Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Those who have been panting to get to Book 2, have at it!

As you quite rightly pointed out in the Politics thread Everyman, I jumped the gun and have already posted stuff about Book II, which is very pertinent to the Putney debates and other events which took place during the Civil War. (Message 11, backed up by 4.)

Satan starts the deliberation by seating himself on a magnificent exalted "Throne of Royal State," stating all the reasons why he rightlfully leads them, and then says they will have concord because

. . . none sure will claim in Hell
Precedence, none, whose portion is so small
Of present pain, that with ambitious mind
Will covet more.

But he's just finished claiming precedence. He speaks in fine and noble words, shows magnificent indominability, but is talking rot. Still, we like him. Does that say something about him, or something about us?

Roger wrote: But he's just finished claiming precedence. He speaks in fine and noble words, shows magnificent indominability, but is talking rot. Still, we like him. Does that say something about him, or something about us?

Some angels are more fallen than others. :) I don't like him one bit.

Let me see if I have this right. The Gates of Hell are guarded by Sin and Death.

1. Sin is the spawn of Satan, having leapt amongst flames from his head;

2. He then makes her his concubine;

3. Which leads to the birth of Death ("odious offspring") by "breaking violent way/Tore through my entrails." (See Queen Margaret's description of birth of Richard III)

4. Death, in turn, rapes his (its?) mother.

5. Leading to the birth of vicious dogs which return to Sin's womb and gnaw on her (its?) bowels hourly.

It seems that Sin and Death are different from the other characters in being more purely allegorical. each hates the other, yet they are symbiotic.

Also, this is not the first instance of an asexual birth; the Son also has no mother. The angels are ambisexual. They: "had general names/Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,/these feminine. For spirits when they please/Can either sex assume, or both..."

Yes Amanda. I hope one of our more experienced PL veterans can expand on this trope of violent births in the poem.

Book II is much more readable and exciting than book I, Im just trying to figure out if that is because of the actual writing or reading the Book I discussion in this group.

Amanda wrote: "I was really struck by the conversation between Satan and his children (grandchildren?) Sin and Death. At one point, Sin claims she was born in Satan's image and that Death was torn from her womb. ..."

I thought the same thing, but I was more struck with concept of Sin as a woman who then tempts and seduces her father, Satan, to produce the abomination that is Death. The parallels to Eve's temptation of Adam are obvious.

"Woman" as Sin and Temptation is hardly a noteworthy concept, it's so common. But I was just reading something about Milton's rather strained relationship with his daughters and the idea of describing a daughter seducing her father suddenly became fraught with all kinds of 20th C baggage. So, for the more widely informed out there, am I just being prurient?

I im not mistaken he narrated the poem to his daughters. Thant must have been an uncomfortable moment in the process

He started narrating it to various people in the 1640s, when he first began to lose his eyesight but stopped and recommenced dictating to his daughters in 1662. according to his nephew, John Philips, who acted as an unofficial secretary.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008...

Occasionally, I see that someone is using Shakespeare's characters as the basis for a book, article or seminar on leadership. I think they could do worse than using the Satan of Book II as a model.

I realize others have already stated how much they dislike him--but being a good person or being liked are not necessarily characteristic of good leaders. Others have also already noted that he lies and manipulates--again, hardly disqualifying.

Let me lay out my case, and then you can pick it apart.

His forces have suffered a devastating defeat. He doesn't sugar coat their situation, but he makes the best of it. ("we now return/ To claim our just inheritance of old,/Surer to prosper than prosperity.")

He is unyielding about the big picture and the goal. ("I give not Heav'n for lost.")

He invites input about the best way to proceed from the others. But he allows neither the rash nor the timid to prevail.

Instead he devises a synthesis, but he is cagey enough to have his lieutenant make the actual proposal. He introduces new information (Earth and Man) into the debate when it will best support his plan. And he also devises an unprecedented strategy--still much in use by the weak in our world--asynchronous warfare.

