Mac Flecknoe Poem By:

John Dryden

English literature Semester IST

Compiled by : Dr. Shamas Ud Din Malik

Department of English

Government Degree College for Women Pulwama, 2021

A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.

All human things are subject to decay,

And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:

This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young

Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:

In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute

Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.

This aged prince now flourishing in peace,

And blest with issue of a large increase,

Worn out with business, did at length debate

To settle the succession of the State:

And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit

To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;

Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he

Should only rule, who most resembles me:

Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,

Mature in dullness from his tender years.

Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he

Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

But Shadwell never deviates into sense.

Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,

Strike through and make a lucid interval;

But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,

His rising fogs prevail upon the day:

Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye,

And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:

Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,

And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.

Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,

Thou last great prophet of tautology:

Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,

Was sent before but to prepare thy way;

And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came

To teach the nations in thy greater name.

My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung

When to King John of Portugal I sung,

Was but the prelude to that glorious day,

When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way,

With well tim'd oars before the royal barge,

Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge;

And big with hymn, commander of an host,

The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd.

Methinks I see the new Arion sail,

The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.

At thy well sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore

The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar:

Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call,

And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall.

About thy boat the little fishes throng,

As at the morning toast, that floats along.

Sometimes as prince of thy harmonious band

Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.

St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,

Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme:

Though they in number as in sense excel;

So just, so like tautology they fell,

That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore

The lute and sword which he in triumph bore

And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.

Here stopt the good old sire; and wept for joy

In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.

All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,

That for anointed dullness he was made.

Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,

(The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)

An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight,

There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:

A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains,

Of all the pile an empty name remains.

From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,

Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.

Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep,

And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.

Near these a nursery erects its head,

Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;

Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,

Where infant punks their tender voices try,

And little Maximins the gods defy.

Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,

Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;

But gentle Simkin just reception finds

Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds:

Pure clinches, the suburbian muse affords;

And Panton waging harmless war with words.

Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,

Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.

For ancient Decker prophesi'd long since,

That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,

Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense:

To whom true dullness should some Psyches owe,

But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow;

Humorists and hypocrites it should produce,

Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.

Now Empress Fame had publisht the renown,

Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.

Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet,

From near Bun-Hill, and distant Watling-street.

No Persian carpets spread th'imperial way,

But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay:

From dusty shops neglected authors come,

Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum.

Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay,

But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way.

Bilk'd stationers for yeoman stood prepar'd,

And Herringman was Captain of the Guard.

The hoary prince in majesty appear'd,

High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.

At his right hand our young Ascanius sat

Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.

His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,

And lambent dullness play'd around his face.

As Hannibal did to the altars come,

Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome;

So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,

That he till death true dullness would maintain;

And in his father's right, and realm's defence,

Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.

The king himself the sacred unction made,

As king by office, and as priest by trade:

In his sinister hand, instead of ball,

He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale;

Love's kingdom to his right he did convey,

At once his sceptre and his rule of sway;

Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young,

And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung,

His temples last with poppies were o'er spread,

That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head:

Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,

On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.

So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,

Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.

Th'admiring throng loud acclamations make,

And omens of his future empire take.

The sire then shook the honours of his head,

And from his brows damps of oblivion shed

Full on the filial dullness: long he stood,

Repelling from his breast the raging god;

At length burst out in this prophetic mood:

Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign

To far Barbadoes on the Western main;

Of his dominion may no end be known,

And greater than his father's be his throne.

Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen;

He paus'd, and all the people cry'd Amen.

Then thus, continu'd he, my son advance

Still in new impudence, new ignorance.

Success let other teach, learn thou from me

Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.

Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;

Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.

Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,

Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;

Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,

And in their folly show the writer's wit.

Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,

And justify their author's want of sense.

Let 'em be all by thy own model made

Of dullness, and desire no foreign aid:

That they to future ages may be known,

Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.

Nay let thy men of wit too be the same,

All full of thee, and differing but in name;

But let no alien Sedley interpose

To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.

And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull,

Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;

But write thy best, and top; and in each line,

Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.

Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,

And does thy Northern Dedications fill.

Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,

By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.

Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,

And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.

Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part;

What share have we in Nature or in Art?

Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,

And rail at arts he did not understand?

Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein,

Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?

Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,

Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce?

When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,

As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?

But so transfus'd as oil on waters flow,

His always floats above, thine sinks below.

This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,

New humours to invent for each new play:

This is that boasted bias of thy mind,

By which one way, to dullness, 'tis inclin'd,

Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,

And in all changes that way bends thy will.

Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence

Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.

A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,

But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin of wit.

Like mine thy gentle numbers feebly creep,

Thy Tragic Muse gives smiles, thy Comic sleep.

With whate'er gall thou sett'st thy self to write,

Thy inoffensive satires never bite.

In thy felonious heart, though venom lies,

It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame

In keen iambics, but mild anagram:

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command

Some peaceful province in acrostic land.

There thou may'st wings display and altars raise,

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

Or if thou would'st thy diff'rent talents suit,

Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.

He said, but his last words were scarcely heard,

For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd,

And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.

Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,

Born upwards by a subterranean wind.

The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,

With double portion of his father's art.

Summary by sirafzal72 on June 23, 2020

MAC FLECKNOE BY JOHN DRYDEN

INTRODUCTION

In this post, you will be introduced to famous satiric poem Macflecknoe.by John Dryden. As you get along with the post, you are expected to understand for yourself why he is considered a noted satirist and a representative writer of his time.

OCCASION OF MAC FLECKNOE

Before we come to the text of the poem, we need to grasp the “story” behind it. That will definitely aid our understanding of the lines.

Macflecknoe (1682) is a devastating attack on Dryden”s fellow dramatist Shadwell. Originally a friend, Shadwell had quarrelled with Dryden and attacked his play, Aurangzeb. The poem we study is Dryden”s scathing retort. Shadwell is ridiculed by being represented as the “Mac” or “Son” of Richard Flecknoe, a contemptible Irish minor poet and playwright whom Dryden addresses as the unchallenged monarch of “all the realms of nonsense.” Shadwell is, therefore, the true heir in meaninglessness and inconsequence.

