Explore the ways in which Milton makes use of setting and/or landscape.

Milton uses the natural setting of Paradise Lost to explore ideas of the naturalness of obedience to God, using the pastoral idyll, and the time period in which it is set to contrast to Satan’s manipulation of sin.

Milton uses the freshly created universe at his setting, thereby implying that the equilibrium at the start is how the earth was intended to be, using it to show his vision of God’s will. Milton sets Paradise Lost during the biblical book of Genesis when God created the ‘heavens and the earth’. Milton however, does not use the togetherness of heaven and earth that the ‘and’ in Genesis implies, instead using the delineations of heaven, earth and hell to set up a rigid hierarchy. The character of God does not appear in Book 9, with Milton not showing the conversations that Genesis says took place between God and humans, instead using the hierarchy he sets up to explain God’s position in his contemporary time. That Eve argues that ‘Heaven is high’ suggests that God feels far off to her, perhaps because once she has eaten the apple she loses her closeness with God, but the word ‘high’ also suggests his majesty and glory, with Milton perhaps suggesting the God is remote in his holiness, offering an explanation for why humans no longer had the same kind of connection with God in his time, when people went to church regularly but didn’t experience the same kind of spiritual encounters. The word ‘high’ also connotes that God is looking down on ‘earth’, with Milton setting up a hierarchy of rulers being untouchable by the common people, perhaps reaffirming the entrenched class system of his time. This however, would seem more to reflect a King with the ‘divine right’ to rule rather than the parliamentary system Milton served in, with Satan’s attempt to move up in the hierarchy both by attempting to overthrow God and leaving hell having disastrous consequences despite the fact he seems to be seeking a more democratic system where power is shared amongst ‘Gods’. However, Milton could equally be condemning people for criticizing the Government or the Church leaders, both of whom had been replaced in the Restoration. Therefore Milton’s setting Paradise Lost at the beginning of time implies a hierarchical system is natural and ordained by God.

Milton further explores how this perfect system is abused by showing Satan as manipulating the natural setting around him. Satan enters the garden as an outsider and yet is able to use it to lure Eve, not only by blending into his environment by taking over the body of a ‘snake’ but by using the natural elements around him in his plan. In his invocation Milton bemoans how the Garden’s ‘sweet flowers’ hid the ‘ambush’ waiting for mankind, with the word ‘flowers’ perhaps suggesting their ‘sweet’ scent hid the pungent odour of sin. Also as a feminine symbol Milton could perhaps be suggesting that woman’s ‘sweetness’ disguises the sin that she causes, with women at the time seen as temptresses much more interested in sex than men were. Similarly Satan lures Eve alone into the woods, with the extended semantic feild of the ‘mazes’ and Milton use of an epic metaphor which describes Satan as a ‘skillful steersman’ indicating that she may not be able to find her way out again. Also Milton compares Satan to a will o the wisp, suggesting that he is a supernatural and dangerous thing that has been introduced, connoting the more superstitious medieval age and that Eve is being lead astray without the knowledge that people had later on in the renaissance. Le Gallienne also explores the deceitfulness of nature, marvelling at how it’s ‘beauty’ can distort one’s ‘eyes’ from ‘life’s true bitterness and pain, with the word ‘net’ echoing the trap to which Satan is drawing Eve.  Milton doesn’t just show Satan’s effect on nature though, but sin itself, showing the Earth’s reaction when Eve commits the first sin. That it ‘wounds’ the earth suggests a permanence and a pain that can not be undone and that will always be remembered through the scar it leaves, meaning that the earth is no longer perfect and whole, starting the degeneration that Milton criticised in his own time whilst he was a pamphleteer, writing on varied subjects such as the church and divorce. The personification of nature as a ‘her’ sets the earth up as helpless and weak, unable to defend itself against sin, contrasting Earth’s passivity with Eve’s activeness as ‘she plucked, she ate’. The verbs strongly place the blame on Eve and emphasize the fact that they are irreversible, with the past tense used adding to this. This places earth as the victim and humankind as the wrongdoer, abusing their positions as ‘Lords’ of the earth. This could perhaps suggest that Milton thinks rulers have a duty to look after their subjects, or that nature must be respected, although alternatively it could represent the harm sin does to the innocence of the human soul. Hence, Milton’s explanation of how nature can be abused can be seen as a rallying call against temptation and being lead stray by the devil, with humankind being seen as naturally good but in need of constant diligence.

