Attack of the Summer Miltonauts

I have to start by saying: Madeline, thank you so much for the beautiful flowers and the note, it has made my week, month, possibly my summer. They smell amazing and they’re the nicest thing on my messy desk. Thank you so much. :]

So, I hope my presentation wasn’t too frenetic.  I have a tendency to speak more from my head than my notes when I do presentations and I have a theory that it makes me harder to follow.  Juuuust maybe.

Aside from that, I’m completely drained today; maybe I’ll have more to say later, if I can stay awake. Hopefully this will add a little more content: my Presentation Notes and my Bibliography. Enjoy.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Gearing up for presentation; checking stuff over, making sure I’m not putting my foot in my mouth, etc.

If there’s a moment of enfolded sublimity for my presentation, it’s definitely “sweet reluctant amorous delay.”  But more about that later.  Hopefully.   For no reason, here is a poem–

“To Me He Seems Like a God”
Sappho (610-580BC)

To me he seems like a god
as he sits facing you and
hears you near as you speak
softly and laugh
in a sweet echo that jolts
the heart in my ribs.  For now
as I look at you my voice
is empty and

can say nothing as my tongue
cracks and slender fire is quick
under my skin.  My eyes are dead
to light, my ears

pound, and sweat pours over me.
I convulse, paler than grass,
and feel my mind slip as I
go close to death

[but must suffer all, being poor]

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Madeline’s presentation was eye-opening.  I had not contemplated on how interrelated everything in creation is. I have always felt God was the author of creation, and that it is mysterious and wonderful. However, the detailed image of the root, to stem, to leaves, then flower, its scent into man and man to heaven. The depiction of the symbiotic relationship was powerful. Perhaps it is the experience of reading and studying Milton that has elevated my perceptions to a new level as well.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

As I sit here at 3:26 in the morning, sipping from a can of Diet Coke, squinting at a massive amount of words, and unconsciously biting away at my fingernails, it is simply impossible to not feel the dejavu that I was doing this a few nights back, and what a night it was! I was extremely impressed by the spirit in the room, among the people. It seemed as a wave, a rise and fall throughout the night, into each other, into each Book and line and word. Campbell’s spectacular story-telling ability I think shook us all in each round, awakened us. I know that, when he was reading, that Serpent made me really nervous. I remember at first how it seemed to take so long for even one or two people to end their turns, and I’d steal a glance at my phone and go “Oh, it’s only 9 p.m.!” That wore off, I began to fall into that pushing, pulling rhythm more, and the books really began to take off. I’m also a night owl, so my wind comes around 11 p.m., and carries me through until 6 or so. I certainly know my sweet, jolly friends that I brought along for Book 5 enjoyed their small turn at the reading, do they know Milton as we do, I doubt it, but the spirit moved them in way enough. I also made sure they signed in blood that they had come and went (by blood, I mean pen to journal) so now their experience is as cemented as ours, as solidified as the rising sun and the chirping birds that woke up Campbell and gave the rest of us one more rush to the final Book, the final lines. Simply spectacular….

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

It seems perhaps that God has more concern of Adam’s following then of Eve’s temptation and sin with the apple.  Adam must struggle between the loyalty and love of two, from God and from Eve. His unity toward Eve invites his sin, but his superiority over her, and his closeness to God allows him to see Eve objectively, flawed. In Book XII, Adam is drawn to Michael’s instruction with the faith that, eventually, revelation will be brought about. This concept is very Christian, where Adam finds patience, hope, and maintaining goodness. Michael’s story to Adam brings two ideas together, of death and life, and the man is equal ineffective in either, and after the Flood, there is less fragmentation/separation and more continuity of ideas in the story.  I think all of this has to deal with Adam’s relationship to God, where Milton focuses so much on Adam in the telling of history, in the mentioning of ideas like separation versus continuity, as if the real temptation is the tempting of man, more so than of woman.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

First off: I really loved today’s class. I feel sort of like I derailed the topic of discussion, but the things we ended up talking about have been weighing much on my mind these days so I’m hugely glad we got a chance to discuss them.