We must, however, remember that Shadwell was actually a fairly successful and well- thought of playwright. The ignominy is undeserved.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND: CONTEXTUALISING MAC

FLECKNOE

No significant literary work of the Restoration exists independent of strong connections with the contemporary political scenario. There is also a political undertone in this satire. Shadwell is a Whig, member of a political party that opposed the king. The pro-monarchy party was that of the Tories. You can definitely make out on which side Dryden”s sympathies lay. A feud existed between the Whigs and Tories regarding the succession of the Duke of York, the Catholic brother of King Charles II, to the throne in 1680. A look at the pictorial depiction of the Stuart Line and the House of Hanover will help you understand the complex web. While the Tories were supporters of the King and Duke of York, the Whigs were opposed to the succession of the Duke of York to the English throne. It is believed that Charles II sought the help of Dryden in this connection, and shortly afterwards, Absalom and Achitophel, a political satire was written.

The identity of Shadwell as a Whig is also ridiculed by Dryden who is a Tory, in Mac Flecknoe. Hence there is political satire mixed with personal satire.

As a learner, you will be expected to differentiate between these two, and reason for yourselves, the factors that have made Macflecknoe an abiding literary text despite its highly topical nature.

SUMMARY WITH CRITICAL COMMENTARY

Dryden imagines a situation where the aged king Flecknoe, monarch of “all the realms of nonsense” decides to ensure succession to his throne (This theme would be of great contemporary relevance in Dryden”s time). Among his numerous progeny, he selects Shadwell as most worthy. This is because Shadwell resembles him the closest, and “never deviates into sense”. The extent of his inanity is presented in several ways through images of light and darkness and comparison of his actual corpulence and inertia with huge Oak trees. Notice carefully and you find a ring of Chaucer”s style of humour and satire in Dryden too. We understand that the qualities Flecknoe looks for in Shadwell are negative qualities in a human being, nonetheless, these very aspects are glorified. You will definitely find parallels here with Chaucer”s “extolling‟ of the Wife of Bath (whom you have read) and other characters whose flaws/vices are censured not by criticism but by glorification!

Flecknoe sees himself as a mere forerunner (L30 onwards) preparing the way for the grand arrival of Shadwell from the north (Norwich). Popular playwrights Heywood and Shirley were only replicas of the prototype Shadwell. On a glorious ceremonial occasion Shadwell, leading a host of minor musicians, had sung before the royal barge of the English king during a Thames river pageant. Flecknoe considers this a greater achievement than his own stint at the court of King John of Portugal. Lines 40-62 elaborate mockingly on the performance- at Shadwell”s desperate efforts to produce a

semblance of rhythm and harmony by tapping his feet, waving hands while fingering a screeching lute. Aided by a crowd of similarly ungifted musicians, the final result is so unmusical and dull, that overcome with emotion, the father concludes that Shadwell alone is fit for the throne.

On the fringes of the walled city of London also known as Augusta where once stood a watchtower is now the haunt of prostitutes and brothel houses. Here existed a school for training of young actors and actresses. Dryden sneers at the rant, bombastic language and exaggerated mannerisms the players used to create an effect. This was the cradle of substandard actors, where great dramatists like Fletcher and Jonson could never be seen. Interestingly, Flecknoe deemed this as the most suitable platform or throne for Shadwell. It seems Dekker had foretold of such an event.

The following section (ll 92-129) is a description of the coronation in all its pomp and splendour. The tone is mocking of course but every step is faithfully presented. (You will see similar mock-heroic effects later perfected by Alexander Pope in The Rape of the Lock) Crowds came from remote areas, (i.e countrified, unrefined dregs) from Watling Street and Bunhill Fields. (From the tone in which the multitudes are referred to, you can well make out the intense elitism that pervaded poetry of this period, and also understand at a later point, why the Romantic revolution came about in poetry). The Guard of Honour was presented by petty officers (Yeoman), unpaid stationers, and captained by

Herringman- Shadwell”s real-life publisher. The red carpet was a patchwork cobbled from the works of Heywood and Shirley mutilated by Shadwell to construct his own dramas. Flecknoe appears in procession carried aloft on the chariot of his own dullness and Shadwell- aka Ascarius, the future hope of London, is seated on his right. Shadwell takes the oath of office- to uphold dullness and wage eternal war with good sense. Flecknoe anoints him. Instead of the customary orb and sceptre that mark royal power, a tankard of beer and Love’s Kingdom is placed in his hands and he is crowned with a wreath of poppies. At this climactic moment, twelve owls fly past him, signifying the fulfilment of a prophecy. The crowds cheer at these signs of future empire.

In an outburst of prophetic frenzy, Flecknoe blesses his dutiful son (ll 130- 166): that he may hold sway in space and time from Ireland to Barbados and even beyond; that his works will better his father”s in quantity and quality of meaninglessness. In the Prologue to his play Virtuoso, Shadwell had regretted the many defects in composition due to lack of time.

May Shadwell continue to labour long and hard for such insane results. George Etherege created foolish characters and heroes which delighted audiences and reflected his cleverness. May the characters he creates be clones (dummies) of Shadwell, serving to expose his innate dullness. Sir Charles Sedley had written the Prologue to Epsom Wells. Dryden hints perhaps he had helped Shadwell in the composition itself. Flecknoe advises Shadwell to rely on his innate lack of wit when creating the florid, bombastic speeches of Sir Formal (a character in Shadwell’s play)

and not imitate anyone else as these dialogues come very naturally and effortlessly to him.

