Thus the account of the war of the Giants (xi. 638 ff.)
alludes to at least four earlier scenes whose juxtaposition (if
they are recalled) points to a single moral. The games the
devils play in Hell are fought out in earnest now, and in the
same tmages :
Part wield thir Arms, part curb the foaming Steed.
(xr. 6.1-3)
Part on the plain, or in the Air sublime ...
Part curb thir fiery Steeds.
(n. 528, 531)
Soon the decorum of military manoeuvres ('the civil game'
or 'cruel Tournament') turns to confusion and carnage, just
as it does in Book VI:
which makes a bloody Fray;
With cruel Tournament the Squadrons join;
Where Cattle pastur'd late now scatter'd lies
With Carcasses and Arms th' ensanguin'd Field
Deserted.
(xr. 651-5)
304 So God with Man Unites

the battle swerv'd

With many an inroad gor'd; deformed rout
Enter'd and foul disorder; all the ground
With shiver'd armor strown, and on a heap
Chariot and Charioteer lay overturn'd
And fiery foaming Steeds.

The 'flock of timorous Goats' pursued by Christ's chariot

over the plain of Heaven in VI are in xi actual 'bleating
Lambs', herded 'over the Plain' by marauding bands who
also attack the shepherds (648-5o), 'scarce with Life the
Shepherds fly' (later this image will take its place in the
traditional ecclesiastical allegorization of pastoral life :
'Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous Wolves'). With
the echoes of individual words and phrases goes a familiar
attitude toward wars and warriors :
On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds,
In other part the scepter'd Heralds call
To Council in the City Gates: anon
Grey-headed men and grave, with Warriors mixt,
Assemble, and Harangues are heard, but soon
In factious opposition.
(659-6+)
'On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds' is reminiscent
of'deeds of eternal fame f Were done, but infinite' (v1. 24o-
241); the difference is that 'slaughter' mocks 'gigantic'
beforehand while 'but infinite' is read after 'deeds of eternal
fame' has been accepted literally ; in the later instance the
reader is the master of the irony, not its victim. Ironic
statements are like this in XI and xu, obvious and unsubtle,
without the elaborate machinery which makes their detec-
tion a part of the reader's education. The council of war
whose ceremonial (if specious) dignity is preserved through
some five hundred lines in Book u is here exposed immedi-
 Altered Style 305

ately in the short distance between 'Grey headed men and

grave ... Assemble' and 'Harangues are heard . . . I In
factious opposition'. Within this network of associations,
Enoch serves a unifying function :
till at last
Of middle Age one rising, eminent
In wise deport, spake much of Right and Wrong,
Of Justice, of Religion, Truth and Peace,
And Judgment from above: him old and young
Exploded, and had seiz'd with violent hands,
Had not a Cloud descending snatch'd him thence
Unseen amid the throng.
(xt. 664-7 I)
The manner of his rising recalls both Beelzebub and Abdiel,
and as his words ('much of Right and Wrong, I Of Justice,
of Religion, Truth and Peace') prove him to be an Abdiel
figure, the analogy to Christ, who also intervenes 'at last'
when war threatens to destroy the world, asserts itself.
Within this analogy further complexities are suggested: in
his reliance on 'Judgment from above' he prefigures
Christ's reliance on the Father in the face of Satan's tempta-
tions; he is then an example of Christ's example, imitating
(prefiguring) his actions in the wilderness and on the cross.
In the account of his rescue, as MacCallum notes, there are
details from the description of Elijah's translation. Enoch
is a type of Christ's ascension before the law, Elijah a type
under the law. Christ's actual (that is historical) ascension
marks the success of his attempt to free man from the
bondage of the law. Enoch, because he appears when he
does, contains all these aspects of Christ within himself and
prepares the reader for the coming of the actual Christ
whose entrance into history is the climax of Michael's
narrative. In this way the reader comes to the end of the
passage fully attuned to the reverberations of its allusiveness
306 So God with Man Unites

and yet at the same time in step with the surface movement
of the poem as it proceeds more or less in sequence towards a
conventional denouement. The impact, it seems to me, is
tremendous, and it is so because the style as style makes so
few demands.
Broadbent objects that 'the precepts that Michael and
Adam draw from all this seem naive: "now I see Peace to
corrupt no less than war to waste" (xi. 783), for example.' 1
This is true only because we have apprehended these pre-
cepts earlier as a result of a process more complex and
attenuated than the one recorded here. Yet the reactions of
Michael and Adam do have an interest for us, insomuch as
they are comments on our own performances in a similar
situation. The ready scorn of Michael's 'For in those days
Might only shall be admir' d I And Valor and Heroic
Virtue call'd' (689-90) is a reproach to our own slowness in
abandoning a position the angel does not even bother to
refute; whatever true virtue is (a definition will be forth-
coming at the conclusion of the visions), it is certainly not
to be located in the obvious absurdity of might. Adam, too,
unhesitatingly condemns a course of action (the waging of
war) which is to him incomprehensible in its pointlessness
and perversity: '0 what are these, I Death's Ministers not
Men, who thus deal Death I Inhumanly to men?' (67 5-77).
As one vision succeeds another the technical advantage the
reader enjoys over Adam is of less and less significance, and
at this point something of the old relationship is reasserted
along with a renewed awareness of Adam's superiority; even
with his portion of our common disability, he understands
things more quickly than we do and his naivety is merely a
negative indication of the sophisticated intellectual contor-
tions he can dispense with and we are bound to. The reader
who sees this infuses that much more meaning into the
I Some Graver Subject, p. 275·
 Altered Style 307

passage and finds his reward in the increased relevance it has

for him; and he will have been helped to that relevance by
the schematic simplicity of the passage, the unobtrusive-
ness of its style.
Philosophically, the bareness of these books returns us
to the expository rhetoric of God's speeches and to the flinty
clarity of his illusionless vision ; and once again our reaction
is an indication of the distance we have (hopefully) travelled
since our original infatuation with the Satanic grand style.
One should note (for future reference) the careful neutrality
of this style, the remarkable diffidence with which it treats
the phenomena it records ; as if to say, here are not points of
view, here is only what is. Even the epic voice's 'point of
view' is absorbed into the relentless drone. When Michael
emphasizes God's omnipresence by referring to Paradise as
'this Rock' (x1. 336), the reader will be disturbed to find the
object of longing whose loss is the occasion of the poem so
described. Milton uses this 'stylistic shock' to prepare us for
the transformation of Eden into 'an Island salt and bare, f
The haunt of Seals and Orcs, and Sea-mews' clang' (8 34-5),
and for the moral God intends :
To teach thee that God attributes to place
No sanctity.

The hard literalism of 'Rock' warns us against 'attributing

overmuch' to a 'fair outside'. By seeing the essential un-
impressiveness of physical objects on a purely physical level
we are moved to seek the spirit whose presence gives them
value, in this case the 'true Rock' upon whose foundation
man can build his inner (non-corporal) life. This has been
the purpose of the poem - to induce in us this motion -
and the reader who is able to greet the 'bodiless' style of XI
and xn as Adam does, with joy, attests to Milton's success.
308 So God with Man Unites

(iii) TILL T I M E STAN D FIX T

The form of Michael's presentation is linear and represents,

or so it would seem at first, a return to a way of perceiving
the reader abandons when he enters imaginatively into the
poem's mythic structure. Things proceed in an orderly
fashion, without confusion, and on a scale the mind is
capable of contemplating (there are miracles, but they are
presented as miracles, exceptions to rules that apply most
of the time); objects remain objects even when they are
examined through a glass, spears wound permanently,
distances are travelled slowly and arduously, cultures develop
and decay, time passes. But the difference between historical
experience and the atemporal vision of the last things is only
apparent, and Milton allows us to assume it so that we can
be brought by degrees to its contrary and encouraged to
continue in a habit of mind adopted in response to a literary
situation. This is a dramatic reversal of the adjustment the
reader must make in Books I and n, when he is introduced to
the concept of the eternal present and asked to abandon his
conventional modes of perception ; here the action seems to
be again taking place in the familiar world of time and space,
but within that framework Milton returns us inexorably to
the simultaneity he had insisted upon earlier. For whenever
the text recalls us to some earlier passage, the distinction,
between the dimensionless infinity the poem's divine
personages inhabit and the more familiar outlines of the
actuality we are accustomed to think of as real, is invariably
blurred, and finally disappears.
An example is the reappearance in Book XI of Death's
menacing figure :
 Till Time Stand Fixt 309