I’m hung up on authenticity in a big way. It’s probably a character flaw, but even though I have a tendency to lie for fun, it’s a completely different thing to me. It ties in a lot to the ideas of responsibility I’ve been tossing around this session. It seems important to me that things be sincere; whether it’s a reaction to being surrounded by teenage nihilism or the contemporary love for irony or some sort of irritable response to post-modernism, I don’t know, but I have an inherent distaste for the sort of unthinking refusal to invest in things that seems to be rampant around me. The refusal to connect to the world (the attempt to be discontiguous, if you will) brings out in me a sort of pitying disgust–which is probably a problematic reaction. But it’s how I feel. On that possibly futile continuous search for meaning, it’s awfully hard to find any meaning of any sort if you can’t make a genuine connection, or at least attempt a genuine connection.

And as to that search for meaning, it seems that we aren’t doing ourselves justice if we ignore that search entirely. Okay, maybe not everyone’s as overt and specific about it, but I think most people are trying to muddle some meaning out of their experiences. And as Milton shows us, it’s not something you search for in just one place, but in EVERY place. Every single thing you do is part of that search, that journey. Because of how our brains and bodies work we can’t be seeing every single thing that way–we need some down time, after all–but if we had the ability and the time, we could look at everything and anything that way. Dig into it enough–like poetry–and even more is revealed. There’s that enfolded sublimity to everything, if you think hard in the right ways. Every tiny thing could show us something huge. And maybe this ties into the way the scope of stories has changed; we’re learning more and more that the tiny is a way to reflect the large.

It’s a lot of pressure, honestly. It is easier (can we say… tempting?) to reject meaning or the search for meaning and live in a more facile, shallow way. And even if you’re dedicated to authenticity and the idea of looking for something larger, you can’t be constantly vigilant that way. Again, our brains just can’t do it. But if you accept that pressure, that responsibility, it can be just as reassuring as it is difficult. (There are some things I’ll discuss with regard to discipline tomorrow that fit in here.) But to say: “okay, I think there must be some truth, and even if I can’t grab the whole thing–even if I can’t grab much–I’m going to go after it.” That’s freeing, in a way. It’s a start to fulfilling your responsibility to yourself and your maker. It’s part of the way to be your whole, contiguous self. And I think that’s important.

Though the specific poem is not one I was thinking of, here is a poem by Lia Purpura, who teaches at Loyola and who is a brilliant writer and a great speaker.

And here are my discussion questions for today, though Madeline pointed me in the right directions (and I probably didn’t write them out very well):

Do you think Paradise Lost is a monument or a living work? Do you agree that it is “dead”? Does Paradise Lost present any ideas we’d consider “dead”? What about living ones?
How does Milton’s religion mesh with his retelling the story of Genesis? (or) How does he square his faith with retelling a story from the Bible? Past that, how does he retell it?
If creation is divine/a divine act, why do the unfallen Adam and Eve have so little to do with it? They do not conceive in Eden. In fact, only God, Satan, Sin, and Death conceive/create during the poem. Conception as a product of sex is not mentioned–the place of Adam and Eve as our ancestors is never linked with their lovemaking.
Raphael’s hesitancy and the invocation of the deity–Milton seems not entirely comfortable with taking it upon himself to describe Creation, so why does he touch upon the subject at all? He has to find it worthwhile in some way
If food is the relationship between nature/man/angels then what does it mean that the Fruit is something EATEN?
God creates Earth supposedly to repopulate Heaven–this challenges his authority in two ways. One, has Satan affected God (and if so how)? Two, why are Adam and Eve the ‘new creators’ rather than God himself?
Considering the dinner scene in light of the ontological vegetable, how does that alter Eve’s status, or does it not alter it at all?
If we consider that life springs up like plants, and these plants mirror the ontological vegetable, what does it mean for all of life? Everything is rising; contrast with the multiple falls throughout the epic.

