Love in Paradise Lost

3.  “One way or another, poetry always seems to be concerned with love.” How far do you agree with this view?

Both Gascoigne and Milton examine the fidelity of love, and the power it has over one’s action, though while Gascoigne focuses primarily on the love between a man and a woman, Milton goes on to inquire into the relationship between God and Man, and the effect of love for one’s self.

Milton looks into the love between Adam and Eve, putting it at the heart of his poem by involving it in the dilemma of the fall. Book 9 of Paradise lost shows the scope of Adam and Eve’s relationship, with their lovingness turning into lust after the fall,with Milton noting this change’s catastrophic effect on their relationship. Before the fall they are ‘handed’, merged together and completely united, with this ‘handedness’ not only illustrating their closeness but also their equality, going through life as one. Later however, Adam ‘seizes’ Eve’s ‘hand’, with the violent and commanding implications of the word ‘seized’ indicating the effect of lust on their relationship, with love turning to desperation, and they make love on top of Eve’s beloved ‘flowers’, perhaps connoting that their behaviour destructs the natural way ordained by God. Milton however complicates this, as Eve ‘withdraws’ her hand from Adam’s before the fall, seeking separation in order to labour better as their ‘discourse’ and ‘smiles’ distract her from her work. This could illustrate the contemporary Restoration shift to women having more ability to work, and women such as Celia Feinnes who visited every county in England riding alone on horseback, wanting more freedom, although it could also express a desire about the infidelity of women. Indeed as Eve is without Adam she could be seen as being wooed by Satan who flatters her ‘divine beauty’ whereas in Gascgoine’s poem the ‘doubt’ originates from the narrator’s female lover, with him rejecting the other ‘fish’ in the ‘Sea’. Eve however, does not spurn Satan, with his courtly lover language matching that of Adam’s, and the fact that he stands ‘erect’ before her having phallic implications. Adam’s fidelity however is never in question, as Milton makes it clear that he falls for Eve, calling it a ‘trial of love’ much as a courtly lover would compete for his lady and be ready to die for her. Here then, Milton could be seen as echoing male writers long lament of the constancy of men’s love in comparison to women’s, or at least the resistance of women to submit to their place in a relationship as Eve refuses to heed Adam’s warning about the ‘danger’ that might await her, and how she would be better off near his ‘strength’. Either way, Milton bemoans the loss of the pure love that Adam and Eve once shared, with the radical change showing Milton’s readers the bitter consequences of sin.

The other source of infidelity is that of humankind to God, with the breach of this love at the heart of Milton’s poem. He begins Book 9 immediately saying that there is ‘no more’ of the relationship that once existed between ‘God and Man’ where they once shared ‘venial discourse unblam’d’. The word ‘discourse’ suggests genteelness, learning but also discussion, with man and God talking ‘venially’ as friends. The fact that Eve says that their ‘reason is their law’ could perhaps even connote that God didn’t have to rule over them, with no laws being needed as Adam and Eve wouldn’t have contemplated evil. The character of God however, does not feature in the book, with no divine intervention preventing Adam and Eve from disobeying God, which could be seen as undermining the closeness that Milton tries to suggest they had, or could be shown as God allowing them to make their choice, with Milton perhaps examining the worth of love if it is false, with God giving them freedom to test their love. Milton’s contemporary audience would have been aware of the commandment to ‘Love the Lord your God above all else’, with Eve and Adam’s failure to do so being their downfall. Gascoigne’s narrator seems more dependable than that, but only because of the foolishness of ‘wishing’ that you could have all the fish in the sea for oneself ‘alone’ rather than because of his undying love. That he knows that it is futile to ‘wish’ does not diminish the fact that the word connotes that having many women would be something to be wished for, with him only containing himself because he knows that it would be ‘in vaine’. Adam and Eve however do not remain faithful, with Eve loving herself more and Adam loving her more, with Adam’s ‘glorious trial of love’ for Eve having implications that love for her is ‘glorious’ when in fact Milton shows that God has the ‘glory’. Hence while Adam is undergoing a trial he chooses the wrong lover to fight for and threatening the rest of mankind’s relationship with God. Milton therefore seems to urge his readers to rexamine their love for God and to put it before all else, unlike Adam and Eve who reject him and lose all the closeness they once had with their maker.

Milton shows that love of the self is an obstacle to love of God, and a damning force. Both Satan and Eve are driven to breaking away from God because of their wish to become ‘gods’ themselves, with vanity and arrogance driving them away from him. Satan’s wish to have the ‘glory sole’ connotes that he fights for himself alone, as although he has freed the ‘angelic multitude’ he will be the ‘sole’ glorious one, taking the place of God and perhaps having the same ‘adorers’ as God. Likewise he persuades Eve to think better of herself, calling her ‘divine’ and fit to ‘rise’ up to be amongst ‘Gods who will properly appreciate her. Satan coaxes the same forces of vanity and love of the self in her as have motivated him to try to rise up. That Milton chooses Eve, not Adam, to fall for this flattery perhaps reflects common contemporary beliefs in women’s only use being in their beauty, though it could also be argued that Eve wants ‘superiority’ and more for herself because at the moment she is ‘inferior’, with Adam not feeling the same need to be appreciated because he is already at the top of the human hierarchy. That would therefore shift the blame for Eve’s want to better herself onto God, but Milton combats this by making his universe a resolutely meritocratic one, with Adam being above Eve as he has more ‘reason [and] strength’ whereas as Eve has only ‘beauty’. There can be little wonder then, in how Satan is able to use Eve’s only strength to manipulate her, with the ‘fairness’ of her fruit matching her own ‘fairness’. However, Milton make Eve repeat God’s commandment as soon as she sees the tree, showing that she has full knowledge of how it will cause ‘death’, so that the reader knows that she is fully informed and has complete responsibility for her downfall, choosing her own wish to become a ‘God’ over loving and obeying the God who made her. The wish to become a ‘God could be seen as disregarding God’s purpose for Eve and Satan’s lives, or as idolatry, with both upsetting God’s ordained order , building up suspense in the reader about God’s reaction to this having already heard about Satan’s punishment. Gascoignes’ narrator is similarly aware of the consequences of pursuing to many women, with their boats becoming stuck, with this being mirrored in Milton’s probable condemnation of the personal life of Charles II who was famous for his parties and womanising, his hedonistic lifestyle putting his own wishes for pleasure above religious ones.  Similarly Eve and Satan’s love of themselves and wish to promote their own wishes is shown to contradict God’s wishes and to interfere in the relationship between them. Therefore Milton seems to show how love can be a dangerous force hen directed in the wrong way, hinting that the self must be subjected to God and all one’s life devoted to serving him out of love, showing the reader the terrible consequences of diverging from the plans of their loving God.

In conclusion then, Milton examines how love can go wrong, condemning infidelity and love of the self, and advising his religious audience to put the love of God before all else despite living in the increasingly vain and self-centred world of the Restoration.