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful Dart. (u. 666-72)
The promise of specificity in the word 'shape' is disappointed
immediately by the following line, although the illusion of
observable physical characteristics is preserved by the
momentary isolation of 'Distinguishable in member, joint,
or limb'. The reader is teased by the beginning of a des-
cription that soon shades into the obfuscating parading of
paradoxes: 'Or substance might be call'd that shadow
seem'd, I For each [which?] seem'd either [what?].' The
'it' which stands black as Night (another abstraction,
perhaps Spenser's) in line 670 is still the antecedent of
'shape' (Satan styles it 'execrable shape') but that word has
been emptied of all its significance and refers to nothing
visible or describable. Only the dreadful dart is real in the
ordinary sense, the single detail attributable to Death's
presence, and we carry away from the passage the impression
of a projectile coming at us out of some impalpable obscure.
In Book xi, it all seems quite different : there is a profusion
of detail, so much that one critic protests against the 'vivid
and relentless horror'. I Abel dies before our eyes, in slow
motion: 'he fell, and deadly pale I Groan'd out his Soul with
gushing blood effus'd' (446-7); others linger in the grip of
merciless diseases enumerated with medical precision. And
yet Adam's question- 'But have I now seen Death?'- is
the question the description of the bodiless apparition raises
and refuses to answer. Nor is it answered here, except by
referring back to that earlier passage : 'Death thou hast
I Martz, op. cit., p. I 50.
X F.s.s.
310 So God with Man Unites

seen fIn his first shape on man; but many shapes I Of Death,
and many are the ways that lead I To his grim cave, all
dismal' (466-9). All we see of Death is dying, the visible
effects of an invisible presence, a shadow. The substance
has a reality apart from the bodily forms expressing it,
although the bodily forms are what we as finite creatures see
and must reflect on. The non-shape of Book II is no less
'real' than the 'many shapes' of xi.
When Broadbent observes that through such 'linkages'
between the first and last books, 'the poem's image of Hell
is revealed as the actuality of the fallen world', he refers to
the story of the rebellion and Fall as if it were a poetic fiction
entertained for a time because it provided a convenient way
of talking about what happens in 'real life'. But Milton, I
think, wishes the reader to reach quite a different conclusion:
life is real only when it is lived with an awareness that
through it one participates in the image of eternity the poem
gestures towards. Paradise Lost is not a microcosm of the
human condition, but an instrument for seeing through it to
something more substantial ; and these last books not only
present a vision of history, they imply a theory of history, a
theory which is the sum of all the correspondences noted by
the reader as he prepares to exit from Eden into everyday
life. Gradually, history comes to be seen as one term in a
Milton pseudo-simile, with eternity the other ; and as we
move through its spaces, the unity of the two terms is more
and more apparent and the superficial differences less and
less striking. By 'pseudo-simile' I refer to the characteristic
manoeuvre by which what is offered as an analogy is per-
ceived finally as an identity. That is, the simile ostensibly
compares A with B (Satan with Leviathan, Satan's host with
Pharaoh's legions), but ends by discovering that B is a
manifestation, in another form, of A or, alternatively that
both are embodiments of a complex entity C. 'Milton's
 Till Time Stand Fixt 3I I

worlds', Mrs. MacCaffrey observes, 'all fit exactly inside

each other; in noting their points of similarity, he is not so
much joining different objects as observing the same thing
on a smaller or larger scale.' 1 Other poets' similes join two
universes of discourse in such a way as to imply and confirm
their more usual separation ; the similarities they uncover
are occasional and one assumes that when the rhythm of the
figure has spent itself, the objects compared return to their
respective worlds and are no longer thought of in conjunc-
tion. Milton's similes are unique in suggesting that only in
their one-dimensional plane are things displayed as they
really are with a clarity their natural settings only obscure.
His analogies are expressions of cosmological unity articu-
lated, for the most part, within the system of correspon-
dences we know as typology. The connections his readers
finally make are the connections 'they were accustomed to
make when they read the Bible or heard it expounded from
the pulpit',z or, for that matter, when they read the classics
of pagan and Christian literature - connections between
the life and works of Christ, the life of nations, real or
imagined, and the spiritual life of the individual. It follows
then, that the informed reader would recognize Christ in
Moses, or even in Hercules, without having to see them
isolated together in the artificial confines of a rhetorical
figure. The superfluousness of the simile as an instrument of
perception is, I believe, part of Milton's point. That is, one
aspect of the experience of a Milton simile for the reader is
the realization that he has passed beyond the discursive
way of thinking of which similes are one form. By dividing
and analysing, a simile, like any other logical mode of
thought, helps man to 'unite those dissevered pieces which
1 Paradiu Lost as 'Myth', p. I42. The following discussion owes much to

her analysis of the Miltonic simile. See esp. pp. I I<J-78.

:z James H. Sims, Tht Bib/tin Milton's Epics (Gainesville, I962), p. I I.
312 So God with Man Unites

are yet wanting to the body of truth' ; but those who walk
with faith and see Christ in everything and everything in
Christ (with the aid of an official network of interchangeable
equivalencies) in effect neutralize the crookedness of
their natural vision and are able, immediately, to discern the
unity in diversity. This does not involve a distortion or
violation of the literal configurations of objects, but an
apprehension of the true significance of those configurations
and hence of those objects. When things are seen with the
incorporeal eye, they are not transformed, but revealed ; a
veil is removed, not put on.
All this is reflected in the collapse of the simile's structure.
In place of the confining rhythm of two answering clauses -
just as, ... so ... -similar in movement to an anti-
thetical period, Milton's simile exhibits an imbalance in its
members: just as B, B1 , B2, B3, etc .... , so A. As a result,
the sense of argument, of analysis in progress, fades away.
Usually, the rhythm of a simile, if it is followed through,
organizes thought, provides places for point and contrast,
and satisfies the limited expectations the first clause arouses ;
without it, the simile becomes open ended and additive or
paratactic (the 'so' clause does appear, but when 'just as'
has been forgotten, and it has very little logical force) an
example of what Aristotle calls the ' "free-running" style ...
the kind that has no natural stopping place' (Rhetoric:
1409a). The inference is that any number of B's could be
adduced that stand in the same relation to A. Rather than
concentrating on a single point of contact, the simile expands,
opening up on a vista of innumerable connections. The
pleasure a patterned utterance usually gives is tied to its
limiting definiteness : 'the hearer always feels that he is
grasping something and has reached some definite con-
clusion' (1409b). For this Milton substitutes the greater
pleasure of coming upon an analogy one knows to be truer
 Till Time Stand Fixt 3I 3

and more valuable than any a completed simile could have

revealed. Of course the scaffolding of the complete simile
remains, but only as a means of marking out an area for the
eye to move in. It is an artificial space, with no reference to
the physical world of either the observer or of the characters
in the plot, and it is unconnected with the determination of
meaning. To the educated (fit) eye, the icons Milton marshals
wear their meanings on their faces, and there is no need for a
syntax to give them a context or a pattern to lend them force.
They are imbedded in a structured artifact, but are them-
selves unstructured except for the relationships the unifying
reality of Christ implicates them in. Because each simile
finds a kind of form within a system and not in its own
internal coherence (although many of them have that too),
they reach out to one another and join finally in an endless
chain of interchangeable significances :Leviathan to Pharaoh
to River Dragon to Serpent to Giant to Locusts to bees to
pygmies and cranes to imbodied force to sedge to fallen
leaves to barbarian hordes and pagan Gods on the one side ;
Moses, David, Orpheus, Josiah, etc. on the other.
A mind that 'sees ... all things as incarnations of the
values which inform them' 1 will see those values in those
things whenever and wherever they appear. Thus when the
components of the similes are exhibited again in Books XI
and xn, but secured now to their historical moorings, the
reader responds to them just as he did before. The account
of the persecution and Exodus from Egypt (xn. I 59-2 1 6)
reverberates with echoes of the description of Satan's rally-
ing of his defeated legions (1. 282-355), a passage note-
worthy for the cluster of similes it contains. Again the locusts
swarm in Egypt's evil day; the Leviathan-river dragon-
Pharaoh, his heart the residing place of the barbarian hordes
poured from the frozen North ('his stubborn heart, ... still
1 R. Tuve, A RtadingofGeorgt Herbert (London, 1952), p. 105.
314 So God with Man Unites

as Ice f More hard'n'd after thaw') pursues the sojourners of

Goshen who again 'Safe towards Canaan from the shore
advance' (xu. 2 I 5); once more the broken chariot wheels
bestrew the flood ; and if the earlier scene ends in a vision of
the devilish multitude spreading 'Beneath Gibraltar to the
Lybian sands' (I. 355) this one sees the children of Israel
advancing not directly into the land of milk and honey, but
'Through the wild Desert' (xu. 2 I 6). The similes, one is
tempted to say have come true ; they are really happening;
what was before a vehicle for the idea of 'devilishness' is now
tenor and has a substance in its own right. But the reverse is
true ; history is still the vehicle for the drama of Hell and
Heaven. Even though the characters interact within the
narrative and engage in actions which have immediate and
visible consequences, both characters and actions are
invested immediately with the meanings we have responded
to in the similes. These locusts, if they were placed under a
microscope, would be seen to have 'shapes ... like unto
horses', and 'hair as the hair of women' and 'breastplates of
iron' and 'tails like unto scorpions' (Revelation ix. 7-10).
And in direct contradiction to the literal sense of the text
the reader will know that they do 'not hurt the grass of the
earth, neither any green things, neither any tree ; but only
those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads'
(Revelation ix. 4). In Book I, Satan unwittingly calls up his
legion-locusts against himself, not knowing that they are
God's scourge and that he commands them in God's service,
as he does in Revelation : 'And they had a king over them,
which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the
Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath
his name Apollyon' (Revelation IX. I I). The locusts of Book
xu do not have an identity apart from their predecessor's
(in poem time) or their antitypes (in God's time), especially
since the plague that follows them is a type of the pit they
 Till Time Stand Fixt 3 IS

erupt from and of the death Christ rises from, victorious :

Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,
Palpable darkness [palpable obscure] and blot out three days.
(xu. 187-8)
The reader does not progress through this passage or
any other passage in Book xn in a linear fashion ; before
moving from one image or figure or single action to the next
he has referred the first upward to the significance it
shadows ; this is true even though the structural links that
are absent or aborted in the similes - a sustained syntax,
a straightforward order of events, a clear line of surface
development- are present and operative here. Two forces
tug at the reader, one horizontal, generated by the verbal
units as they succeed one another on the page, the other
vertical, pushing upward toward the myth everything
belongs to (thus the proliferation in these books of ascension
imagery, Enoch ascending, Christ ascending, always the
promise of the soul ascending). The latter predominates,
forcing the structural members into the background (just as
the outline of a simile's structure fades away as tenor and
vehicle merge) and imposing a static pattern on the fluidity
of the reading experience. Time is consumed, but motion is
frozen and in addition to a chronicle depicting human
agents acting humanly, we have a series of stylized abstrac-
tions alive from the inside with the life of a true and great
myth.
On a larger scale this applies to the sweep of the narrative
as a whole. It is sometimes objected that Milton's presenta-
tion of history is poorly articulated, with weak transitions
and a pronounced lack of proportion. The description is
accurate, but the intention is, I think, to blunt the sense of
continuity one usually associates with a running narrative,
and to minimize the importance of the position events
3 16 So God with Man Unites

happen to occupy on the continuum of the story line.

(Although, as we shall see, sequence is important in another
sense.) Large tracts of time are hidden in a parenthesis,
others expanded into one hundred lines. As a result certain
images are thrown up in relief on a flat dimensionless plane
(like the area of a simile) and the reader is directed to the
relationships that pertain between them always, not merely
in sequence. Thus Cain is like Tubal is like Nimrod is like
Pharaoh who are all to some extent like the reader who may,
if he chooses, be like Abel or Enoch or Noah or Abraham or
Moses or David or, finally, in a limited way, like Christ.
The technique is reminiscent of The Faerie Queene where
phrases like 'many a day' or 'meanwhile' or 'it fortuned then'
are there only to separate one part of the allegory's total
statement from another. (The reader walks around the
object because he is unable to view it in a single glance.)
Very soon Michael's transitions take on this character:
'Now prepare thee for another scene' does not mean 'let us
see what happens next', but, rather, 'here is another aspect
of the reality we have been looking at all along.'
In respect to all three structural units - the simile, the
episode, the book (or books)- Milton's point is the same:
Correctly interpreted, the icons the visible world presents to us
will always have the same meaning no matter what formal con-
figurations surround them (the ethical analogue of this is the
self-sufficiency of virtue : 'He that has light within his own
clear breast f May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day.'
Comus, 38 1-2). Meanings may, as Mrs. MacCaffrey puts it,
deepen, I or more properly, our apprehension of them may
deepen as we find them again and again in a variety of
contexts, but they will not change. The difficulty is to find
them amidst the distracting camouflage a limited vision
creates for us. The word of God is inscribed whole on the
I Paradise Lost as 'Myth', p. 45·
 Till Time Stand Fixt 3I 7

length of history, but individual man, from the vantage point

he is restricted to, sees only a portion of the whole; his pro-
portion is disproportion, and must be violated if a truly
comprehensive view is to be approximated. Milton's similes
violate proportion in just this way ; they are true, and the
linear presentation of history becomes a viable mode when
within it can be seen the similaic form, that is, when we
come to regard the time-space mould of experience as an
unfortunate consequence of our finitude and mortality, a
refraction of reality rather than reality itself. And this is
what happens when our attention is again and again taken
away from the progress of the narrative and returned to
earlier portions of the poem. This response to history is a
learned response (Milton is teaching it to us in Books xr and
XII at the same time that Michael is teaching it to Adam), but
not because it is 'unnatural' or distorting. Our present (fallen)
perspective is unnatural and distorting, and, hopefully,
temporary. Reading (or living) history figuratively is not a
repudiation of literalism, but the way to literalism, to the
literalism we enjoyed before the Fall.
Of course history is more than a veil ; it is the unfolding of
God's redemptive plan, the fulfilment of the promise made
to Adam in the Garden :
The Lord having convinced them of their Sin gave them that
famous Promise, that the Seed of the Woman should hreak the
Serpents Head, Gen. iii. 15.
This was the first Beam of Gospel Light that ever broke unto
lost and fallen Man: A comprehensive Promise, which includes
the whole Gospel.
Samuel Mather, The Figures or Types of the Old Testament
(London, 1683), p. 28.
The whole gospel is revealed gradually, in stages, and with
each new illumination of 'Gospel Light' man increases in
understanding, both of his situation and of the remedy that
3I 8 So God with Man Unites

Christ has procured for him. The oracular prophecy is a

riddle set by God so that by thinking on it man will partici-
pate in the discovery of his own salvation : 'As a Child by
learning his A.B.C. and his Primer' is fitted to progress
'into a higher, harder Book' (p. 57). ('Light after light well
us'd they shall attain, f And to the end persisting, safe
arrive.') One stage in this sequence of programmed learning
is the giving of the Law whose manifest imperfection (or
incompleteness) Michael tells us, is intended as a stimulus to
inductive reasoning :
that when they see
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak
The blood of Bulls and Goats, they may conclude
Some blood more precious must be paid for Man.
(xn. 289-93, emphasis mine)
From this conclusion man proceeds 'From shadowy Types to
Truth, From Flesh to Spirit' until the discipline of time
resigns him 'Up to a better Cov'nant'. (God's method in
drawing men forward is the method by which Milton leads
his reader from a conviction of his own weakness to the
righteousness of Christ.) At this point the victory foretold
obscurely to Adam in the garden will be achieved by one
greater man. Man is thus at once the means God chooses to
employ for the victory, the agent for whose sake the victory
is won, and the decipherer of the oracle that predicts the
victory; and time, whose self-consummation will mark the
victory, is meanwhile the vehicle of fulfilment and the crucible
of faith. For while history derives its ultimate meaning from
the drama of redemption, the meaning at any moment for
the individual who lives in history is determined by his
willingness, expressed in response to actual situations, to
wait on the promise.
The racial experience is adumbrated by Adam, who is not
 Till Time Stand Fixt 3I 9

lectured to, but led gradually 'by a series of graded steps' to a

'full and spiritual understanding of the Son's prophecy con-
cerning the war between the seed of the woman and the ser-
pent.'1 The progress of his understanding, notes John Parish,
coincides with the 'triumphant ascent' of his spirit from
abject despair to joyous faith ;2 and when at last Adam raises
his eyes from the visible world to the promise he is now able
to discover in the Rainbow, Michael rewards him with the
first explicit revelation of the 'good news' awaiting 'long
wander'd man' at the end of his journey through time. In the
covenant God now makes with Noah ('I establish my
covenant with you and with your seed after you') are in-
cluded all the covenants ; the promulgation of the first to
Adam not only signifies the others, but makes them certain. 3
The rainbow whose 'flow'ry verge' protects the world from
destruction by water will preside over its destruction by
fire:
Over the Earth a Cloud ...
His triple-color'd Bow, whereon to look
And call to mind his Cov'nant: Day and Night,
Seed time and Harvest, Heat and hoary Frost
Shall hold thir course, till fire purge all things new,
Both Heav'n and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell.
(xr. 896-<}or)
With this revelation, the active phase of Adam's education
comes to an end, as the reader's has earlier. He need no
longer labour his mind in an effort to discover order and
meaning in the world, for the realization that God is working
1 MacCallum, 'Milton and Sacred History', p. I 6o.
2 'Milton and God's Curse on the Serpent', Journal of English and Ger-
manic Philology, lviii (1959), :z.p.
3 See Mather, Tht Figurtsor Typu oftht OldTtstammt, p. 70: 'The Types
were not only Signs but Seals; not only Signs to represent Gospel Mysteries
unto them, but also Seals to assure them of the certain and infallible exhibition
thereof in Gods appointed time.'
320 So God with Man Unites