EDIT: Related only in the loosest of ways, but I think this is pretty great.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

In Book VIII of Paradise Lost, Adam compares his own lonely situation to God’s, to which God replies that He’s happy enough conversing with his various creations. As I see it, that’s not an adequate response to Adam’s earlier statement. God’s relationship to the world is majorly different from Adam’s, because God has the satisfaction of talking to something to which he gave life, not just a fellow creature. God’s situation would be more akin to Adam chatting with his children, not the birds and beasts. Except oh wait, Adam can’t have children because he has no-one to create them with. (And, oddly enough, even after Eve is created, they aren’t able to conceive children in the Garden. Either they’re not actually having sex, or Eden is not nearly as fertile as it seems… but this is a digression.) Granted, God is more or less joking with Adam, but still. I don’t have a lot of patience with his silly and flawed argument.

On the other hand, I like the passage in which God describes his one-of-a-kind-ness. God is “alone / from all eternity,” with nobody like Him, nobody who really understands Him. It sounds trite–and truly, I don’t mean it to–but there’s something very… small… about that kind of existence. Can you imagine what it must have been like before he made the angels? Being completely alone, completely one-of-a-kind? If he weren’t God, I would say it sounds utterly confusing. We’ve heard Adam and Eve narrate their coming-into-consciousness. How would God narrate His? (Or are lines 404-411 as close as we’ll get to His take on things?)

Finally, here is an outline of my book VII discussion, including introduction and annotated bibliography. If it can help anyone further their research or generate ideas or spark discussion, please please use it to do so. That’s the whole point, yes?

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

For my presentation I’ve been doing a lot of research and a lot of thinking about unity and contiguity in Milton’s universe… and I’ve come to the following realization:

Once you recognize the actual compatibility of one seeming opposition–say, earthly food and spiritual nourishment–it’s like putting flame to gunpowder. Exponential expansion. Every single other relationship in the epic suddenly crystallizes into this perfectly unified whole. Food, knowledge, domesticity, Eve, womanhood, creation… My mind is reeling. There is no difference in kind between the material and the immaterial, only a graceful spectrum of degree from the elemental to the spiritual. Natural, vita, animal, intellectual…

I hope I can do justice to Milton’s master vision.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

What can I say; beside it was an eye-opening, very awesome experience! I unfortunately had to leave around 0230, right after book VI. My son, who I drug along with me, also thought it was a “neat” time. He thought that Dr. Campbell should have read the whole thing though, he was impressed with the delivery Dr. Campbell also was able to get him to read with us, quite a major feat- Way to go Dr. Campbell!  He gave you the stamp of “cool”, a major acheivement, as not many people get that label.When reading P.L. out loud I found that it was more comprehensible and thought provoking. Passages popped out that I had not thought much of when reading to myself. I thought that the war in heaven really came alive when read out loud. It was powerful.I wish you were staying Dr. Campbell; I would have hung in all night next year.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Milton’s Sonnet is beautiful and haunting as well as having an acute sense of loss. I could not help but noticing that at least three of his five principles could be applied. He is preoccupied with time in this sonnet in that he is dreaming which places him out of the realm of conventional time and space. It is also evident with the visit of his dead wife the past comes to the present. He describes his wife as being virginal as “washed from spot of child-bed taint”, this would lend to the beginning of their relationship, when they first met. This part of the Sonnet brought to mind Milton’s desire for seeming compatibility and companionship in a marriage which he places above sex. I was struck most by the last line, ” I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.” I could feel Milton’s frustration and his loss when he wakes at the best, most desired part of his dream and his beloved wife is gone. He is thrust unpleasantly back into the present and reality. It seems to me when he says ” and day brought back my night” as if he perhaps he lay in bed for awhile trying to get his dream back, but was unable to do so, before the daylight arrived.  There seems as if there is a sense of delay in that passage. From my own experience, when I wake up from a good dream I try to go back to it for a few minutes before I either go into another, or just get up. 