Flecknoe continues with another reference to Shadwell”s corpulence. Ben Jonson too had a large paunch. He warns Shadwell not to be swayed by friends who hail him as another Jonson, for similarity lies only in size and not in stature/ genius. He is a true son of his father in poor literary judgment, poor imitations of superior writers and in plagiary. These thefts however merely demonstrate the substantial worthiness of Etherege and Fletcher while scum- like Shadwell”s works float on the surface. (ll 167- 180)

The list of Shadwell”s assets continues. Whatever type of character he invents has a natural tilt towards dullness. His huge girth produces little sense. His poetry is weak and fails to move; his tragic plays are laughable and comedies boring and satires have no barb. Since fame will not come in writing poetry or plays, Flecknoe suggests Shadwell write lightweight trick verses (ACROSTICS) and sing them to himself. (ll 181- 204)

At this point, Bruce and Longville (characters in a Shadwell play) pull Flecknoe down a trap door, and his cloak/ mantle borne aloft by the wind alights on his son as a twofold blessing of longwinded emptiness.

DISCUSSION ON KEY ISSUES

We have gathered that Macflecknoe is intended to mock on or satirize Shadwell. All satire degrades- a person or a whole body- by evoking scorn, contempt and laughter. A satire can attack viciously or in a gentle manner using abuse or wit. Frequently the author uses one of two models. They either employ elevated address or high- flown comparison to describe a petty subject or deflate pomposity, self- importance and arrogance by belittling them.

Dryden uses the first method in Macflecknoe treating the idea like an epic/ heroic poem in both form and style, only to ridicule Shadwell as trivial or unimportant. Like the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, the minor poet Flecknoe too is the ruler of the great realm of Nonsense. Epic poetry concerns great actions or events involving legendary heroes and is usually of national importance. Homer”s Odyssey, Virgil”s Aeneid or our own Ramayana and Mahabharata are such poems. The characters are presented as larger than life often by adopting formulas and fixed epithets; tracing a global lineage; the supernatural and the marvellous is associated with them, and along with an elevated tone similies, long comparisons or descriptions, invocations are standard devices.

Dryden uses the epic machinery with remarkable success. The introduction (Exordium) establishes the theme of “succession”, a matter of profound relevance to the contemporary British as well as Flecknoe. (This remark is a glance at the rumbles over royal succession elaborated in Absalom and Achitophel.) Shadwell is chosen amongst a

large family as most “fit” to “wage” “immortal war” on “with” or intelligence and till “death true dullness to maintain.”(Satan in Paradise Lost Book I vows to wage immortal war against God). Set passages feature in epics describing the valiant hero arming for battle or vast armies ranked behind his leadership. Milton, for instance, shows Satan as huge as Leviathan, his spear the tallest Norwegian pine, his shield the full Moon over Tuscany (Paradise Lost book i). Dryden jeers at Shadwell”s impressive physical size as flatulence and inertia of “thoughtless” i.e. lacking thought solemnly like “oaks”. While riff-raff congregate for Shadwell’s coronation; through soldiers or fallen angels numerous as fallen autumn leaves stand behind Aeneas and Lucifer. Supernatural happenings are often foretold where heroes are concerned. In this case, twelve owls fly past Shadwell, a parody of the twelve vultures saluting Romulus.

Many such parallels can be found on a close reading of the text. Satire thrives on allusions especially if they are contemporary and local. These references heighten mockery by contrasts and similarities. Public memory will recall the pageantry on land and river associated with the Restoration and chortle over the parallels Dryden draws in his poem. In the political war, Shadwell, a Whig ( i.e. opposed to royal politics) is exposed as dedicating his works to the Duke of Newcastle and to his son The Earl of Ogle, to seek patronage. References to plays running in London theatres, recently published poems, dramatis personae- their behaviour, foibles and activities are liberally sprinkled through the lines adding to the bite of the lampoon. The given notes support this claim.

Dryden’s skill in the heroic couplet is evident in this poem. It rises to a grand style as required by an epic but the balanced epithets and the rhythms of common speech permit the deadly scorn to blaze through. Though no real epic simile is to be found, we can spot images plenty. Shadwell is presented in terms of less and more- “beams” of light to “fogs” and “night”, “floats” and “sinks”, the fishes clustering for the “breakfast toast” and finally the bathos of the coronation scene. Of his satires, Dryden says “It is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough. I avoided the mention of great crimes, — representing blind sides and little extravagances. Sadly Macflecknoe does lapse occasionally into coarseness and personal spite.

The position of Dryden in English literature is unquestioned. He made a notable contribution in prose, poetry and drama- as a literary critic and as a satirist. In place of slipshod and loose blank verse, he substituted the discipline of the heroic couplet as the Metre for all poetry for a whole century and turned satire into a poetic form.

SUMMING UP

In this post you have learnt about:

• The predominant satiric modes of the Restoration period. • The art of transcreating literary battles into abiding works of satire.

• The Neo-classical trends prevalent in the literature of the times, and how it became a medium of reflecting upon social mores.

• In comparison with the literature of other periods, you will also have noticed the remarkable absence of commoners from the elitist poetry of the times. In contrast, the foppery of the upper classes is a visible feature.

Batter My Heart

BY JOHN DONNE

ENGLISH LITERATURE SEMESTER IST , 2021

COMPILED BY: DR. SHAMAS UD DIN MALIK,

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

GOVERNMENT DEGREE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

PULWAMA

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Summary:

The speaker begins by asking God (along with Jesus and the Holy Ghost; together, they are the

Trinity that makes up the Christian "three-personed God") to attack his heart as if it were the

gates of a fortress town. The speaker wants God to enter his heart aggressively and violently,

instead of gently. Then, in line 5, the speaker explicitly likens himself to a captured town. He

tries to let God enter, but has trouble because the speaker's rational side seems to be in control.

At the "turn" of the poem (see the "Form and Meter" section for more on the importance of the

sonnet form and, specifically, the "turn"), the speaker admits that he loves God, and wants to be

loved, but is tied down to God's unspecified "enemy" instead, whom we can think of as Satan, or

possibly "reason." The speaker asks God to break the speaker's ties with the enemy, and to

bring the speaker to Him, not letting him go free. He then explains why he wants all of this,

reasoning with double meanings: he can't really be free unless God enslaves and excites him,

and he can't refrain from sex unless God carries him away and delights him.