through history towards a definite end provides both, and

gives direction to his subsequent questions and conjectures.
Further revelations will extend the implications of this in-
sight without superseding it. At the same time, the reader
feels the toll the poem is taking of his intellectual energies
lessen, largely because the several strains of the narrative
coalesce, making possible a less diffuse response to the
surface action. Before there had been at least three focuses to
the reading experience :
(I) the maturing of Adam's faith.
( 2) the linkages forged by the echoes of earlier books.
( 3) the typological significance of literal and historical
actions.
For much of Book xi the reader divides his attention between
(z) and (2), keeping track of Adam's progress and recalling
his own in counterpoint, while (3) remains in the back-
ground, impinging on the consciousness, but never occupy-
ing it wholly. (Abel and Enoch are types of Christ's passion
and ascension, respectively, but here they impress more as
heroic examples of fortitude in the tradition of Abdiel.) 1
In the account of the Flood, every detail of which bears a
typological significance, z (I) and ( 2) dovetail into (3).
1 Within the system of typology, there are degrees of congruency ('some

things or persons were only Types of Christ in some one particular thing,
others in many things',- Mather, p. 73) corresponding roughly to the
order of their appearance in time. Thus Abel and Enoch are only 'partial
types' in contrast to Noah, Moses and David who are 'total types', with the
reservation implied by the term itself: 'there never was any that did or could
possibly resemble him perfectly in all things.' The more total the type,
the more likely the response to him as type rather than as individual.
And the reverse holds also: one can read about Abel without thinking of him
as a type of the crucifixion, especially if there are other focuses to the reading
experience, as there surely are early in Book XI; but the pressure to read figura-
tively is irresistible when Michael elaborates the story of Noah.
z 'Noah was a Type of Christ in regard of his saving those that did believe
his Preaching.' 'The deluge was a shadow of the day of Judgement.' 'Noahs
 Till Time Stand Fixt 32 I

Adam's great success occurs when he infers the spiritual

sense of the rainbow without Michael's prompting (one
might say he invents figurative reading here); hereafter,
with the angel's guidance, he moves unimpeded from one
shadowy type to another, until 'with ... joy surcharged' he
greets the appearance in time of the anti type. The reader too
now finds that the connections he had been struggling to
make (between his own experience and Adam's, between
individual lessons learned and the great lesson to be learned
from the example of Christ) are now made for him, as every-
thing gravitates naturally, and with a minimum of effort to
an appointed place in an increasingly insistent pattern. From
their different vantage points, one discovering, the other
anticipating, Adam and the reader have been working to
extract the rhythm of eternity from the irregular fluctuations
of the visible world, and when the mainspring of that rhythm
is manifested in the rainbow, their consciousnesses are taken
over by it, and they rush together with increasing speed toward
the intersection of divine purpose and human destiny. Every-
thing converges on the centre which is the reader's con-
sciousness; and that in turn is impelled forward towards a
new centre (Christ) of whose existence he has always been
aware. The pressure exerted by the previous books coincides
with the pull exerted by the waiting conclusion. The move-
ment is that of a suspended period, the slow ascent while the
mind is made aware of individual parallelisms which point
forward to a single unifying parallel ('the syntax remains
incomplete ... with phrases and clauses tending to mass
themselves on both sides of the turning point'), and then a
turn followed by the falling away to a conclusion that is
implicit in the arrangement of the smaller units in the intro-
Sacrifice when he came out of the Ark, was a manifest Type of the Sacrifice of
Jesus Christ.' (Mather, 91, 97 .) The diiferent parts of the ark were also
allegorized.
322 So God with Man Unites

ductory clause ('ascending construction secured by forward

dependence'). I The psychological bases of the rhetoric are
expectation and resolution; and when the expectations are
answered and the resolution can be anticipated with cer-
tainty, the reflective intellect relaxes and in effect abdicates
to the onward sweep of an utterance hurrying to complete
itself. If this seems to contradict my earlier description of
the visions as static, let me hasten to add that it is the
observer (Adam, the reader) who moves, with accelerating
speed, through the spaces of history towards a point at which
time stands fixed and all can be seen at a single (intuitive)
glance. Here time, as Mrs. MacCaffrey explains, 'is a series
of horizons, not a process lived through - the living will
come soon enough.' 2
Coinciding with this acceleration, and to some extent a
consequence of it, is a growing impersonality of tone.
Michael and Adam are no longer dramatic characters, re-
acting to each other with a measure of psychological realism,
but voices in a ritual dialogue, one proclaiming set speeches
oracularly, the other responding with the proper antiphon.
The skeleton structure of the pedagogical situation is
retained, but Adam is less a pupil than a prompter, stepping
in, when Michael pauses, to ask the obvious question
('why ... So many and so various Laws,' 'what will betide
the few'), then fading back as the answer grows into a mono-
logue. (When Adam 'interposes' at Book xn. 2 70, it is the first
we have heard of him in nearly two hundred lines.) Both
speakers, to be sure, refer from time to time to the dramatic
basis of the scene- 'I see him, but thou canst not', 'Since
thy original lapse', 'Favor unmerited by me'- and we are

I Jonas A. Barish, Ben Jonson and the Language of Prose Comedy (Cam-

bridge, Mass., 196o), p. 48; George Williamson, The Stnecan Amble

(London, 1951), p. 50.
2 Paradise Lost as 'Myth', p. 61.
 Till Time Stand Fixt 323

continually reminded of the distance Adam has travelled

since his despairing soliloquy in Book x - 'my heart much
eas'd, I Erewhile perplext with thoughts', 'now clear I
understand I What oft my steadiest thoughts have searched
in vain'; but the lessons of true patience and moderation
have been learned and the emotional excesses which marked
Adam's spiritual immaturity give way to the stability and
equanimity of faith. As a result, personality (or the expression
of a merely personal vision) recedes, and along with it the
sense of a personal style, to be replaced by two levels of
anonymity, the flat, prosy, almost clinical drone of the angel
and the breathless frenzy of Adam's exclamations of joy. The
distance between the two, which has c;>ccasioned some
critical grumbling, underlines the extent to which Adam is
responding to a vision rather than to a direct emotional
stimulus. (He is our model here.) Before, Adam had projected
the implications of specific sights into a reading of heavenly
disposition ; now the meaning of what he sees or hears is
determined by his conviction that Heaven is disposed to
mercy. The apparent bleakness of man's race through time
is transformed for him by his deepening comprehension of
what is to come at the end of it. 'Yes, yes, now I see,' is the
import of everything he says, and we can, perhaps, eliminate
the personal pronoun and emend this to 'yes, yes, seeing'.
As he becomes more and more attuned to the spirit that
informs all things, his individuality and sense of self are
abandoned to that spirit. What is happening to Adam,
through the agency of Michael's revelations, is described
in the early poem 'On Time' :
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And, last of all, thy greedy self consum'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a Hood, .••
324 So God with Man Unites

When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall climb,

Then all this Earthy grossness quit,
Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee
OTime.
(9-13, 19-23)
At some point, joy, the emotional complement of the in-
tuition he is climbing to ('heav'nly-guided'), overtakes Adam
(Heaven is stooping to him) and lifts him out of himself
and out of time into union with the divine; the harmony
between creature and Creator, which was broken at the Fall,
is momentarily restored, and Adam is once more able to
hear the music of the spheres, to which he adds his own
voice: '0 goodness infinite, goodness immense!' (xu. 469).
The moment of supreme recognition, available to every
Christian who ascends through meditation to a glimpse of
the Truth, occurs for Adam when the full meaning of the
prophecy of the seed is revealed to him in the image of the
incarnation and the crucifixion. I His responses, 'with such
joy f Surcharg'd' and 'Replete with joy', are an involuntary
(non-intellectual) testimony to the completeness of his
understanding, to a sense of well-being (of which words are
but the 'vent') so complete that it is not to be distinguished
from the Good of whose apprehension it is the product.
(This is not the 'short joy' Adam experiences at the vision
of the unholy marriage, but a joy entered into rather than
felt, a disinterested, impersonal joy, the joy of belonging to a
fortunate universe.) 2 He has dissolved in ecstasy because
I See Martz, The Paradise Within, pp. 3-102 for a discussion of meditative

techniques. See esp. p. 50: 'Thus the mind, having caught the flash of truth,
lives a life that mixes memory and desire, striving always to renew the
glimpse.'
2 The paradox of the Fortunate Fall does not affect the 'great moral' of the

poem at all. It merely asserts that any failure on the part of his creatures can
not impair or harm God; on his level of being, all is turned to good. But evil
 Till Time Stand Fi:tt 32 S