Since they can't win by force, they will also employ propaganda. They will: "Seduce them to our party, that their God/May prove their foe and with repenting hand/Abolish His own works." (Incidentally, quoting scripture, Genesis 6:7)

A good leader never expects a follower to undertake something he is unwilling to do himself. Satan tells the others that he would "ill become this throne" if "difficulty or danger could deter" him from attempting to cross Chaos and find Earth. Frankly, I wonder: is there is a bolder, more heroic explorer in all of literature?

Lastly, he demonstrates his understanding of the psychology of his followers by shrewdly announcing that no one will be allowed to accompany him. This precludes anyone from getting credit for volunteering after the fact knowing they would be refused. ("winning cheap the high repute/Which he through hazard huge must earn."

As he departs his followers actually get to do what they wanted anyway; they go off to colonize Hell. But when (if) Satan returns he will be their acclaimed leader forever. Similarly, he convinces his adversaries Sin and Death to let him go by showing them that their interests too can be advanced if he succeeds in his mission.

I fear Satan is going to prove a formidable foe for poor old Adam and Eve!

Roger asked "Still, we like him. Does that say something about him, or something about us?"


Good question. How often are we (the public) swayed by that charismatic figure to do, or think things, that we wouldn't undertake normally. I can think of a few historic figures who shares Satan's skill and charisma.

Jeremy wrote: "C.S. Lewis states that is easier for an author to create an evil character than a good one. We can more easily see ourselves in the evil character. We just have to take away some of who we are. We cannot as easily add to our character to connect with a truly good character. I think this is an insightful observation."

Good point. But, it is also true that evil, unhappy or tragic characters tend to have more things happen to them than you're average normal good man on the street. That's why more books are written about unhappy families than happy ones. They are simply more interesting.

Zeke wrote: "Occasionally, I see that someone is using Shakespeare's characters as the basis for a book, article or seminar on leadership. I think they could do worse than using the Satan of Book II as a model...."

It would be an interesting job to sell those courses ;) Any ideas for a course title?

What an interesting read and what an exciting discussion. I must admit to feeling a sense of despair when I was told that we were reading this poem. I have always avoided Milton. I thought that he would be hard going, dull and self righteous. I couldn't have been more wrong. Thanks for choosing this book guys

Tom wrote: "I im not mistaken he narrated the poem to his daughters. Thant must have been an uncomfortable moment in the process"

Incest stories have become common in the last couple of decades, but I don't think they would be common in the 17th century, except as horrifying drama, like the story of Oedipus. Such incest was unthinkable in real life, and so probably unthought. I suppose Milton includes this detail to convey unspeakable degradation.

Also, consider how incest supports the allegory: Satan is grand, powerful, majestic, but flawed, and Sin springs out of his head. At first he finds Sin attractive and consorts with her, but that eventually transforms her into the hideous monster we see, with devouring wolves living in her womb, whom Satan does not even recognize. And the union produces Death.

Two things puzzle me about Sin:

(1) God evidently trusted her with the keys to Hell. She seems a poorly chosen gatekeeper. It seems like God makes a show of locking the devils in Hell, but provides an obvious method of escape.

(2) Sin seems to know, or be willing to state, what Satan doesn't or isn't: that rebellion against God is doomed to failure. See lines 768-770:

And fields were fought in Heav'n; wherein remaind
(For what could else) to our Almighty Foe
Cleer Victory, to our part loss and rout

When I read, at the start of book 2, of the demons, waiting in heaven for their master’s return, (Lines 564- 628 in my edition) two thoughts came to mind.

1) (This refers to Line 564- that begins "of good and ill they argued...) How we often create false philosophies to justify actions that we feel guilty about or to console us when we suffer from situations that we have brought on ourselves)
2) I am forced, on reading the demons discussion concerning their next move (at the start of book 2), to think of those individuals (Like Milton) who fought on the side of the Common wealth in the civil war and are hiding away disillusioned and frightened, maybe consoling themselves with false philosophies (or debating revenge). In addition, I am forced to think of a time when King Charles and his cronies were doing the same. Much of the discussion, undertaken by the demons, at the start of book 2, would surely have been mirrored repeatedly in both Charles’ exiled court in France and, later, in the many houses belonging to ex-common wealth officials.