Analysis

Lines 1-2

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

• The speaker begins by asking God (along with Jesus and the Holy Ghost; together, they make up the "three-personed God") to

attack his heart as if it were the gates of a fortress town.

• If you are caught up on the word "batter," note that back in medieval times, in order to break down the door of a fortress or castle,

you'd have to use a battering ram. It's a huge pole of wood, possibly with a ram carving on the front.

• He asks God to "batter" his heart, as opposed to what God has been doing so far: just knocking, breathing, shining, and trying to

help the speaker heal.

• Those actions are nice and all, but Donne wants something a little more intense. Scholars focus a lot on these verbs, and the

words are certainly stressed in the line (notice how you accent these verbs and pause between them when you read the poem out

loud), so let's break them down a bit.

• First of all, none of the verbs are particularly active. God asks to come in by knocking, which is nice, but he also just breathes and

shines, two things that he might do out of necessity — not choice. When we breathe, it's normally not because we choose to, and

the same applies to things that shine.

• The "mending" seems nice, but note that Donne says "seek to mend," and not just "mend." Does God really "seek to" do anything?

Doesn't He just do it, if he's all-powerful?

• So, what about the specific actions? Are they particularly significant? Well lots of scholars think that the three verbs mirror the set-

up of a "three-personed God" (the Christian notion of the Trinity). Thus, they associate the Father with power as he knocks but

ought to break, the Holy Ghost with breath as he breathes but ought to blow like a strong wind, and the Son with light as he shines

but ought to burn like fire.

• These actions make some sense as representative actions of each part of God, but other scholars argue that, based on the Bible,

it isn't clear which member of the Trinity should be understood to do which of the actions. The confusion about which aspect of

God does what appears to be purposeful.

• If the speaker wants to make things easier, he can very well put the verbs in the traditional order in which the Father, the Son, and

the Holy Ghost are normally described.

• But, the Trinity isn't the only way to read those verbs. Some scholars point out that these terms (especially when combined with

the other series of three verbs in line 4) all make sense in the context of metal- or glass-blowing (the process of shaping glass and

metal objects). In this way, scholars see the speaker as making God into a craftsman who can, like a glassblower, "blow" life into

the object (the speaker).

Lines 3-4 That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

• Lines 3-4 continue much like lines 1-2, with the speaker asking God to treat him violently.

• He asks God to "bend your force," which may mean to "make use of your power."

• More importantly, even though it takes him four full lines, the speaker finally gets to the point of why he's telling God to do all this.

His goal, as he puts it, is to "rise" and "stand" and become "new."

• This can work in two ways. First, there's the born-again angle, where the speaker asks to have a moment of religious epiphany. He

wants to recognize God's power, but he worries that the only way God will get through to him is by doing something violent and

completely overthrowing his life.

• On the other hand, "make me new" is probably a reference to the Christian idea that true happiness and salvation come only after

death, and that, in order to get into Heaven, earthly life must be a continual act of suffering. That may be why our speaker wants to

be abused and broken in the earthly world — so that he will be worthy for the afterlife.

• A quick note on the language here: read these lines aloud, and notice how the word "o'erthrow" makes you take a big pause and

change the rhythm of your speaking, and how violent and intense those alliterated b-words are ("break, blow, burn"). These words

get a lot of attention verbally, and it's a cool example of words' sounds reflecting their meaning. Onomatopoeia anyone?

Lines 5-6 I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

• Here comes the explanation of that whole "battering" business. The speaker compares himself to a town that is captured or

"usurped."

• The phrase "to another due" suggests that the town belongs to someone else, but it's tricky because we don't know who this

"someone" could be.

• Whose was it originally, and who took over? The likely possibility is that it was originally God's, and it was subsequently taken over

by another, but that doesn't help us figure out who the "other" is.

• In any case, the speaker wants to let God in, but he's unsuccessful so far.

• These lines are interesting in part because, unlike anywhere else in the rest of the poem, Donne actually uses a simile here instead

of a metaphor. Instead of saying, "I am a usurped town," he leaves more room between himself and the town by only saying that

they're similar.

• What's the big deal? Well, it suggests that the speaker is conscious of how unrealistic his requests are. Where, in the first few lines

he directs God to overthrow, break, blow, and burn him, it's not until this line that we know he's being metaphorical (instead of

actually wanting to be broken, burned, and so forth).

• The "oh" in line 6 is another linguistic choice worth mentioning. There are two ways we might see this:

• First, we can read it as the only moment of truly honest self-expression in the poem, where the speaker lets his words go without

careful control. In other words, the "oh" is the only word in the poem that isn't actually a word – it's more of a sound, a sigh, or an

exclamation. It's a different kind of language, and one we don't see elsewhere in the poem.

• If we read it as a sigh, it might lend this line some extra emotional pull if he seems sad that he can't let God in.

• On the other hand, you might think the "oh" is theatrical and overly dramatic, like a "woe-is-me!" moment.

Lines 7-8

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

• Our bet is that these are the trickiest lines in the poem for you. Us too. They're weird, but it

helps to put them into simple English: "Reason, my local ruler who works for you, should be

defending me, but he was captured, and revealed himself to be weak or unfaithful."

• We assume that the "you" to whom Reason is supposed to report is God.

• The whole idea guiding these lines is that God gave us reason (rationality) to defend ourselves

from evil, but now the speaker's reason seems to have turned on God (or is just incapable of

warding off evil), so the speaker is having trouble showing his faith in God.

• As we discuss in the "Speaker" section, the sense of entitlement is interesting. Check out the

back-to-back "me's" and the "should" in "Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend." It's all

about the speaker's self-interest, and he sounds like a spoiled little kid: "Me! Me! You should

defend me!"

• And, if we zoom out a bit, why on earth is he treating his ability to reason as if it were a real

person? The answer may be: so that he can pass the buck and blame this other person (who's

really God's responsibility, according to the speaker).

• If you think about it, the speaker actually blames God, through his representative (Reason) for

the speaker turning over to the enemy's side.