'through his ear' all Heaven has been brought before his
eyes:
There let the pealing Organ blow
To the full voic'd Choir below,
In Service high and Anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
(II Penseroso, 161-6)
The reader too is caught up into the rhythms of eternity
and teased out of thought by the iterative schemes which
overwhelm Michael's syntax in the description of the
crucifixion :
For this he shall live hated, be blasphem'd,
Seiz'd on by force,judg'd, and to death condemn'd
A shameful and accurst, nail'd to the Cross
By his own Nation, slain for bringing Life;
But to the Cross he nails thy Enemies,
The Law that is against thee, and the sins
Of all mankind, with him there crucifi'd,
Never to hurt them more who rightly trust
In this his satisfaction; so he dies,
But soon revives, Death over him no power
Shall long usurp; ere the third dawning light
Return, the Stars of Morn shall see him rise
Out of his grave, fresh as the dawning light,
Thy ransom paid, which Man from death redeems,
His death for Man, as many as offer'd Life
does exist within the frame of reference the evil-doer inhabits, and it would
have been better for him not to have sinned at all, no matter what resolution
God may finally effect. 'Happier, had it suffic'd him to have known/ Good
by itself, and Evil not at all.' God is able to bring good out of evil, and so
assure a 'happy ending'; but while in the ultimate sense evil cannot 'matter' to
God, it does matter for his creatures whose state of being is defined by their
relationship to it (and thus to God). In the same way, God does not need
man's works, but man needs them so that he can have a sphere of action within
which to prove himself.
y F.s.s.
326 So God with Man Unites

Neglect not, and the benefit embrace

By Faith not void of works: this God-like act
Annuls thy doom, the death thou shouldst have di'd,
In sin for ever lost from life; this act
Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength
Defeating Sin and Death, his two main arms,
And fix far deeper in his head thir stings
Than temporal death shall bruise the Victor's heel,
Or theirs whom he redeems, a death like sleep
A gentle wafting to immortal Life.
(4 1 I-35)
Each of the participles- 'hated', 'blasphem'd', 'seiz'd',
'judg'd', 'condemn'd', and the climactic 'nail'd'- strikes,
like so many hammer blows, at the body, which is even now
being nailed to the cross. The contemporaneity of the event,
its continuing occurrence, is emphasized too by the pro-
longing of the long 'a' sound in 'shameful', 'nail'd', 'Nation',
'slain', 'nails', and by the shift from future perfect to present
tense. But the most significant, because most un-Miltonic,
detail, is the reversibility of 'nails' and 'slain', an almost
occult bit of word-play heralding the transition in the
passage from referential language to something approxima-
ting ritual incantation. Dies, revives, Death, light, rise,
grace, light, death, redeems, death, man, life, Faith, God-
like, doom, death, died, sin, life; the words push up against
each other, closely packed theological counters, all receiving
heavy stresses, making it difficult for the conscious mind to
get in between them. The submergence of the syntactical
structure is another manifestation of the imposition of an
eternal present on the linear form, and the effect is exactly
that ascribed by Broadbent to God's schematic formulations
of dogma in Book III :

Milton has got the better of language ... he leads us into a

corridor of verbal mirrors in which unbodied concepts are
 Till Time Stand Fixt 327

defined by their antitheses so all we can do is mark time with

our lips. 1
There is also some affinity to the repetitive technique Cope
associates with Quaker style and Martz with Augustinian
meditation, 'sound waves of ... exhortation', on which one
can be 'drawn ... into the vortex of ... divine mystery,
until through the word itself', there is discerned 'the light
at its centre'. Through the 'hypnotic utterance of the divine
names', the audience is able to participate in a 'time con-
quering stasis of Christian perfection'.z The key phrase is
'So God with man unites', but the meaning, for man, of
that union lies in a realm beyond discursive thought. The
reader is not responding to the single idea conveyed by
death, or life, or sin, or redeems, but to the literally incon-
ceivable idea ('That God, this Lord, the Lord of life, could
die, is a strange contemplation') 3 which is suggested by the
conglomeration of these conceptual antitheses as they circle
around the figure on the cross. The surrender of the
reflective intellect, the opening of the mind to a flood of
undifferentiated associations, is the opposite of what has
been asked of the reader previously ; yet the painful working-
out of precise and logical distinctions - between true and
false beauty, true and false heroism, true and false freedom,
true and false love - has been a preparation for this moment
of realized (felt) fusion, which succeeds only if the com-
ponents of a total (supra-intellectual) response lie ready in
the mind. Milton's poetry, said Macaulay, works 'not so
much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests ; not so
much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other
1 Some Gra'Per Subject. An ES!ay on Paradise Lost, p. x.p.
2 The Paradist Within, pp. 43-54; The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise
Lost, pp. 4o-41.
J John Donne, 'Death's Duel', in Dt'Potions Upon Emergent Occasions
Together With Death's Duel(Ann Arbor, 1959), p. x8:z.
Y2 F.s.s.
328 So God with Man Unites

ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the

mind through conductors.'' Here the generator is the image
of Christ, but the circuit will be complete only if the con-
necting links, fashioned through the efforts of the reader, are
there to be energized. The reader labours consciously to
recover a lost unity of vision, which, when found, absorbs
and nullifies the consciousness. The effect Milton hopes to
achieve corresponds to the height he thinks poetry capable
of:
For surely divine poetry has the heaven-given power to lift the
soul with its crust of earthly filth aloft and enshrine it in the
skies, to breathe the perfume of nectar upon it, to bathe it with
ambrosia, to fill it with heavenly bliss and whisper to it of
immortal joy.
(Prolusion I II)
If he has done his part, the reader is raised to an imaginative,
almost mystical apprehension of what the poem has con-
tinually asserted from a thousand varying perspectives-
salvation is through Christ - and he is left in the position
Donne commends to his auditors :
There we leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon
him that hangs upon the cross, there bathe in his tears, there
suck at his wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he
vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that king-
dom which He hath prepared for you with the inestimable price
ofhis incorruptible blood. 2
The emotional release provided by the appearance of
Christ is a reflection, in the reader's response, of his unifying
function in the poem and in the structure of reality. Christ
is the word by which all things were made; he is the embodi-
ment of all values ; he is involved in all actions and is the
1 Quoted by Helen Gardner, A Reading of Paradise Lost (Oxford, 1965),
P· 46.
l 'Death's Duel', p. r 89.
 Till Time Stand Fixt 329

model for all actions; everything points to him and all things
and times meet in him. This is a theory of history and being
which is not only expounded to the reader but experienced
by him when each of the strands he has been following in
Books XI and xu and indeed in the entire poem returns to its
source and end in the figure on the cross. Adam's education,
tied to his discovery of what is comprehended in the pro-
phecy of the seed, and tracing out the pattern of history,
ends here. The nobler sights promised by Michael, the line
of single men asserting their faith in the midst of corruption,
end here in the noblest sight of all. And the cycles of history
to which men are bound by their sinfulness are broken here
by the victory over sin and death. Here too the definition of
heroism, which begins when the heroism of Satan is chal-
lenged in Book r, and continues into the war of Book vi, is
complete. Here language whose intransigence the poet has
attempted to master is replaced by the true eloquence of
perfect submission. Here finally is the reader's reward for
having submitted to the arduous task of negotiating the
poem. Here is the reality to whose memory he has had to
be faithful in so many interpretative crises. Here are beauty,
love and virtue in their ideal shapes. Here is the world
redeemed.
Christ's godlike act not only dispels the jarring chimes
of disproportioned sin in the universe ('At a Solemn
Music'), it also dispels the jarring disproportions that have
been occasions of strain in the reading experience. Through-
out the poem meaning is conveyed to the reader when his
responses to a situation or a speech or an action have been
contrasted (sometimes unfavourably) to the responses of one
or more of the characters or to the assertions of the epic
voice ; thus the 'harassed reader'. Here in Book xu, the
various perspectives whose juxtaposition has so often been
the source of discomfort (and instruction) merge into a
330 So God with Man Unites