Vikz wrote: "When I read, at the start of book 2, of the demons, waiting in heaven for their master’s return, (Lines 564- 628 in my edition) two thoughts came to mind.

1) (This refers to Line 564- that begins..."

It struck me that the idle demons do pretty much what people do on Earth when they're idle: sports, pointless debates, storytelling, singing, exploring. The exploring recalls the voyages of exploration of Milton's time and the previous century.

Yes, and they are obviously men too:D:D.

Roger wrote: "Tom wrote: "I im not mistaken he narrated the poem to his daughters. Thant must have been an uncomfortable moment in the process"

Incest stories have become common in the last couple of decades..."

Incest is much more common than we suppose in our own societies Roger, sibling incest especially, as well as being quite normal in some others. It would be the biblical proscriptions against it, as with homosexuality, that would make it frightening to 17thC folk, and to some today. It is legal in some parts of Europe and has always happened in isolated communities everywhere:-

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,5...

MadgeUK wrote: "Roger wrote: "Tom wrote: "I im not mistaken he narrated the poem to his daughters. Thant must have been an uncomfortable moment in the process"

Incest stories have become common in the last coupl..."

Please do not make assumptions about how common we suppose incest to be, or how that compares to its real incidence. That is both impertinent and irrelevant.

I submit that 17th century folk found parent-child incest to be not frightening, but abhorrent, just as 21st century people do. The revulsion against such incest is not just Biblical. It is widespread--common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and in fact almost every religion and culture (if not quite all).

Zeke wrote: "Occasionally, I see that someone is using Shakespeare's characters as the basis for a book, article or seminar on leadership. I think they could do worse than using the Satan of Book II as a model...."

I think he's already hard at work in Washington and on Wall Street.

Roger wrote: "Please do not make assumptions about how common we suppose incest to be ...That is both impertinent and irrelevant"

?? I was answering your comment that 'such incest was unthinkable in real life and so probably unthought' with the comment that it is more common than we think - then and now. Which is not an assumption on my part but is a based on sociological surveys which I have read. Some people will have found it abhorrent, others will not, depending on the society in which they lived (as the newspaper link illustrated). When families in small houses/rooms shared beds, as in the 17C, historians have found that incest was more common. I would submit that it was likely to be common enough in Milton's day, despite the abhorrence of it, and that his horrific picture could have been a deliberate warning against it. The biblical and cultural warnings against incest are, after all, sensible, given the genetic problems which can arise from inbreeding, which were probably suspected long before science established it via DNA etc.

Zeke: In Father-Daughter Incest in Paradise Lost Noam Flinker writes that Satan, Sin and Death are a parody of the Holy Trinity. And in The Alimentary Structures of Incest in Paradise Lost Minaz Jooma writes that Milton scholarship over the last fifteen years has shown a persistent attention to the question of sexuality in Paradise Lost. 'Even among scholars who hold self-consciously opposed positions such as those of the so-called feminist and opposition camps of Milton criticism, there is a general consensus that sees Adam and Eve's marital relations as temperate, licit sexuality. Within this consensus there are critics who are primarily concerned with what they identify as "licit" marital sex, and those that focus on "illicit" sex. The latter is usually defined as sexual expression that lies beyond the prelapsarian edenic marriage, and criticism of this kind has tended to concentrate on the pointedly incestuous union of Satan and his daughter, Sin. The Satan-Sin incest is commonly seen as a deliberately shocking parody of other socio-familial relations in the poem that serve, by their propriety, to define right relations between man and woman within the poem's broader framework of proper relations established by God.'

You also raised the question of witchcraft elsewhere and this too is pertinent to the incest theme because in the 16/17C witches were often accused of incestous relationships.

(Milton seems to be writing of a Satan with an Oedipus complex long before Freud wrote that 'the male [Satan:] completely identifies himself with the father [God:]. All the instincts, the loving, the grateful, the sensual, the defiant, the self assertive and the independent - all are gratified in the wish to be the father of himself.')

Thank you Madge. That was what I was looking for when I asked the question @ 11 upthread.