Lines 9-10

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

• When you get to line 9 of a sonnet, you know that you have to do a little extra work, since the

ninth line of a sonnet traditionally marks the "turn" in the poem, where the problem set up in

the first 8 lines begins to move towards a solution.

• To be honest, though, this line doesn't make for much of a turn at all. The simile of the fortress

ends here (until it's picked up again at "imprison"), but this line, like those before it, mainly

furthers the development of the speaker's desired relationship with God.

• He hints at no solution, but the line does mark a shift in tone. The speaker seems to be a bit

more candid and personal here, and he abandons some of the similes and metaphors that he

uses before. "Yet dearly I love you" is the most straightforward line we've had so far.

• "And would be loved fain," though, is a continuation of the kind of self-centeredness we see in

lines 7-8. He's saying "I'd be happy to be loved," just like you'd tell a friend "I'd be happy to help"

– he makes it sound a little like he's doing God a favor.

• What's more, the speaker quickly drops the straight-talk, and goes back into another metaphor:

he says he's "betroth'd," or engaged to marry, the "enemy."

• This word "enemy" is troublesome, because we don't know who it is. There's no one right

answer here, but our speaker may be referring to Satan.

• The question is, why did the speaker choose the metaphor of a wedding engagement? Why

didn't he just say, "I'm under the Devil's control, so help free me?"

• Perhaps an engagement implies that the speaker is cool with the whole thing and isn't forced

into this relationship with the enemy. Unlike in lines 5-8, where the speaker blamed Reason for

losing touch with God, here he seems to suggest that it is actually kind of his fault, since he

agrees to an engagement with the "enemy."

Lines 11-12

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

• Line 11 continues the train of thought in line 10, asking God to help him get out of this close

engagement with the enemy. He wants God to help him break the wedding "knot" he tied when

he was "betroth'd," and take him away from the enemy.

• What's absolutely key here is the word "again" – does it mean this isn't the first time the

speaker needed to ask God for help in getting away from the Devil?

• All of a sudden, we learn that these pleas to God may be a frequent occurrence. This can have a

major impact on our understanding of the poem. The speaker begins to look less like a poor guy

who's all-of-a-sudden blurting out his love for God the only way he knows how -- and more like a

con-artist who makes it seem like he's desperately in need, when, in fact, he's been down this

road a number of times.

• But, instead of thinking that the speaker has wanted a wedding knot broken before, we might

read "again" as referring to another time when God had to break a knot. (As if the speaker were

saying, "Sorry, God, you have to go through that whole knot-breaking thing again.")

• By this logic, "again" could be a reference to the moment in Genesis (in the Old Testament)

when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden because they follow Satan’s advice.

This way, when the speaker says, "Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again," he seems to say

"either divorce/untie me from Satan, or you'll have to break the knot between us, just as you did

with Adam."

• In line 12 (and on into line 13), the speaker seems to bring back the castle siege metaphor one

last time with "imprison," and rekindles the earlier debate about who had captured (or

imprisoned) the town in the first place.

• Here, again, the speaker refuses to make things clear, first asking God to imprison him, but only

so that he can be free. This all goes back to the Christian idea that a human must to suffer in

order to get to Heaven, and reminds us again that violence and aggressive behavior aren't

necessarily bad things in this poem, so long as God is in the driver’s seat.

Lines 13-14

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

1. These last two lines make it clear that the speaker loves those paradoxes and double meanings

that we struggle with all along. Both lines take the form of "If you don't ______, I can't be

______," but the speaker fills in that first blank with double entendres (words or phrases with

two possible meanings).

2. The first can be read as "If you don't excite me, I can't be free." If we read it that way, it's

possible that "excite" has sexual connotations, and this makes sense in light of the following

line.

3. But, we can also read line 13 as, "If you don't enslave me, I can't be free." Back in the day,

"enthrall" would also mean "enslave," so we should be aware of that possibility.

4. We can read line 14 as, "If you don't fill me with delight, I will never be able to refrain from sex."

Like "excite" in line 13, "fill me with delight" in this reading might carry some sexual

connotations.

5. Confusing, right? These lines leave us with some major paradoxes, refusing to pin down exactly

what the speaker wants from God.

6. As we see it, it seems that the speaker wants better access to God, and having been

unsuccessful in the past, demands that God reveal himself forcefully and powerfully.

7. In other words, the only way the speaker and his stubborn "reason" will be convinced of God's

power is to see an epic example of it. What's more, the speaker desperately wants to be

convinced, so he can be “saved.”

8. Still, it's hard to make the last line fit, mainly because you can't really become chaste. Either the

speaker is and always has been chaste, in which case he wouldn't have to worry about it, or he's

had sex but now wants to abstain.

9. But, if he wants to abstain, is more sex really the prescription?

10. And, if he wants this divine sexual encounter so much, then wouldn't that contradict the idea

that it is "rape"?

11. In the end, then, we might come to the conclusion that talking about God in human terms and

metaphors actually doesn't make sense. The kinds of rewards and interactions that God can

provide simply can't be described properly in human language, and that's why the speaker gets

so caught up in paradox and mixed metaphors.

Paradise Lost Book I

John Milton

English Literature-Semester IST

Session-2021

Compiled by: Dr. Shamas Ud Din Malik, Department of

English Government Degree college for women Pulwama

Summary

Milton opens Paradise Lost by formally declaring his poem’s subject:

humankind’s first act of disobedience toward God, and the consequences that

followed from it. The act is Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit of the

Tree of Knowledge, as told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In the first line,

Milton refers to the outcome of Adam and Eve’s sin as the “fruit” of the forbidden

tree, punning on the actual apple and the figurative fruits of their actions. Milton

asserts that this original sin brought death to human beings for the first time,

causing us to lose our home in paradise until Jesus comes to restore humankind to

its former position of purity.

Milton’s speaker invokes the muse, a mystical source of poetic inspiration, to sing

about these subjects through him, but he makes it clear that he refers to a different

muse from the muses who traditionally inspired classical poets by specifying that

his muse inspired Moses to receive the Ten Commandments and write Genesis.