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

First off, I had a really really great time and I’m halfway regretting that I left as early as I did.  (The other half of me is concerned with health matters and is chiding me for not leaving sooner, so it’s a toss-up.)  I met some really interesting people–I wish there had been more time for socializing, actually, because I would have liked to hear more about people.  I read some Milton without actually becoming spontaneous dyslexic.  I brought some baked goods.  And, more importantly, ate some delicious vegetables from Madeline’s garden which were probably the best thing I’ve eaten in a couple months.  I left around midnight with Joe–I’m glad he came and I’m glad he stayed as long as he did, even though he probably has mixed feelings about it.

I wish this wasn’t the last all-night Paradise Lost read-a-thon; I wish I had stayed longer; I wish I had been a little bolder reading. But I still had a great time and there definitely is something about hearing it aloud continuously that really drives it home. Alvey House was the right sort of environment to make it a little strange, too; guest houses can feel sort of hotel-y, but a little unusual, as well (sock under the loveseat, please recall). It’s a nice house but the blank personality of the rooms and the unfurnished upstairs gave it sort of a “there is probably something unusual living in this house” vibe. Not saying it’s haunted, but I would not be surprised if there was some sort of tiny interloper living upstairs. Maybe a raccoon interested in antiques.

Alvey House aside, it was a really wonderful evening/night. I don’t get to do that sort of thing often, probably because that sort of thing doesn’t often happen. I think it probably should happen more often, but I don’t know how it could. Probably something to think about…

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

I didn’t make it all night, but it was a neat partial experience–and there is always the possibility of other, spin-off all-nighters. I’ll be in England for the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth, so maybe I can catch a reading in London…

When you set off to read something in such a deliberate fashion, it feels like setting out on a journey. Because we were committed to seeing the end of the epic, the descent into Hell felt more real, the war felt more real, Adam and Eve’s love felt more real. We were following the characters’ paths, with Milton as our guide. Each of us was alone, and yet we were all together… what an odd experience, simultaneously personal and communal, shared but unshareable. I suppose that is contiguity.

Also, how moving–and how appropriate–to share in a blind man’s creation aloud. And an epic, no less, as in the glorious oral tradition of Homer.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Since we didn’t really get to talk about book V in class today (which was fine, what a great class!) I thought I’d write a post about some of my thoughts. I liked this section a lot; Milton sort of gained some points back concerning Eve. She is referred to by Adam as “heaven’s last best gift” (19) and I like that description… I guess this is me embracing the difference between men and women, and appreciating the fact that Milton is too. Women are sort of like the icing on the cake; the cake is okay without icing, but i mean, seriously, it’s not that good. But then again, they are so much better than that; God’s final and best gift to the world is Eve. Well, even if my commentary is nonsense, I loved Milton’s phraseology there. And Milton made me chuckle and smile gladly when he calls Adam “our primitive great sire.” Even if his meaning did not recall “cave man” to his contemporaries, this twenty-first century gal really enjoyed it.

But anyway, I liked how Eve is characterized throughout this book. “For I this night, / Such night till this I never passed, have dreamed, / If dreamed, not as I oft am wont, of thee / Works of day past, or morrow’s next design” (30-33). I LOVE that she dreams. She dreams like all the time, about her love and her days and the future. Aw, she’s a lot like me! That’s just such an exquisite idea; they are in paradise, in want of nothing, and still she dreams. I also like the description of the dream (35-70+) which reminded me of her account of her creation. She thinks the voice calling her is Adam (because who else would it be? that’s who it was the first time) and she trusts it this time, because she was wrong at the very beginning. This dream just seemed like an echo of her first awakening, and maybe Satan did that on purpose (he’s good and evil like that).