Furthermore, Milton’s use of the pastoral continues his warning against the unnaturalness of sinful acts, presenting God’s natural way as the way to serenity. Satan emerges from the corrupt city of Bedlam in Hell to the ‘worthier seat of the gods’ that is earth, with his longest soliquoy focusing on earth’s beauty and how it makes him question his plan for ‘revenge’.  Adam and Eve could perhaps be the shepherd and shepherdess living in harmony, although they tend the garden rather than sheep, but that they enjoy this task is perhaps shown in Eve’s eagerness to do it more efficiently, calling it ‘pleasant’, not wanting anything to ‘intervene’ in their labour’. Hence Milton seems to suggest that a life at one with nature is what God intended, with Satan’s residence in hell therefore being the perversion of everything God wanted. This criticism of the city could also link to the criticism of modernity, with the city being a manmade invention associated with sin, and it is significant that as soon as Adam and Eve sin they look for somewhere to ‘lie’ so that they can have sex. This perhaps relates to the association of sinful behaviour with the city, and cities fame for prostitutes, with London St James’s park being particularly well known as a haven for vice. The sinfulness of modernity could perhaps relate to the sinfulness of the tree of knowledge, as modernity can only advance with knowledge, with Milton perhaps advocating innocence as a way to be free from sin. In ‘August Moonlight’ the narrator also finds respite in nature, remarking on how the ‘cricket’ ‘’rose’ and ‘butterfly’ lead him away from his existential crisis, and yet in Paradise Lost Milton does not put enough strength in nature to allow it to dissuade any of his characters from sinning. Therefore Milton could perhaps be criticising how far he saw contemporary Restoration society from nature as being, perhaps because of the Restoration leading to the reopening of the theatres and many festivals and parties which were very unpuritanical. Hence Milton continues his warning, wishing for a return to the Lord’s ways.

In conclusion Milton uses his natural setting to contrast the way in which he sees God as having ordained things to be to the way things become when sin enters people and the world, criticising those who go against God’s natural order and advocating a return to his way.

Compare how Satan is presented compared to Medusa

Satan and Medusa are both presented as iconic figures of evil with hidden depths, with both Milton and Duffy exploring their motivations and emotions.

Both authors explore the human side to famously evil characters, allowing their readers to relate to them. Satan, especially to Milton’s contemporary audience, is famous as the epitome of all evil, and yet Milton imbues him with the characteristics of pastoral poetry, as he is able to appreciate the beauty of ‘Earth’ with all its ‘creatures’ and ‘plants’, far more in fact that either Adam or Eve do. Emerging from the hellish city Bedlam from which he was confined in Book 1, Satan calls earth ‘magnificent’, much as Medusa admires the ‘buzzing bee’, ‘singing bird’ and ‘ginger cat’. The word ‘ginger’  perhaps connotes the intense but simple beauty of the world, and much as Satan could ‘walked round’ enjoying Earth’s beauty Medusa wishes to look upon earth’s varied beauties. Medusa however, is almost a subversion of the pastoral, with everything she ‘looks’ at becoming ‘dusty’, and ‘grey’ like a city. The simple wish to enjoy nature is common throughout human kind, but Medusa is perhaps a more sympathetic character than Satan who turns away from this to focus on being evil. However, Milton’s depiction of Satan as a courtly lover also humanizes him, with her ethereal beauty being understanding beguiling, with Milton’s audience, primarily male, understanding the allure of Eve’s ‘heavenly form’ with the ‘veil of fragrance’ and the fact she is ‘half spied’ serving to reinforce the fact she is aloof and unattainable. The structure echoes Satan’s distraction, with the explanation of Satan’s behaviour broken up by four lines of adulation, and that Satan is struck ‘stupidly good’ could perhaps indicate that he is not innately evil but his overthinking has lead him away from the ‘good(ness)’ that God initially created him with. Similarly, Medusa is humanized by her loneliness and desire for a ‘man’ to be her ‘own’, and yet whilst Medusa was once mortal Satan is an ex-angel in a snake’s body, with this perversion of the typical fighting fit and handsome knight as a courtly lover perhaps indicating how unnatural Satan and his evil is, or creating sympathy for Satan who doesn’t seem to be able to ask forgiveness and return to his natural form. Hence, both Medusa and Satan are transformed into sympathetic characters by Milton and Duffy, allowing readers a new insight into pre-concieved truths.