Zeke wrote: "Occasionally, I see that someone is using Shakespeare's characters as the basis for a book, article or seminar on leadership. I think they could do worse than using the Satan of Book II as a model...."

My first thought when reading the first half of this book was "Oh my God, this sounds just like a board meeting with Satan as CEO capably playing and manipulating his board of directors." You're right. He's an extremely effective leader.

And then, of course, he displays bravado and courage when he takes it upon himself to find a way out of hell to earth:
"But I should ill become this throne, O Peers,
And this imperial sovereignty, adorned
With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed
And judged of public moment in the shape
Of difficulty or danger, could deter
Me from attempting.'

If you strip the biblical allegory from this and approach it as just a story, Satan is a very appealing character here. I find it interesting that Milton introduces him in such a compelling fashion in the first two books, and leaves God as a somewhat calculating and aloof presence entirely off the stage.

Thanks Kate. Also, when reading your post, I just noticed his (ironic?) use of the word Peers to describe his followers.

In Book I we saw a passage about ripping minerals from the earth. Now we find:

...Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave..."

If I were writing a book about Darwin's theory of evolution, I might use this as the epigraph.

I think Milton would have found strange and absurd the notion that aversion to incest is culturally determined, or that is due to the dangers of inbreeding. He's not warning against incest any more than he's warning against having children born out of your head. He's using the horror of incest to express the horror of sin.

Roger wrote: "He's not warning against incest any more than he's warning against having children born out of your head. He's using the horror of incest to express the horror of sin. "

That's an interesting thought and one of the things that is puzzling me with the first two books. It's the use of language. Culturally we are conditioned to respond negatively and viscerally against incest. Kind of "Ewww, yuck!". But Sin is an abstraction. As a concept it doesn't have emotional baggage. So in his use of language, Milton creates a very powerful scene full of emotional imagery and feelings. And it is very sexual and depraved, so it then takes an effort of intellectual will on the part of the reader to get back to the underlying message, i.e. the horror of sin. Most readers aren't going to see the need to make that backwards step. So you have Milton's very language sabotaging the point he is trying to get across.

It happens over and over again; stirring language that makes the reader emotionally respond to Satan and then forces him/her to have to think intellectually to get back to God.

Roger wrote: "But he's just finished claiming precedence. He speaks in fine and noble words, shows magnificent indominability, but is talking rot. Still, we like him. Does that say something about him, or something about us?
"

Great question!

Tom wrote: "I im not mistaken he narrated the poem to his daughters. "

I have read elsewhere that that's an invention, that his daughters were pretty much illiterate. I don't know which is the truth. If it is a myth, it's gotten a long life in large part because of the paintings of Delacroix
http://www.artofeurope.com/delacroix/...
and Fuseli.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/...

Yes, I believe quite a lot of what his nephews wrote about him has been queried by various critics. On the other hand, when he was dictating PL after the Restoratian he was poor and blind so he may not have been able to afford anyone other than his daughters as amanuensis. It was Samuel Johnsom who wrote that they were illiterate but he was a severe critic of Milton so may have been exaggerating.

Commenting on Johnson Barbara Lewalski writes that 'Deborah, the youngest daughter could evidently write and kept a school for children later in life...It seems unlikely that Milton would simply refuse to have his daughters taught to write, if for no other reason than that the presence of able scribes in his own household would have been a godsend to him. Perhaps his elder daughters would not learn readily...He had valued such learned women as Lady Ranelagh and Lady Margaret Ley, and had any of his daughters been keenly interested in books it is hard to believe that he would not have responded.'

Roger wrote: "I think Milton would have found strange and absurd the notion that aversion to incest is culturally determined, or that is due to the dangers of inbreeding. He's not warning against incest any mor..."

He spent 20 years as a political pamphleteer - a Goebbels to Cromwell - so perhaps I see him as still dispensing some propaganda.

Kate wrote: "If you strip the biblical allegory and approach it just as a story... "

And of course it is the first two books which are thought to be an allegory of the Putney Debates and certain events of the Civil War, with Cromwell, whom he admired, as Satan. Could the aloofness of God be interpreted as Milton saying 'Where were you when Cromwell/The Commonwealth needed you?'

