Milton Paradise Lost

How to read Paradise Lost? 1. treat as a case for close reading, look at the way the poet works through his various moments. Is each line a ‘micro’ of the whole? Is it ‘through-designed’? 2. book-by-book – think about the individual episodes, divide the text into sections 3. by narrative, character, episode, event 4. as a whole – which way madness lies? 5. Point is, the all-encompassing nature of the text

What we’re going to do 1: close reading 2: eve/ gender/ adam 3: warfare, politics, satan This is just one way of outlining the text

Paradise Lost Published 1667; various versions into 1669 second ed. 1674, third ed. 1678, fourth ed. 1688, fifth ed ‘Note’ and book headings added, revised from 10 to 12 books in 1674 (more plainly mimics Aeneid)

Paradise Lost: contexts Originally conceived as a drama Milton’s intention to write an heroic epic about the Bible Composed late 1650s (onset of blindness) ‘When I consider’ Dictated mainly to daughters ?experience of defeat Experience of: war, science, religious instruction, controversy, Parliament, contention

Epic/ religious verse I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. Epic: Spencer, Faerie Queene Ariosto, Dante, Virgil, Homer, Camoĕs Poems of nationhood, dynasty, founding Poems of war

Key themes Key themes: good and evil, agency, politics, identity, how to speak to and worship God, temptation, sin, humanness, love, battle, science, the make up of the universe, beauty, rebellion Problems: authority; gender; religious/ theological message; agency

Paradise Lost and politics Note on the verse: ‘bondage’ and ‘slavery’ of rhyme – political form The Parliament of hell – dissent, monarchical divide and rule, performance and glory Rebellion, identity, agency: SATAN

Satan ‘Milton was of the Devil’s party without knowing it’ (Blake) The most ‘human’ character? Questions of choice, agency, FREE WILL Leadership and rebellion; pride; anger; sin

Rhyme and politics The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in Latin; Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian, and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rhime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, triveal, and of no true musical delight; which consists onely in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn outfrom one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rhime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover ’ d to heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing.

Form and aesthetics The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in Latin; Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them.

Form and aesthetics The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in Latin; Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them. Compares himself to the classics (key – a reminder of the intellectual inheritance of verse at this point, and Milton’s sense of himself) Rhyme is frivolous – ‘ornament’, and an ‘adjunct’ (with a military echo) Poor poetry Barbarity and civilisation – rhyme is something that is not modern (and not European) It constrains meaning It makes poetry worse It makes poetry express the contrary of the poet’s intention (key word) Nationalism: this is ENGLISH heroic verse (so inventing a tradition and claiming kinship with it)

Milton and other writers Not without cause therefore some both Italian, and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rhime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, triveal, and of no true musical delight; which consists onely in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory.

Milton and other writers Not without cause therefore some both Italian, and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rhime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, triveal, and of no true musical delight; which consists onely in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. Milton as a European writer Different types of writing (poems, verse, long and short work, tragedy) ‘our best English Tragedies’ >> Shakespeare The sound of verse ‘learning’ how to write Verse by rote (apt; fit) Lack of clarity and direction Milton’s aesthetic purpose being incredibly self-aware in all facets Relationship of poetry to oratory (persuasion; Cicero) Verse and music (jingling)

This neglect then of Rhime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover ’ d to heroic Poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of Rimeing.

‘vulgar’ readers David Norbrook: rhyme is a ‘Royalist’ unit of verse, solid, harmonious, signifying the way things should be PL as ‘an example’ Liberty (ancient – pre- Norman yoke) – freedom, agency, Englishness Slavery of the ordering principle anti-organisation, order, imposition

What the ‘note’ tells us about Milton Self-conception as a writer The importance of writing, both in terms of content and FORM and style The self-awareness of the poet Poems work in various dimensions – Time/ history – Space – Within a genealogy – Politically/ in public – As ways of attacking the state – As criticism, persuasion, oratory – As music

Comparison: Dryden’s Aeneid (1697) A Heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform. The Design of it, is to form the Mind to Heroick Virtue by Example; 'tis convey'd in Verse, that it may delight, while it instructs: The Action of it is always one, entire, and great. The least and most trivial Episodes, or under-Actions, which are interwoven in it, are parts either necessary, or convenient to carry on the main Design. Either so necessary, that without them the Poem must be Imperfect, or so convenient, that no others can be imagin'd more suitable to the place in which they are.

Dryden continues… There is nothing to be left void in a firm Building; even the Cavities ought not to be fill'd with Rubbish, which is of a perishable kind, destructive to the strength: But with Brick or Stone, though of less pieces, yet of the same Nature, and fitted to the Cranies. Even the least portions of them must be of the Epick kind; all things must be Grave, Majestical, and Sublime: Nothing of a Foreign Nature, like the trifling Novels, which Ariosto and others have inserted in their Poems. By which the Reader is miss-led into another sort of Pleasure, opposite to that which is design'd in an Epick Poem. One raises the Soul and hardens it to Virtue, the other softens it again and unbends it into Vice. One conduces to the Poet's aim, the compleating of his Work; which he is driving on, labouring and hast'ning in every Line: the other slackens his pace, diverts him from his Way

Week 8 work Key ideas for Milton’s writing: 2 things each Choose a 10 line section In pairs, close read it In 4s, introduce your close reading In same 4s, try to sort out the key ideas that are being discussed in each section, poetic style Wider group: key ideas