The last section that really told me something about Eve occurs in the lines 129 to 131, when Eve cries after Adam comforts her. Even though she is comforted (”she was cheered”) she still cries, which indicates a deep emotion. She seems older and wiser than Adam to me in this moment. She has had this horrible, unexplainable dream and she knows it’s scary even though it’s gone. Her character just has more depth in this moment, and definitely more emotional depth than Adam has. I liked Milton’s Eve in book V.

AND, when I was looking up some things for this post, I reread Book IV, lines 460 to 475 and discovered Eve’s relationship with God, and she has it before she even sees Adam!

As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A shape within the watery gleam appeared
Bending to look on me, I started back,
It started back, but pleased I soon returned,
Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me, What though seest,
What there though seest fair creature is thyself,
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces, he
Whose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy
Inseparably thine, to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called
Mother of the human race: what could I do,
But follow strait, invisibly thus led?

What voice could Eve hear (my own emphasis) but God’s? Or perhaps an angel’s. But I would like to think of this voice that speaks to Eve as God’s, comforting her and explaining her purpose. So until I am told this is wrong, I feel a lot better about Eve’s relationship with God and to Adam. It’s still so complicated, but I am getting more satisfied with Paradise Lost’s treatment of Eve.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

I think my largest problem with Milton’s attitude towards women is that I continually want to forgive him. I so much enjoy his works and I honestly love his attitude about marriage so I just try to brush aside the undeniable inequalities that happen from time to time. Which is perhaps being a little too forgiving. I do have problems with those moments, but I do want to move past them and sort of brush them off–I’d so much rather look at the other things in Milton’s work. The things he says about marriage are beautiful, the things he says about the way companionship should be… So can I grant him his few mistaken moments? I’d like to. I shouldn’t, but I’d like to. Maybe, at the least, I can just say that it’s not what interests me about Milton and look at other aspects of his work.

I really don’t understand, though, why Adam and Eve can’t be equal prior to the Fall. Why can’t they have the same relationship to God? It seems as though in an unfallen world they should be able to. The authority Adam holds is not only granted by God, but God-like in its mode. The authority Eve sometimes seems to have over Adam seems to be a more human thing; he loves her and her character is such that she can hold him in a certain sort of sway, whatever that is.

It’s important that when we both see Eve and Adam, they’re equal until they become individuated. So I’m tempted to see it as Adam and Eve being heirarchical, rather than a statement about gender–but the way things are, that’s not really a claim I can back up. Still, in so many ways Milton seems to be considering their contiguity rather than Eve’s “inferiority,” which is why it’s so hard for me to condemn him. Milton’s interested in the way that other selves can enrich us, how people who are like us but not us can make us more our better selves. It’s a beautiful thought and I’d tend to agree with him, whatever that makes me; it’s just the way he is so definite about Eve being weaker than Adam that tends to rub me the wrong way.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Dr. Campbell’s great lecture on Milton from last fall’s English 381 class. It was useful enough for me that I listened to it a couple of times after the original recording. (I hope all the links are still good…)

I hope Dr. C doesn’t mind!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

Book IV might be Satan at his most extreme so far: his most sympathetic and his most despicable. At the start, he seems surprisingly humble. He acknowledges his own “pride and worse ambition,” admits that God created him, admits that God was good to him—basically, he allows that God ‘deserved better.’ Satan also has his dense string of great (and utterly quotable) realizations: “a grateful mind / by owing owes not” (55-6) and “other powers as great / fell not (63-4). He even curses himself—amazing stuff. This scene is an important juncture for Satan. I can’t help but wonder if someone had come and talked to him, said the right thing, answered the question “is there no place / left for repentance, none for pardon left” (79-80), might he have stopped his tragic march toward evil? Of course, there’s the question of ‘what could they possibly say’ to convince him. He probably would have resented ‘we forgive you,’ but maybe if they had said, ‘come back and vent your frustration by arguing with God, debating him, not turning your back on him’… maybe that would have worked? I know it’s a moot point, but what if…?

