Reason in Paradise Lost

• it is their law
• can be tricked - flaw in the law?
• or is it because their minds can be tricked
• after fall they don't mention reason
• reason as defining humans
• even reason is fallible - only thing that remains constant is God's command
• beasts as devoid of it
• Human life based in reason - passion overswaying it
• mental reason vs physical 'appetite'
• Reason as happiness - as their law in prelapsarian world keeping them from straying
• God giving them power of judgement for selves
• Reason not necessarily connected to speech
• Ruler
• Satan as utilizing and reason as not limited to good things
• Ability to think and decide essential to free will
• Their minds governing them - God give them reason so that they can choose
• 
  

Quotes:

tasting of a certain Tree in the Garden he attain'd both to Speech and Reason

Of Growth, Sense, Reason, all summ'd up in Man.

smiles from Reason flow

He made us, and delight to Reason joyn'd

for what obeyes Reason, is free, and Reason he made right

Since Reason not impossibly may meet Some specious object by the Foe subornd, And fall into deception unaware

With thy permission then, and thus forewarned Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words Touched onely, that our trial, when least sought, May find us both perhaps far less prepared

To Beasts, whom God on thir Creation-Day
Created mute to all articulate sound;
The latter I demurre, for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions oft appears

ere long I might perceave
Strange alteration in me, to degree
Of Reason in my inward Powers, and Speech

we live
Law to our selves, our Reason is our Law

Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregn'd
With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;\

How dies the Serpent? hee hath eat'n and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discern

... Endu'd with human voice and human sense,

Reasoning to admiration

To sensual Appetite, who from beneath
Usurping over sovereign Reason claimed [ 1130 ]
Superior sway

Learning Lessons from Paradise Lost

• God should be obeyed
• God doesn't make idle threats 
• Woman should be ruled over by man
• Wife dragging down husband 
• Female autonomy has terrible consequences
• Man giving into woman leading to bad things
• Reason can be tricked
• Passion can lead to danger
• Not to follow duty to anyone but God
• Ambition leading to greater fall
• Sin was 'freely' chosen
• Responsibility for own actions
• Man made same choice to fall as woman though for different reasons - in their sin they are equal
• Doubting God is wrong
• Idolatry is wrong
• Making self into own God is wrong
• Temptation is powerful
• Sin as corrupting and destructive force - breaks relationships and earth down
• Not to trust the unknown
• Importance of unwavering faith
• Not to love anything else more than you love God
• God is generous - giving humanity earth and free will
• Not calvinistic suggestion that God ordained that mankind would sin
• Danger of rebellion - becoming what you are rebelling against
• Animals not given speech - humanity elevated beyond
• The idyllic nature of pre-lapsarian life
• Marriage as supposed to be romantic, mutual, loving
• Power corrupting
• Meritocracy where God is rightfully at the top
• Selfishness leads to misery
• Sin leads to more sin - snowballing into evil
• Evil not natural state - even Satan has to consciously choose to be evil
• 
  

Philosophy applicable to Paradise Lost

Augustine of Hippo - 'What made Adam capable of obeying God's command also made him able to sin', evil is a lack of or deficiency


Boethus - God foresees our thoughts and actions, God knows the future as if it were the present, 'everything is known, not according to itself, but according to the capacity of the knower'


Calvin - 'no wind ever rises or blows but by the special command of God'

Paradise Lost Exam Questions

1. Examine some of the ways poets have presented the theme of hope.

2. “Powerful poetry so often springs from the most ordinary or even the ugliest of ingredients.”Explore this point of view.

3. How far would you agree with the proposition that effective poetry must always surprise us in some way?

4. Explore the claim that poetry provides “a light by which we may see”.

5. “Two of the most persistent themes in poetry are uncertainty and insecurity.” Discuss the presentation of one or both of these themes.

1. “In successful poems, it is often difficult to separate ideas from emotions.” Discuss this view.

2. Explore some of the ways poets present change.

3. “Poetry is at its most effective when exploring contradictions.” How far do you agree?

4. “By interesting us in specific moments or events, poets lead us towards a better appreciation of wider issues.” Examine this view.

5. How far is the appeal of a poem governed by the poet’s choice of subject matter?

1. Examine some of the ways poets present human limitations and/or weaknesses.

2. “Every successful poem reminds us that the whole truth is never to be found on the surface of things.” Discuss this view.

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

4. “It is primarily through imagery that poets make clear what cannot easily be expressed.” Consider this view.

5. Explore some of the ways poets make use of irony in their writing.

1. “Poetry often manages to engage our interest in issues and characters which we do not necessarily like or admire.” How far would you support this remark?

2. Explore the ways in which poems present the differences between men and women.

3. Examine the ways in which poets present the themes of faith and/or duty.

4. How far would you agree with the view that “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”?

5. “Intensity of feeling is at the heart of interesting poetry.” To what extent would you support or contradict this view?

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.

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.