They also both explore their evil character’s motivations, with Milton both Milton and Duffy exploring jealousy and desire. Satan is motivated by the urge to ‘master heaven supreme’  and to have ‘sole glory’, with his lust for power driving him away from goodness, and seeing ‘serving’ God as ‘inglorious’. The act of submissal or ‘servitude’ seems repugnant to Satan and yet he feigns servitude to Eve, ‘fawning’ over her and calling her his ‘mistress’ and ‘empress’ and ‘telling’ what she ‘commandst’. This however, is part of his manipulation, illustrating how Satan is only really self-serving,  and while he uses the plural of ‘gods’ which is perhaps suggestive of democratising heaven’s rule, he still wishes to have ‘glory sole among’st the infernal powers, dethroning one autocrat and putting himself in its place. The word ‘glory’ connotes that Satan will be the one with the ‘throng of adorers’ and that he will sit higher than everyone else, suggesting Satan is motivated by pride but also jealousy of what God has. Duffy suggests that Medusa was similarly motivated by ‘jealousy’, with both their predicaments growing out of their ‘mind(s)’, but not containing their poisonous and sinful thoughts. Medusa though, was traditionally seen as being motivated by ‘Love’, the antithesis to Satan’s anger and hatred, with Satan deliberately dampening any love for beauty within himself in order to focus on ‘envy (and) revenge’. His envy of being infrerior can be seen in his boast that he can ‘marr’ in ‘one day’ what it took God ‘six days and nights’ to create, showing his destructive power, but also that he is unable to create in the way God does, with Milton showing that Satan’s only power is in destructive evil, with this being perhaps where Satan’s envy stems from. Satan is not only jealous of God however, but of God’s ‘new favourite’ who are made in God’s image, and ‘raised’ out of the ‘dust’ to be rulers of Earth. Through this, Milton seems to show that jealousy is at the heart of sin, issuing a warning to his readers about wanting more than you deserve, but Duffy explores how jealousy can arise out of even the purest of emotions which Milton absolutely refutes.

Both writers present their characters as being punished, with their physical form changed as well as people’s attitudes to them. Both Medusa and Satan are hated figures, as Adam and Eve are warned of and fear him whilst Medusa is attacked by young men with ‘shields’ and ‘swords’. Both are also being punished by Gods, with Greek mythology telling how Medusa was punished by Athena for defiling the sacred temple with Poseidon, whilst Satan is thrown from heaven for his rebellion. Hence, both characters are breaking rules set in place by the define who are unquestionable and traditionally seen as ‘just’, and yet at the time the ‘divine right’ of Kings to lay down the law had been refuted by Parliament, refusing to accept Charles I’s taxes and rebelling against him, much like Satan and his angels. This is reconciled by the fact that God as a perfect and omnipotent being would not put in place any unjust laws, with Milton indicating that the fault lies with Satan’s jealousy, though Duffy is less clear who Medusa is ‘jealous’ of, though for both this leads to their bodies becoming ‘snakes’.  The snake has connotations of slipperyness and cunning which seems to suit Satan, and yet being a ‘beast’ is a coming down in status and the opposite to his aspirations to be seated amongst the ‘Gods’, with the snake’s body becoming his prison, and yet he chooses to ‘enter’ it. In ‘Medusa’ Duffy seems to paint Medusa as a victim who suffers unwarranted abuse and whose body bears the brunt of her pain. Medusa’s ‘bullet tears’ emphasizes her loneliness and her eyes power to bring death, but this for her is controllable, whilst Satan chooses to inflict ‘death’ upon Adam and Eve.