single perspective, that of fallen humanity. Where the

reader might have resisted the preaching of the pure word in
Book m, and felt some difficulty in sharing the joy of the
angelic choir, here resistance disappears along with self-
consciousness, and joy (of an impersonal kind) is induced by
the verbal techniques I have been describing. The aloofness
of the epic voice has long since given way to something more
recognizable; like us he 'is human, corrupted and dis-
inherited because he is fallen'. 1 Satan, to whose glozing lies
the reader too often listened has been hissed off the stage
(for a season) and does not influence our response to the
incarnation and crucifixion. The innocence of Adam and
Eve, in relation to which the reader has been made to
feel guilt and shame, is no more ; they, like the epic voice,
have joined us. And God, too, has stepped down from
his prospect high to unite with man, to share his pain, his
trials, and his temptations.
At this point, when Adam cries '0 goodness infinite,
goodness immense', Milton (some readers note wistfully)
might have ended the poem, or proceeded directly to the
'inimitable close', and spared us Michael's anticlimactic 'so
shall the World go on, J To good malignant, to bad ...
benign'. But the anticlimax is necessary and right, simply
because the world does go on. And as Adam must descend
from the mount of speculation to take up his new life on the
subjected plain, so must we descend from this imaginative
height, from this total and self-annihilating union with the
Divine, to re-enter the race of time where 'wolves, grievous
wolves' flourish and to knowledge deeds must be added
answerable. The shattered visage of truth has been put back
together in the experience of the poem, indeed hy the
experience of the poem, which, with our co-operation, has
slowly (and sometimes deviously) purged our intellectual ray
• Anne Ferry, Milton's Epic Yoiu, p. 24.
 Till Time Stand Fixt 33 I

so that it is once more proportionable to truth the object of

it. But the moment of direct apprehension cannot be pro-
longed, nor should it be, since meditation is only a prepara-
tion for action, and everlasting bliss can only be ours in
God's good time (as God would have it). The memory of
this moment, however, and of the experience of the entire
poem, will be a source of energy to which the spirit can repair
for sustenance as it labours in the world. Meanwhile, like
the sojourners of Goshen who 'advance', not into the land of
milk and honey (another expectation disappointed) but into
the 'wild Desert', we are left to live on and for the promise.
Appendix: Notes on the Moral Unity of
Paradise Lost
(i)

When Christ is commanded to end the chaos of the heavenly

battle, he wonders aloud at the revolt against God 'Whom to
obey is happiness entire.' This is only one in a series of
equivalences asserted in the poem, all with obedience as the
second term. Happiness is obedience. Virtue is obedience, as
Satan acknowledges when he sees virtue visible in Zephon's
loyalty ('Virtue in her shape how lovely, saw, and pin'd f
His loss'). Heroism is obedience: an entire book is devoted
to that equation. If innocence is not obedience it is a state
whose duration is co-extensive with obedience. Raphael
answers Adam's astronomical questions by not answering
them, advising instead 'Solicit not thy thoughts with matters
hid, I Leave them to God above, him serve and fear.'
Knowledge is obedience. When Adam declares 'Henceforth
I learn, that to obey is best', Michael applauds his resolution :
'This having learnt, thou hast attain' d the sum I Of wisdom.'
Wisdom is obedience. Paradoxically, freedom (liberty) is
obedience because true freedom is the freedom to follow the
best, while freedom from God is servitude. Abdiel both
illustrates and expatiates on this distinction :
Unjustly thou deprav'st it with the name
Of Servitude to serve whom God ordains,
0 r Nature; God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve th' unwise, or him who hath rebell'd
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thyself not free, but to thyself enthrall'd.
(vx. I 74-81)
 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 333

These equivalences follow logically in a universe where

'all things are of God' (de deo): since value is always defined
in terms of the highest good, at some level of generality all
values are one, and in any situation the 'value decision' or
'value action' is at base a decision to remain allied with the
source of all values, that is with God. 'All values' is a mis-
leading phrase. There is only one value - maintaining
alliance, not 'breaking union' -and the distinctions we
customarily make represent different (linguistic) perspec-
tives on the same thing. Virtue is being allied to the source
of goodness ; happiness is the psychological peace of being
allied to the source of goodness (this will serve for innocence
also) ; heroism is choosing to remain allied to the source of
goodness ; knowledge and wisdom are the recognition of
the source of goodness. And we can move backwards : the
identification (knowledge) of the highest good necessarily
involves choosing it and choosing it is being allied to it since
alliance is a state of mind. Socrates' pursuit of the summum
bonum in the dialogues proceeds exactly in this manner, from
one temporarily isolated value to another until all are united
in the apprehension of their oneness.

(ii)

If all values are one, the clash of any two is impossible (or
the creation of a distorting vision) and the basis ofWaldock's
reading of Adam's Fall is removed:
The matter then may be summed up quite bluntly by saying that
Adam falls through love ... through love as human beings
know it at its best, through true love, through the kind of love
that Raphael has told Adam 'is the scale / By which to heav'nly
Love thou maist ascend' •..
334 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost

It is by no means enough to set over against this powerful human

value the mere doctrine that God must be obeyed.
(Paradise Lost and its Critics, 51-52, 55)

This is, of course, another equivalence and the most impor-

tant- love and obedience. It is explained by Raphael in
Bookv:
freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.

And again in Book VIII :

Be strong, live happy, and love, but first of all

Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command.

For a being whose faculties are unclouded love is a function

of reason: 'Love refines I The thoughts, and heart enlarges,
hath his seat I In Reason, and is judicious, is the scale I By
which to heav'nly Love thou may'st ascend' (vm. 589-92).
The scale is the scale Diotima describes in the Symposium:
the lover begins by loving a single form and 'soon he will
of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the
beauty of another'. This perception initiates a search which
ends finally in the discernment of the essence of beauty and a
recognition of that essence as the highest object of love :

And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the
one ... and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the
next stage he will consider ... the beauty of the mind ... until
he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institu-
tions and laws ... and after laws and institutions he will go on
to the sciences ... and at last the vision is revealed to him of a
single science.
(210)
 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 335

And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the

things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount
upwards for the sake of that other beauty.
(21 1)
In short what one loves is the godliness inherent in individual
forms, even before Godliness itself is known in its essence,
because whatever is good in a thing proceeds from God.
(For Adam the process is reversed: he knows the reality of
God - he will later lament his alienation 'from the face I
Of God, whom to behold was then my highth I Of happiness'
-and he seeks expressions of that reality in the visible
world ; he operates deductively as opposed to the inductive
method proposed in the dialogue). This is what Paul means
when he says 'unto the pure all things are pure' because the
pure value things as the manifestation of their creator ; and
what Augustine means by his distinction between the use and
the abuse of beauty : the things of this world merit a full
response if the response is a response to the spirit that
informs them : such a response is indeed praiseworthy, since
it indicates a motion toward that spirit : 'And the Artificer,
so to speak, gestures to the spectator of His work concerning
the beauty of that work, not that he should cling to it com-
pletely, but so that his eyes should scan the corporal beauty
of things that are made in such a way that the affection
returns to Him who made them.' 1
Love, then, is a desire to possess or be united to the highest
good and the desire extends to the multiple forms in which
the highest good resides. For the agent who loves, love is the
affective complement of what the intellect discerns. Once
this concept of love is firmly grasped, Waldock's opposition
of a 'powerful human value' and 'the ... doctrine that God
must be obeyed' is untenable. If love for an object signifies
a recognition of its share in godliness, love cannot possibly
1 Quoted in Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer, p. 66.
336 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost
involve a falling away from obedience, since obedience is a
recognition of godliness itself. To disobey God 'for the
sake of' someone or something is to do a disservice to that
someone or something by making it an idol and separating
it from God; the object becomes an extension of the idola-
tor's ego and it is absorbed or destroyed by a love that is self-
love. By dislodging an object from its position in God's
order, the lover robs it of value, and indicates his inability
to regard the object for what it is, and thus his inability to
love it. When Eve cries '0 glorious trial of exceeding Love',
she is unconsciously ironic and the joke is on her. She is the
victim of Adam's passion, for by choosing her he chooses
against her. The selflessness some see in Adam's choice
would be there if his action was determined by a considera-
tion of what was best for Eve. That is true love. What is
best for Eve is the preservation of her relationship to God
and if Adam would prove his love for her ('0 glorious trial')
he should attempt to maintain her in that relationship or if
the worst happens intercede for its restoration.