Also, it seems to me that Satan is upholding an extreme version of free will. He recognizes that in some ways he is in position of non-choice, being coerced by God. Any decision he makes, including repentance, is unduly influenced by his current suffering. He can’t make a valid choice under this sort of duress, but remove the suffering and he would undoubtedly choose something different. It’s a mind-numbing loop: he can’t choose freely while suffering, but the suffering is his motivation to choose. And from here it only gets worse.

Utterly frustrated by his own logic, Satan chooses Evil, knowing full well what he is doing. Our sympathy is challenged, and from here on (in spite of a brief sentimental lapse while watching Adam and Eve) Satan is more despicable than ever. Like a child, he whines about being “unpitied” (375) and then jokes bitterly that his abode, though not as nice as Paradise, is still God’s creation, and he’s willing to “share” that ‘blessing’ with Adam and Eve. His bitterness (no longer even remotely humorous) carries into his conversations with the angels, where frankly he is just plain nasty. He out-and-out insults Zephon, Ithuriel and Gabriel, and doesn’t even deny where he was when they found him. “The rest is true,” he says matter-of-factly. It’s like he relishes this outright confrontation. In some ways it’s awesome, in the radical sense of the word, to see archangels spitting at each other this way, but it’s also sad. We know Satan knows he can’t win. So what is he trying to do?

And then there comes this moment of heavy potential, where we see that the future fight of Satan with Gabriel will destroy everything—it’s just a flash, but what an epic flash at that. Talk about a gathering storm! This is the crème-de-la-crème of hand-to-hand combat. Nevertheless, the flash passes as we realize the outcome has already been decided. They’re both capable only of what God allows—Gabriel admits it. And then Satan, instead of being witty or snarky, simply flees. It’s weird. A weird diffusion of what had promised to be an awesome and fiery standoff. The whole book is an emotional roller coaster, and Satan doesn’t end up looking too good. (Although admittedly, I was disappointed by Gabriel, too.)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

I was thoroughly disappointed with Milton after reading today’s chapter in CC. He at first comes across as putting woman on a pedestal on page 180. He vows to celebrate “those in whom both good and faire in one person meet” However,  when he comes out with his divorce tracts to “advocate, religious, civil, and domestic liberty for sober and religious men” he gets angry when there isn’t support for his self-serving views of the doctrines of marriage laid out by God. He attempts to twist the scripture to account for the God’s disapproval of the Pharisees. He claims that marriage was created for the “good of man” and that a marriage that doesn’t fall into his (Milton) ideal of good was therefore not “what God hath joined together”He rails against those who believed divorce was only for abused wives, after all “wasn’t woman created for man, not man for woman?” He goes on to say that God could not have intended man who is the image of God, who was given the inferior woman for his enjoyment, to be stuck with someone (who he, Milton) considers to be inadequate as a wife. He puts forth that man, who was “crown’d” by God, should have the right “to obtain his freedom”. Milton feels marriage is a place to where two people can have great conversations with each other and be happy, to enjoyed dignity and love together. Apparently this means if Milton is happy it is a good marriage, if he isn’t being fulfilled as he feels he should be then he deserves a divorce.It seems Milton’s idea of a virtuous woman is one that fits his lofty ideals. If they don’t then they fall into the category of a Delilah. It frustrates me that a man with such great theories and rich depictions of women and love in his poetry could come out with this , in my mind, contradictory rubbish.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

 I was reading my bible this morning (NKJ) 2 Thes Chaptter 2, in which Paul warns  the beleivers not to be tricked into beleiving that Jesus has returned.  He informes them that this will not happen until the “falling away” takes place and the “Man of perdition” (antichrist) is revealed. What interested me most were verses 7-12. In a nutshell The mystery of lawlessness is already at work, and will continue to be so until He God) is taken out of the way (I assume this is until God decides). it is at that time the lawless one will be revealled, this coming of the lawless one will be according to the works of Satan “with all power, sign, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteus deception” He will do these things among “those who perish” (unbeleivers) because they did not receive the “love of the truth that they might be saved”. What struck me most was verse 11-12 ” And for this reasonGod will send them strong delusion, that they should beleive the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not beleive the truth but had pleasures in unrighteousness.” I thought of Milton’s God when I read this passage, and of the arguments of Empson and Fish.