Milton’s muse is the Holy Spirit, which inspired the Christian Bible, not one of the

nine classical muses who reside on Mount Helicon—the “Aonian mount” of I.15.

He says that his poem, like his muse, will fly above those of the Classical poets

and accomplish things never attempted before, because his source of inspiration is

greater than theirs. Then he invokes the Holy Spirit, asking it to fill him with

knowledge of the beginning of the world, because the Holy Spirit was the active

force in creating the universe.

Milton’s speaker announces that he wants to be inspired with this sacred

knowledge because he wants to show his fellow man that the fall of humankind

into sin and death was part of God’s greater plan, and that God’s plan is justified.

The beginning of Paradise Lost is similar in gravity and seriousness to the book

from which Milton takes much of his story: the Book of Genesis, the first book of

the Bible. The Bible begins with the story of the world’s creation, and Milton’s

epic begins in a similar vein, alluding to the creation of the world by the Holy

Spirit. The first two sentences, or twenty-six lines, of Paradise Lost are extremely

compressed, containing a great deal of information about Milton’s reasons for

writing his epic, his subject matter, and his attitudes toward his subject. In these

two sentences, Milton invokes his muse, which is actually the Holy Spirit rather

than one of the nine muses. By invoking a muse, but differentiating it from

traditional muses, Milton manages to tell us quite a lot about how he sees his

project. In the first place, an invocation of the muse at the beginning of an epic is

conventional, so Milton is acknowledging his awareness of Homer, Virgil, and

later poets, and signaling that he has mastered their format and wants to be part of

their tradition. But by identifying his muse as the divine spirit that inspired the

Bible and created the world, he shows that his ambitions go far beyond joining the

club of Homer and Virgil. Milton’s epic will surpass theirs, drawing on a more

fundamental source of truth and dealing with matters of more fundamental

importance to human beings. At the same time, however, Milton’s invocation is

extremely humble, expressing his utter dependence on God’s grace in speaking

through him. Milton thus begins his poem with a mixture of towering ambition and

humble self-effacement, simultaneously tipping his hat to his poetic forebears and

promising to soar above them for God’s glorification.

Milton’s approach to the invocation of the muse, in which he takes a classical

literary convention and reinvents it from a Christian perspective, sets the pattern

for all of Paradise Lost. For example, when he catalogs the prominent devils in

Hell and explains the various names they are known by and which cults

worshipped them, he makes devils of many gods whom the Greeks, Ammonites,

and other ancient peoples worshipped. In other words, the great gods of the

classical world have become—according to Milton—fallen angels. His poem

purports to tell of these gods’ original natures, before they infected humankind in

the form of false gods. Through such comparisons with the classical epic poems,

Milton is quick to demonstrate that the scope of his epic poem is much greater than

those of the classical poets, and that his worldview and inspiration is more

fundamentally true and all-encompassing than theirs. The setting, or world, of

Milton’s epic is large enough to include those smaller, classical worlds. Milton

also displays his world’s superiority while reducing those classical epics to the

level of old, nearly forgotten stories. For example, the nine muses of classical epics

still exist on Mount Helicon in the world hof Paradise Lost, but Milton’s muse

haunts other areas and has the ability to fly above those other, less-powerful

classical Muses. Thus Milton both makes himself the authority on antiquity and

subordinates it to his Christian worldview.

The Iliad and the Aeneid are the great epic poems of Greek and Latin, respectively,

and Milton emulates them because he intends Paradise Lost to be the first English

epic. Milton wants to make glorious art out of the English language the way the

other epics had done for their languages. Not only must a great epic be long and

poetically well-constructed, its subject must be significant and original, its form

strict and serious, and its aims noble and heroic. In Milton’s view, the story he will

tell is the most original story known to man, as it is the first story of the world and

of the first human beings. Also, while Homer and Virgil only chronicled the

journey of heroic men, like Achilles or Aeneas, Milton chronicles the tragic

journey of all men—the result of humankind’s disobedience. Milton goes so far as

to say that he hopes to “justify,” or explain, God’s mysterious plan for humankind.

Homer and Virgil describe great wars between men, but Milton tells the story of

the most epic battle possible: the battle between God and Satan, good and evil.

Immediately after the prologue, Milton raises the question of how Adam and Eve’s

disobedience occurred and explains that their actions were partly due to a serpent’s

deception. This serpent is Satan, and the poem joins him and his followers in Hell,

where they have just been cast after being defeated by God in Heaven.

Satan lies stunned beside his second-in-command, Beelzebub, in a lake of fire that

gives off darkness instead of light. Breaking the awful silence, Satan bemoans their

terrible position, but does not repent of his rebellion against God, suggesting that

they might gather their forces for another attack. Beelzebub is doubtful; he now

believes that God cannot be overpowered. Satan does not fully contradict this

assessment, but suggests that they could at least pervert God’s good works to evil

purposes. The two devils then rise up and, spreading their wings, fly over to the

dry land next to the flaming lake. But they can undertake this action only because

God has allowed them to loose their chains. All of the devils were formerly angels

who chose to follow Satan in his rebellion, and God still intends to turn their evil

deeds toward the good.

Once out of the lake, Satan becomes more optimistic about their situation. He calls

the rest of the fallen angels, his legions, to join him on land. They immediately

obey and, despite their wounds and suffering, fly up to gather on the plain. Milton

lists some of the more notable of the angels whose names have been erased from

the books of Heaven, noting that later, in the time of man, many of these devils

come to be worshipped as gods.

Among these are Moloch, who is later known as a god requiring human sacrifices,

and Belial, a lewd and lustful god. Still in war gear, these fallen angels have

thousands of banners raised and their shields and spears in hand. Even in defeat,

they are an awesome army to behold.