(iii)

In the context of the theocentric universe Paradise Lost

presupposes, another of Waldock's contentions, that Satan
is 'degraded', is less damaging than he thinks:
A character in a piece of imaginative literature degenerates when
we are in a position to check his progress by what we know of
him: when we are made to feel that this or that change, once we
are shown it, does follow ... The changes [in Satan] do not
generate themselves from within: they are imposed from
without. Satan, in short, does not degenerate: he is degraded.
(Paradise Lost and its Critics, p. 83)
 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 337

Satan's changes do generate themselves from within because

change is his essence. Since all agents maintain their
positions and their identities by virtue of their relation to
God, selfhood, too, is preserved through obedience. When
an agent 'breaks union' (v. 612) he voluntarily cuts himself
off from a fixed point of reference and moves from a depen-
dence that preserves his dignity to an independence that
destroys it. The responsibility of keeping union belongs to
the agent and continuity of character is merely persevering
in this holding action. Apart from God there can be no
stability and no true, that is internally consistent, self. 'Men
are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing
community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps
unrealized, purpose .... Men are not free when they are
doing just what they like. The moment you can do just what
you like, there is nothing you care about doing. Men are
only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes'
(D. H. Lawrence). Satan's independence is an illusion
because he is in bondage to the freedom to do as he likes
and he becomes the captive of momentary purposes and the
plaything of master strategists (God, Milton) who make of
him what they will; his will does not exist (he has no 'deepest
self'), except in a Satanic never-never-Land where evil could
be someone's good. This reversal is impossible in a universe
where God is God and when Satan admits 'myself am Hell'
he, in effect, says 'myself am not', since hell is the state of
disunion from God's sustaining power and hence a state of
nonbeing : 'Having abandoned his true being, he becomes
the continuous poseur, forever striking attitudes and pre-
tentious postures.' 1 Even Satan's poses are not struck on
his own initiative, but as involuntary responses to external
1 R. M. Frye, God, Man, and Satan (Princeton, 196o), p. 36. See also the

recent rejoinder to Waldock in Thomas Kranidas's Tht Fitru Efuation

(The Hague, 1965), pp. II9-29.
338 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost

stimuli (one sees this most clearly in Book x when he takes

the form of a 'monstrous Serpent', reluctantly); he does not
adapt himself (the pronoun is meaningless) to situations;
situations appropriate him, or, to be more accurate, create
the 'him' of the moment. Perhaps the most ironic of his
boasts is this one : 'What matter where, if I be still the same'
(I. 2 56). The sameness of evil is the sameness of chaos, a
stability of instability where the identity and form of any
atom or cluster of atoms is a matter of chance unless an
ordering power is imposed; Satan is condemned to restless
wandering until God or some deputy of God finds a use for
him and endows him with motives and opinions and powers
to fit the role 'imposed from without'. He is a convenience,
available for any and all duties, and to treat him as such does
not violate his character, since, as we usually understand
the word, he has none. It suits Milton's purpose to grant
him a temporary consistency in Books I and II; if the reader
is to locate himself in the poem by analysing and coming to
terms with his vulnerability to the Satanic appeal, that appeal
must appear to have at least the illusion of integrity or
wholeness ; but the illusion is dispelled as early as the comic
opera vaunting scene at II. 681 ff. Satan as ruined archangel
has performed the function Milton set for him, and since
his continued presence in a single role might make him seem
more important than he really is (even as a temptation he is
less dangerous than other temptations), he is replaced by
another Satan, or by a variety of Satans, who cannot com-
mand even a disinterested and detached admiration.
Satan's status (or non-status) as an entity is illustrated at
IV. 8 I9, when, at the touch of Ithuriel's spear, he starts up
'in his own shape', but finds that the angels do not know
him:
Know ye not then said Satan, fill'd with scorn
Know ye not mee? (827-8)
 Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 339

By delaying the pronoun 'mee', Milton emphasizes the

'selfness' of Satan's concern. It is for this that he has
rebelled and in the context of his egocentric vision 'non-
recognition' is more than a social slight. Zephon answers:
Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same ...
. . . thou resembl'st now
Thy sin and place of doom.
(835, 839-40)
Satan's 'shape' like his mind, is now an extension of his
place, which usurps the selfhood in whose name he had
declared himself injured. The final proof of this of course is
his involuntary metamorphosis (at x. 51 1) into a shape that
is not his own, or more properly into the shape that has over-
taken and become him.
 Index of Authors and Titles
Addison, Joseph, 7 5, zo8, 2 I 8 gress, I9 n., 40, 40 n., 48 n., I42,
Allen, D. C., I I 3 n., I 27 I98,I99,200
Areopagitica, 84, I03, 203, 245 Bush, Douglas, 92 n.
Aristotle: Poetics, 26 n.; Rhetoric, I,
7n.,74,311-I2 Carnap, Rudolf, I09 n., I 22
Art of Logic, arranged after the Chaucer, Geoffrey, 3 I, 2 I 5 n.
method of Peter Ramus, 67, I07, Christian Doctrine, 40, 45, I 3 5, I 36,
Io8, Io8 n., I 28 n. I98, I99· 2I3 n., 243· 254· 256,
Arwaker, Edmund, Thoughts wdl 257,276,292
Employ'd: Or, The duty of Self- Cicero, 7 5
Obsi'TTJation, 42, 5I Comus, 76n., 220,224
Augustine, Saint, 74, 76, I22, z8I, Cope, Jackson, 30, 3 I, 59, 6I, 62,
335 90 n., I 50 n., 327
Corbet, John, Self-Imployment in
Bacon, Francis, 7 n., 5I, 65, 70, 87, Secret, 4I, 42
Io8, II3 n., II9, Izo, I22, I23, Cormican, L.A., 2 57
I24 Cornford, Francis M., I08 n., I09 n.
Barish, Jonas A., 322 Croll, Morris, I 24, I 2 5
Barker, Arthur, 22 5, z6I, 269 Cushman, Robert, 50 n., 9I, 2I4 n.
Baxter, Richard : The arrogancy of
Reason against Divine Revelations Daiches, David, 2 I I
repressed: or proud Ignorance the Daniells, Roy, 34 n.
cause of Injiddity, and of mens Doctrine and Discipline of Divorct,
quarreling with the word of God, 2I
2I3 1 24I, 242, 244, 245, 25I n.; Donaldson, E. T., 2 I6 n.
The Saints Everlasting Rest, I 2 Donne, John, I I9, 20I, 327, 328
Beck, Cave, I 2 In. Duhamel, P. Albert, I I 4 n., I 27
Bell, Millicent, 2I7, 225, 226 n., Dyke, Daniel, The MyJtery of Stlfe-
227 n., 259 DeceirJing, 41, so, 5I, 2I2 n.,
Bentley, Richard, 78 2I3 n.
Bergonzi, Bernard, 2 n.
Boccaccio, 84 Eliot, T. S., 2 n.
Booth, Wayne, 46 Empson, William, 2 n., 46, 73, I75,
Bridgman, P. W ., 29 n., I 26 I9I, I92, 2IO, 270
Broadbent, J. B., 6o, 6I, 77, I75,
I8o, I82,306,3I0,326 Fenner, Dudley, 52
Bryan, RobertA., 30I-2 n. Ferry, Anne, 2 n., I I n., 34 n., 93,
Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim's Pro- 96, 265 n., 330
 Index 341

Fixler, Michael, 203, 204, 267-8 Kermode, Frank, 2 n., I I n.

Frank, Joseph, 30 Knight, Douglas, 3 n.
Frye, Northrop, 29 n., So, 8I, I29, Kranidas, Thomas, 6o, 6I, 83, 337 n.
2I9,234 Krouse, Michael, IO
Frye, R. M., 203 n., 263, 337
Lawrence, D. H., 337-8
Galileo, 28, 29 n. Leavis, F. R., 2 n.
Gardtn of Spiritual/ Flowers, A, 4I, Lewalski, Barbara, 268, 29I n., 300
44 n., 52 n. Lewis, C. S., 6, 145, zo8, 269, 300,
Gardner, Helen, 33 n., 328 n. 301, 302
Giedion, Sigfried, 30
Macaulay, Lord, 286, 327
Greene, Thomas, I 9, 29 n., 9 5
MacCaffrey, Isabel, 30, 3I, 35,119,
Hall, Joseph, 92 I30, I3I, I35• 209, 299 n., JII,
Haller, William, I 3 3 I6, 322
Harding, Davis, 8 n., 24 n., 53 n., MacCallum, H. R., 22, 290 n., 300,
I 06 n., I 29, I 69, I 86, 2 I 7, 2 2 J, 305,JI9
227 n. Mandeville, John, Sir, 103
Harris, William 0., 290 n. Martz, Louis, zoo, 280, 301, 309,
Hawes, Stephen, Pastime of Pleasure, 324 n., 327
6I Marvell, Andrew, 88 n.
Herbert, George, 88, I 88, 29I Massey, William, Remarks Upon
Milton's Paradise Lost, 298
Hesiod, 37
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, 7 n., Mather, Samuel, The Figures or Types
I09 n., IJ6 n., I2I n., I22 n. of the Old Testament, 298 n., 3 I 7,
Homer: Iliad, 46; Odyssey, 24,46 319,320-I
Hooker, Richard, Ecclesiastical Pol- Miller, Perry, 7 n., I07, IJ6 n., I24,
2I2,242
ity, 39
Hooker, Thomas, 45 Mirabeau, 183
Hughes, Merritt, 73 Miriam Joseph, Sister, 53
H ume, David, 2 5 I
Newton, Thomas, 74 n., 97, 98, 165,
Hume, Patrick, 49 n.
169, r87, r88, 218 n., 219 n.
II Pmuroso, 325 Of Reformation, 83, 86, 89
'On Time', 317
James, Henry, I42 Ong, Walter, S.J., 3I, 52 n., 53, 62,
Johnson, Thomas H., I07 63,I14n.
Jones, R. F., I 17, I2I n.
Page, T. E., 47
Kelley, Maurice, I98 n. Paradise Regained, 76 n., 88, I 33,
Kennedy, George, 7 5, 76 192, 247 n., z6s, 267
342 Index