For Empson’s part I thought of  his belief in a wicked God. That would coincide with God’s purposeful deception of the unbeleivers so that would be damned along with Satan, and not given another chance at redemption of their souls.

Then I thought of Fish who felt that through our failures we would eventually see the error of our ways and seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. I thought that perhaps if they were not purposfully deceived by God they might take this opportunity to repent.

However, there is the argument that if they haven’t repented of their immorality up to that point would they ever, and just continue on in their sin? It does have to stop somewhere, and how much time do people need?

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

For our general enrichment, consider Spenser’s description of Errour in of The Faerie Queene:

“…he [the knight] saw the ugly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th’ other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.

And as she lay upon the durtie ground,
Her huge long taile her den all overspred,
Yet was in knots and many boughtes upwound,
Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred
A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,
Sucking upon her poisonous dugs, eachone
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill favored:
Soone as that uncouth light upon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.” (I.i.14-15)

There are obvious relevant parallels to Sin, Death, and their happy little brood of miserable monsters. The woman-serpent, the abominable offspring, the ‘mortall sting,’ the image of cannibalism… Milton definitely knew his Spenser.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment

So we can’t really answer why God decided to create it all. Part of this, I maintain, is that we can’t really get into the head of a being like God. There by definition has to be some sort of ineffability going on there, considering that God knows so very much more than we do, and in a different way. You can’t really lay out the motivations of an omniscient being. But couldn’t we guess? From our experience here?

First off, there’s beauty, you can’t deny that. And it seems that Milton’s God especially likes to create beautiful things–like his author. But even more than that, there’s an appreciation for thought, especially the intricacies of thought and the morality and ramification of many situations. True, if God is omniscient, then there’s not so much to figure out about situations–but isn’t some pleasure derived in watching others puzzle through things as well? God isn’t directly teaching, but there is indirect teaching going on, and it seems like the sort of thing that could be rewarding. And of course if God is presenting these temptations and having these choices put out in front of the people he’s created, he’s probably enjoying seeing how people go through them. I’m making this sound a little bit too much like watching rats in mazes, but I don’t think it’s like that; I think it’s probably more like watching someone really get something you’ve been trying to explain to them.

And beyond that, of course, there’s the idea of creation. When we create, we become like God (Faulkner is the quote I’m thinking of, I think), or at least we take on his tasks. Granted, considering that God is omnipotent, he could make anything we make, but there’s something to the authenticity of a limited, human, free person making something that adds to that.

And we’re all constantly searching for meaning, even people who claim there is none. It’s an inherently human trait and even admitting that the universe is nothing but atoms doesn’t stop the search. Doing so would make life… well, stupid, I guess. But it would also mean that whatever you’d do, it would be motivated by nothing but pleasure or biology or… I’m not quite sure. I guess it’s pretty obvious what side of the fence I’m on, though I make no claims as to knowing what the meaning is or where it comes from.

It’s also worth noting that Milton’s God has created angels who are different. Not just one voice, but many voices; Satan and his followers are a certain kind of voice, of course, but even the angels who did not rebel are differentiated (but, of course, dynamic). And Adam and Eve are different too, contiguous. Again, because God’s omnipotent, omniscient and so on, God could theoretically be or do whatever any of the angels or the humans do, but somehow that’s not quite the same. So having these voices, even if they aren’t in conversation directly with God, that’s got to be rewarding, too. I’m not so sure about the “God has no mate” question, though. Could it be that God needs no mate because he is God? Milton didn’t go for the Trinity, but that might answer part of it… I really don’t know. Big questions, and even looking “only” at Paradise Lost, they really don’t get any smaller.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Click on title to comment