Satan’s unrepentant evil nature is unwavering. Even cast down in defeat, he does

not consider changing his ways: he insists to his fellow devils that their delight will

be in doing evil, not good. In particular, as he explains to Beelzebub, he wishes to

pervert God’s will and find a way to make evil out of good. It is not easy for Satan

to maintain this determination; the battle has just demonstrated God’s

overwhelming power, and the devils could not even have lifted themselves off the

lake of fire unless God had allowed it. God allows it precisely because he intends

to turn their evil designs toward a greater good in the end. Satan’s envy of the

Son’s chosen status led him to rebel and consequently to be condemned. His

continued envy and search for freedom leads him to believe that he would rather be

a king in Hell than a servant in Heaven. Satan’s pride has caused him to believe

that his own free intellect is as great as God’s will. Satan remarks that the mind can

make its own Hell out of Heaven, or in his case, its own Heaven out of Hell.

Satan addresses his comrades and acknowledges their shame in falling to the

heavenly forces, but urges them to gather in order to consider whether another war

is feasible. Instantly, the legions of devils dig into the bowels of the ground,

unearthing gold and other minerals. With their inhuman powers they construct a

great temple in a short time. It is called Pandemonium (which means “all the

demons” in Greek), and the hundreds of thousands of demonic troops gather there

to hold a summit. Being spirits, they can easily shrink from huge winged creatures

to the smallest size. Compacting themselves, they enter Pandemonium, and the

debate begins.

ThroughoutThroughout the first two or three books of Paradise Lost, Satan seems

as if he’s the hero of the poem. This is partly because the focus of the poem is all

on him, but it is also because the first books establish his struggle—he finds

himself defeated and banished from Heaven, and sets about establishing a new

course for himself and those he leads. Typically, the hero or protagonist

of any narrative, epic poem or otherwise, is a person who struggles to accomplish

something. Milton plays against our expectations by spending the first quarter of

his epic telling us about the antagonist rather than the protagonist, so that when we

meet Adam and Eve, we will have a more profound sense of what they are up

against. But even when the focus of the poem shifts to Adam and Eve, Satan

remains the most active force in the story.

One important way in which the narrator develops our picture of Satan—and gives

us the impression that he is a hero—is through epic similes, lengthy and developed

comparisons that tell us how big and powerful Satan is. For example, when Satan

is lying on the burning lake, Milton compares him to the titans who waged war

upon Jove in Greek mythology. Then, at greater length, he compares him to a

Leviathan, or whale, that is so huge that sailors mistake it for an island and fix their

anchor to it. In other epics, these sorts of similes are used to establish the great size

or strength of characters, and on the surface these similes seem to do the same

thing. At the same time, however, the effect of these similes is to unsettle us,

making us aware that we really do not know how big Satan is at all. No one knows

how big the titans were, because they were defeated before the age of man. The

image of the Leviathan does not give us a well-defined sense of his size, because

the whole point of the image is that the Leviathan’s size generates deception and

confusion.

More than anything, the similes used to describe Satan make us aware of the fact

that size is relative, and that we don’t know how big anything in Hell is—the

burning lake, the hill, Pandemonium, etc. Milton drives this fact home at the end of

Book I with a tautology: while most of the devils shrink in size to enter

Pandemonium, the important ones sit “far within / And in their own dimensions

like themselves” (I.792–793). In other words, they were however big they were,

but we have no way of knowing how big that was. Finally, it is important to note

that the first description of Satan’s size is the biggest we will ever see him. From

that point on, Satan assumes many shapes and is compared to numerous creatures,

but his size and stature steadily diminishes. The uncertainty created by these

similes creates a sense of irony—perhaps Satan isn’t so great after all.

The devils in Paradise Lost are introduced to the story here in Book I in almost a

parody of how Homer introduces great warriors in the Iliad. The irony of these

descriptions lies in the fact that while these devils seem heroic and noteworthy in

certain ways, they just lost the war in Heaven. As frightening and vividly presented

as these creatures are, they did not succeed in killing a single angel.

In Book I, Milton presents Satan primarily as a military hero, and the council of

devils as a council of war. In doing so, he makes Paradise Lost resonate with

earlier epics, which all center around military heroes and their exploits. At the

same time, Milton presents an implicit critique of a literary culture that glorifies

war and warriors. Satan displays all of the virtues of a great warrior such as

Achilles or Odysseus. He is courageous, undaunted, refusing to yield in the face of

impossible odds, and able to stir his followers to follow him in brave and violent

exploits. Milton is clearly aware of what he’s doing in making Satan somewhat

appealing in the early chapters. By drawing us into sympathizing with and

admiring Satan, Milton forces us to question why we admire martial prowess and

pride in literary characters. Ultimately he attempts to show that the Christian

virtues of obedience, humility, and forbearance are more important.

THEMES

The Importance of Obedience to God

The first words of Paradise Lost state that the poem’s main theme will be “Man’s

first Disobedience.” Milton narrates the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience,

explains how and why it happens, and places the story within the larger context of

Satan’s rebellion and Jesus’ resurrection. Raphael tells Adam about Satan’s

disobedience in an effort to give him a firm grasp of the threat that Satan and

humankind’s disobedience poses. In essence, Paradise Lost presents two moral

paths that one can take after disobedience: the downward spiral of increasing sin

and degradation, represented by Satan, and the road to redemption, represented by

Adam and Eve.

While Adam and Eve are the first humans to disobey God, Satan is the first of all

God’s creation to disobey. His decision to rebel comes only from himself—he was

not persuaded or provoked by others. Also, his decision to continue to disobey God

after his fall into Hell ensures that God will not forgive him. Adam and Eve, on the

other hand, decide to repent for their sins and seek forgiveness. Unlike Satan,

Adam and Eve understand that their disobedience to God will be corrected through

generations of toil on Earth. This path is obviously the correct one to take: the

visions in Books XI and XII demonstrate that obedience to God, even after

repeated falls, can lead to humankind’s salvation.