Pareus, David, 40 n. Shumaker, Wayne, 223

Parish, John, 3 I 9 Sidney, Philip, Apology, 39, 50 n.
Paul, Saint, 38, 52, zoo, 335 Sims, James, 74-, 3 I I
Pechter, Edward, 65 Socrates, 6 n., 3 3 3
Peter, John, 2 n., I6 n., I9, 42 n., Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie
69, 83, I 53, I 54, I 55, I74-, I 8o, Quune, 20, I 86, 299, 309, 3 I 5
IBI, I86 n., I96, 2I7, zs6, 27I Sprat, Thomas, The History of the
Plato, 6 n.; Cratylus, I 09, I I o, I I I ; Royal Society, 7 n., I I 9, I 20, I 2 2,
Laws, 89 n.; Phaedrus, 90 n., I r I; I 2 3, I 2 5
Republic, I 2 2; Sophist, I o8, I I I ; Stein, Arnold, Io, II, 12, 59, 6o, 6I,
Symposium, 3 34- 93, I35, I79• 224-, 227 n., 23I,
Pope, Alexander, 77 232, 30I, 302
Preston, John, Sins 0'lJerthrow or A Summers, Joseph, 2 n., 4-5, I4-2, I46,
Godly and Learned Treatise of I4-7• I48, I72, I73, I77, r86,
Mortification, 44- n., 57, 83, 85 190, 192, 2I7-r8, 226 n., 24-6,
Prince, F. T., 300 275·300
Prolusion III, 328 Sutton, Thomas, Lectures Upon the
Ele'lJenth Chapter to the Romam,
Ramus, Peter, 63, 68, 69, roB, 24-4-,24-5·260
I I4 n., 116 n. Sylvester, Joshua, I If, I I 5, u8, I I9
Reason of Church Governmmt, 69, 88, Swardson, H. R., 2 n., IBI, 206,207
89, 2 I 3 Swearingen, Roger, I82 n.
Reynolds, Edward, A Treatise of the
Passions and Faculties of the Soul
Tasso, Torquato, 4-, I68, 27I
ofMan, 39
Richardson, Jonathan, the elder, Taylor, A. E., I09, no, I I 2
Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Testimony of the President, Professors,
Tutors, and Hebrew Instructor of
Milton's Paradise Lost, 54-, 55, 89,
Haroard College in Cambridge,
24-7, 287, 292 n.
Against the Re'lJerend Mr. George
Ricks, Christopher, 93, I02, I 3 5,
Whitfjield, And his Conduct, The,
2IO, 235
Robertson, D. W., I 37, 28 I, 33 5
6n.
Tetrachordon,2I,4-5• IIf, I37
Thoreau, Henry David, I 8 3, I 84-
Samson Agonistts, 251, 258, 265,
Tillyard, E. M. W., 225,227 n.
266,267,290,29I
Samuel, Irene, 6o, 6r, 269 Turner, Paul, 4-2, 2 58
Sasek, Lawrence, 300 Tuve, Rosemond, 3 I 3
Schultz, Howard, 24-5-6 n.
Sharrock, Roger, I9, I98, zoo Virgil: Aeneid, 24-, 33 n., 37,4-7,4-8,
Shower, John, Serious Reflections On 27I; Georgics, 8, I06 n.
Time and Eternity, 4I, 5I Voltaire, I 8 I
 Index 343

Waldock, A. J. A., 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 16, Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi, 2 n.

17,31,42,43•46,47•83,8§,87, Whaler, James, 27, 163, 164, I65
90, 214, 218, 239-40, 333· 335· Wharey,J. B., I9, I98, 200
336, 337 n. Whitehead, Alfred North, 26 n.
Ward, Seth, I17, 118, 119 Widmer, Kingsley, 6I
Watkins, W. B. C., 34 n., 143, 144, Wilkins, John: An Essay Towards a
145· 148,210,233 Real Character and a Philosophical
Watson, Thomas, Christian Soldier; Language, 64, 120, 121, 122, I23,
Or, Heaven Taken By Storm, 4I, I2§, I27; On the Principles and
§0,2I3n. Duties of Natural Religion, 64, 73•
Webb, John, II3 n. II7
Webster, John,Academiasum Examcn Williams, Arnold, 40 n.
or The Examination of the Aca- Williamson, George, 322
demies, 9I, II3 n., II;, n6, 117,
II9,243,279,284-5

Index of Subjects
(References are to chapters and chapter sections)

Adam: his language, 3 i, 3.ii, 3.iii; and faith, 6.ii, 6.v;

and Eve's dream, 5.ii; temptation of, I .i, 6.ii
and Raphael, 5.ii; Free will: Satan's, I .i;
and heroism, 4.ii; Adam's and Eve's, 5;
and reason, 6.i, 6.iv, 6.v; the reader's, 5 ;
and faith, 6.iv, 6.v, 7.iii; the reader's understanding of, 5,
temptation of, I .iii, 6.iv 6.i;
Epic voice: as a guide and corrective, as the basis of the reader's temp-
I .i, I .iii; tation, 5.iii
his limitations, 2 .ii; God : as a logician, 2 .i;
his heroism, {.iii; as a rhetorician, 2 .ii;
his involuntary involvement in the as a test for the reader, 2.iii, 2.iv;
action, 5.iii and Sa tan, I.i, 2 .iv;
Eve: her language, 3.i, 3.ii, 3.iii; his style, 2, 7 .ii
description of, 3 .i, 3 .ii; 'Good temptation': I .iii, 2.iii, 3.i, §.i,
at the pool, 5.ii ; §.iii
her dream, 5.ii; Heroism: false heroism of Satan,
and reason, 6.i, 6.ii, 6.v; I .iii, 4.i;
344 Index

'epic' heroic encounters, 4.i; his apprehension of the essence of

Abdiel's heroism, 4.ii; heroism, 4.i, 4.ii;
loyal angels as heroes, 4.ii; as a hero, 4.iii;
and faith, 4.ii, 4.iii; and the temptation of self-love,
Christian heroism non-physical, s.i, 5.iii;
4.ii, 4.iii; his flirtation with blasphemous
the ep~c voice's heroism, 4.iii; speculations, 5.i;
the reader's heroism, 4.iii his 'interpretative choices', 5.ii;
Innocence: language of, 3.i, 3.ii, his comprehension of the state of
3.iii; innocence, 5.iii;
the reader and, 3 ; his freedom of will, 5.iii;
the innocence of nature, 3.v; his evaluation of Eve's Fall, 6.iii;
presentation of, s.i, s.ii; his search for cause, s.iii, 6.iii;
definition of, 5.iii and Adam's choice, 6.iv;
Paradise Lost: Book I, I, 2.iv, 4.i, his position in XI and xu, 7. I;
7.ii, 7.iii; measured by his response to the
Book II, I, 2.ii, 2.iv, 4.i, 7.ii, 7.iii; style of XI and xu, 7 .ii;
Book III, 2, 5.i, s.iii; his apprehension of the meaning of
Book IV, 3.i, 3.ii, 3.iii, f.i, s.ii; history, 7 .iii;
Book v, 3.iv, 4.ii, 5.ii; his response to the crucifixion,
Book vi, 4, 7 .ii; 7.iii.
Book vii, 3.iv; See also 'Good temptation', Inno-
Book VIII, s.ii, 6.i, 6.ii, 6.iv; cence, Reason, Rhetoric
Book IX, r.i, r.iii, 3.iii, 5.iii, 6.i, Reason: and rhetoric, 2.i, 6.i, 6.v;
6.ii, 6.iii; and faith, 6.i, 6.v;
Bookx, r.i, 6.v; Eve tempted by, 6.ii;
Book XI, 6.v, 7; reader tempted by, 6.iii;
Bookxii, 7 Adam tempted by, 6.iv
Reader: ensnared in Satan's rhetoric, Rhetoric: Satan's, r.i, r.iii, 2 .i, 2 .ii,
r.i, r.iii, 2 .iv; 2.iv;
discovers the limits of his percep- God's, z.ii;
tion, r.ii; and original sin, I .i, I .iii;
encouraged to grow in self- and Ramism, z.i.
knowledge, I ,iii, 2 .iii, 3; See also Reason
measured by his reaction to the Satan: his rhetoric, r.i, r.iii, 2 .i, 2 .ii,
voice of God, z.iii; z.iv;
and the 'responsive choice', z.iv; his will, I .i;
his vocabulary and the language of his character, Appendix;
Paradise, 3.i, 3.ii, 3.iii; his degradation, Appendix.
his psychology and Adam and See also Adam, Eve, God
Eve's, 3.I, 3.ii;