Roger wrote: "I think Milton would have found strange and absurd the notion that aversion to incest is culturally determined, or that is due to the dangers of inbreeding. He's not warning against incest any mor..."

What I find most interesting in this passage is that Satan is enamored of Sin because he sees in Sin his "perfect image." Sin is made in Satan's image as man is made in God's.

The birth of Sin is asexual -- Sin erupts "as a goddess armed" from the head of Satan, as the result of Satan's conspiring against God. (The parallel is Athena emerging from the head of Zeus -- maybe there's more to it, but I think the main point here is that the birth is asexual and the progeny is cunning and powerful.)

The birth of Death, on the other hand, is from the "joy" that Satan finds in Sin. I think the meaning here is symbolic. (What did Sin do to deserve this fate? Nothing, it seems, except be born from the mind of Satan.)

And finally, Death "inflamed with lust", rapes Sin, and would devour her except that "he knows his end with mine involved." The end of Sin is the end of Death. (...whenever that shall be; so fate pronounced.)

I think what Milton is doing is giving us a genealogy of sorts. It all starts with Satan's conspiracy against God, which engenders offspring that get progressively more destructive, and will finally end with the Son's triumph over Sin.

Is the reference Milton is making here to John 1:15 of the KJV? "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

I came across this commentary on lust (referring to Job 31) by Matthew Henry, a non-conformist divine and commentator who wrote a decade after Milton but shows the same Puritan ethos:-

31:9-15 All the defilements of the life come from a deceived heart. Lust is a fire in the soul: those that indulge it, are said to burn. It consumes all that is good there, and lays the conscience waste. It kindles the fire of God's wrath, which, if not quenched by the blood of Christ, will consume even to eternal destruction. It consumes the body; it consumes the substance. Burning lusts bring burning judgments.'

Kate wrote: "Roger wrote: "He's not warning against incest any more than he's warning against having children born out of your head. He's using the horror of incest to express the horror of sin. "

That's an in..."

I think the problem is with moderns, who have been conditioned to suppress the natural revulsion at sexual depravity. For Milton, since sin seems naturally attractive, he links it allegorically with something naturally disgusting. In this way he hopes to help his readers feel emotionally what they already know intellectually--that sin is as abhorrent as incest.

This may belong in the thread about Milton the poet. But as I have been following this animated discussion about incest and sin, I am reminded of the emphasis Rogers, in the Yale lectures, puts on Milton's aspirations to model pure behavior so that he could be worthy of becoming a poet.

Roger wrote: "I think the problem is with moderns, who have been conditioned to suppress the natural revulsion at sexual depravity..."

I think that since Milton wrote PL in the middle of the libertine excesses of Charles II's court we can safely say that suppression of "the natural revulsion at sexual depravity" is not a modern phenomenon.

MadgeUK wrote: "Is the reference Milton is making here to John 1:15 of the KJV? "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

I came across this commen..."

That's it exactly, Madge, except that it is James 1:15. Here it is in context:

James 1:14-16 (King James Version)

14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

16Do not err, my beloved brethren.

Milton is writing a poem and is using symbolism. He is also writing an epic and is writing primarily to those who know the previous great epics of Homer, Virgil, Dante, etc. This imagery would be no surprise at all to those to whom Milton wrote, and they would never think to equate it to human incest. He is also almost exactly mimicking Spencer's The Faerie Queene here.

I would urge those who do not yet know the classical epics to come back and read Paradise Lost again after you do so. Things will make much more sense then. And of course it would be a tremendous help if you were also saturated in the Scriptures as was Milton. I'm not being critical of anyone here, just stating my own experience about reading Milton before I knew the classics and then reading him again afterward. The poem change wonderfully!

MadgeUK wrote: "Is the reference Milton is making here to John 1:15 of the KJV? "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

I came across this commen..."

Yes, but James rather than John. The notes in the Hughes edition also reference "John Gower's personification of Sin as the incestuous mother of Death in the Mirrour de l'Omme (205-37) and Salandra's use of the same allegory in the Adamo caduto". I am not familiar with either, but presumably they both have roots in James. Which means Milton's treatment is somewhat less inventive that I thought. :(

Laurele wrote: "I would urge those who do not yet know the classical epics to come back and read Paradise Lost again after you do so..."

Actually this is working wonderfully for people like me who read some of those classics so long ago that they are pretty dusty. Ask a naive question and get a really fascinating and informative discussion in response.

Kate wrote: "I think that since Milton wrote PL in the middle of the libertine excesses of Charles II 's court...

Laurel: I can't agree that readers of PL would not also equate the imagery with human incest, especially as one of the most popular plays of the day (before the Puritans banned the theatres) was John Ford's Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633), a play about incest, which was suppressed and then became popular again during the Restoration. And to take up Kate's point, the sexual excesses at the Stuart courts are well documented and it might be said that Puritanism was a backlash against that excess. There was therefore good reason for Puritans like Milton to inveigh against it whenever they could. Milton wrote several tracts about the right to divorce and there are symbolic inferences about marriage and divorce in PL (which Virginia Woolf called 'peevish'), so why not human incest. There are after all a number of sexual allusions in PL and sex is a subject which we know concerned Milton and his sexually proscriptive society. I still see Milton the propagandist and pamphleteer lurking beneath the religious imagery:).

Amanda wrote: "Since the incest between Satan and his daughter sin is allegorical and not necessarily literal, perhaps we should focus more on what Milton meant by it spiritually, as opposed to what he may or may..."

Thank you for that redirection, and your pertinent comments on it. I agree that it's fascinating that Milton made Satan the father of sin; it's not clear when this happened, but it suggests that for Milton, God created virtue but not sin, but God did allow sin to be created.

BTW, I also agree that we can't take the birth relationship literally; do we have to, then, consider God as having given some sort of traditional birth to his son, and if so who would have been the mother?

Anything in the Bible that covers this, for our Biblical scholars?

Kate wrote: "If you strip the biblical allegory from this and approach it as just a story, Satan is a very appealing character here. I find it interesting that Milton introduces him in such a compelling fashion in the first two books, and leaves God as a somewhat calculating and aloof presence entirely off the stage.
"

This also struck many of Milton's first readers, who were probably much more concerned about the apparent heroification of Satan than we are today.

Amanda wrote: "What do you guys think about Milton's characterization of Chaos? Why is Chaos king OUTSIDE of hell? I would imagine chaos would be a characteristic of hell itself."

But God created the Earth out of chaos, didn't he? And he could hardly have created Earth out of aspects of hell, since at least initially he intended man to be close to angelic status.

I have to be away for a couple of days, may be a day late in posting Book 3's thread (Laurel, if you want to step in and post it Tues evening if I haven't, feel free), but I'm interested in what people think of the three points of view expressed in the great debate.

We have Moloch presenting the militant view -- we may have lost the battle, but we can still win the war. Up and at 'em, fellow soldiers!!

We have Belial, basically counseling capitulation and waiting for the wrath of God to subside and allow the rebels re-entry into his good graces. (Is it really fair of Milton to call this advocating "ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth"?)

Then we have Mammon counseling competition with Heaven, to make their own world in Hell and make it as fine a place to live as Heaven. (Puritans, we may be exiled to the New World, but we'll build an even better country out of that savage wilderness.)

Which of these argument do you consider most persuasive, and why? If you were a fallen angel and had to vote on these three options, which would you vote for?

Everyman: BTW, I also agree that we can't take the birth relationship literally; do we have to, then, consider God as having given some sort of traditional birth to his son, and if so who would have been the mother?

Another oddity, pointed out in the interesting lecture that was linked, is that of physical warfare among immortals.

It is interesting to read the comments even though I am not reading the book. I wish I was, really...

I am reminded that there have been utopian groups throughout history who have claimed that sex and procreation are the root cause of trouble in this world.

We "see through a glass darkly" according to the Bible. It's interesting to me that there are so many different views of the glass.