The Hierarchical Nature of the Universe

Paradise Lost is about hierarchy as much as it is about obedience. The layout of

the universe—with Heaven above, Hell below, and Earth in the middle—presents

the universe as a hierarchy based on proximity to God and his grace. This spatial

hierarchy leads to a social hierarchy of angels, humans, animals, and devils: the

Son is closest to God, with the archangels and cherubs behind him. Adam and Eve

and Earth’s animals come next, with Satan and the other fallen angels following

last. To obey God is to respect this hierarchy.

Satan refuses to honor the Son as his superior, thereby questioning God’s

hierarchy. As the angels in Satan’s camp rebel, they hope to beat God and thereby

dissolve what they believe to be an unfair hierarchy in Heaven. When the Son and

the good angels defeat the rebel angels, the rebels are punished by being banished

far away from Heaven. At least, Satan argues later, they can make their own

hierarchy in Hell, but they are nevertheless subject to God’s overall hierarchy, in

which they are ranked the lowest. Satan continues to disobey God and his

hierarchy as he seeks to corrupt mankind.

Likewise, humankind’s disobedience is a corruption of God’s hierarchy. Before the

fall, Adam and Eve treat the visiting angels with proper respect and

acknowledgement of their closeness to God, and Eve embraces the subservient role

allotted to her in her marriage. God and Raphael both instruct Adam that Eve is

slightly farther removed from God’s grace than Adam because she was created to

serve both God and him. When Eve persuades Adam to let her work alone, she

challenges him, her superior, and he yields to her, his inferior. Again, as Adam eats

from the fruit, he knowingly defies God by obeying Eve and his inner instinct

instead of God and his reason. Adam’s visions in Books XI and XII show more

examples of this disobedience to God and the universe’s hierarchy, but also

demonstrate that with the Son’s sacrifice, this hierarchy will be restored once

again.

The Fall as Partly Fortunate

After he sees the vision of Christ’s redemption of humankind in Book XII, Adam

refers to his own sin as a felix culpa or “happy fault,” suggesting that the fall of

humankind, while originally seeming an unmitigated catastrophe, does in fact

bring good with it. Adam and Eve’s disobedience allows God to show his mercy

and temperance in their punishments and his eternal providence toward

humankind. This display of love and compassion, given through the Son, is a gift

to humankind. Humankind must now experience pain and death, but humans can

also experience mercy, salvation, and grace in ways they would not have been able

to had they not disobeyed. While humankind has fallen from grace, individuals can

redeem and save themselves through continued devotion and obedience to God.

The salvation of humankind, in the form of The Son’s sacrifice and resurrection,

can begin to restore humankind to its former state. In other words, good will come

of sin and death, and humankind will eventually be rewarded. This fortunate result

justifies God’s reasoning and explains his ultimate plan for humankind.

Characters

Satan

Some readers consider Satan to be the hero, or protagonist, of the story, because he

struggles to overcome his own doubts and weaknesses and accomplishes his goal

of corrupting humankind. This goal, however, is evil, and Adam and Eve are the

moral heroes at the end of the story, as they help to begin humankind’s slow

process of redemption and salvation. Satan is far from being the story’s object of

admiration, as most heroes are. Nor does it make sense for readers to celebrate or

emulate him, as they might with a true hero. Yet there are many compelling

qualities to his character that make him intriguing to readers.

One source of Satan’s fascination for us is that he is an extremely complex and

subtle character. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for Milton to make

perfect, infallible characters such as God the Father, God the Son, and the angels as

interesting to read about as the flawed characters, such as Satan, Adam, and Eve.

Satan, moreover, strikes a grand and majestic figure, apparently unafraid of being

damned eternally, and uncowed by such terrifying figures as Chaos or Death.

Many readers have argued that Milton deliberately makes Satan seem heroic and

appealing early in the poem to draw us into sympathizing with him against our

will, so that we may see how seductive evil is and learn to be more vigilant in

resisting its appeal.

Milton devotes much of the poem’s early books to developing Satan’s character.

Satan’s greatest fault is his pride. He casts himself as an innocent victim,

overlooked for an important promotion. But his ability to think so selfishly in

Heaven, where all angels are equal and loved and happy, is surprising. His

confidence in thinking that he could ever overthrow God displays tremendous

vanity and pride. When Satan shares his pain and alienation as he reaches Earth in

Book IV, we may feel somewhat sympathetic to him or even identify with him.

But Satan continues to devote himself to evil. Every speech he gives is fraudulent

and every story he tells is a lie. He works diligently to trick his fellow devils in

Hell by having Beelzebub present Satan’s own plan of action.

Satan’s character—or our perception of his character—changes significantly from

Book I to his final appearance in Book X. In Book I he is a strong, imposing figure

with great abilities as a leader and public statesmen, whereas by the poem’s end he

slinks back to Hell in serpent form. Satan’s gradual degradation is dramatized by

the sequence of different shapes he assumes. He begins the poem as a just-fallen

angel of enormous stature, looks like a comet or meteor as he leaves Hell, then

disguises himself as a more humble cherub, then as a cormorant, a toad, and finally

a snake. His ability to reason and argue also deteriorates. In Book I, he persuades

the devils to agree to his plan. In Book IV, however, he reasons to himself that the

Hell he feels inside of him is reason to do more evil. When he returns to Earth

again, he believes that Earth is more beautiful than Heaven, and that he may be

able to live on Earth after all. Satan, removed from Heaven long enough to forget

its unparalleled grandeur, is completely demented, coming to believe in his own

lies. He is a picture of incessant intellectual activity without the ability to think

morally. Once a powerful angel, he has become blinded to God’s grace, forever

unable to reconcile his past with his eternal punishment.

Adam

Adam is a strong, intelligent, and rational character possessed of a remarkable

relationship with God. In fact, before the fall, he is as perfect as a human being can

be. He has an enormous capacity for reason, and can understand the most

sophisticated ideas instantly. He can converse with Raphael as a near-equal, and

understand Raphael’s stories readily. But after the fall, his conversation with

Michael during his visions is significantly one-sided. Also, his self-doubt and

anger after the fall demonstrate his new ability to indulge in rash and irrational

attitudes. As a result of the fall, he loses his pure reason and intellect.

Adam’s greatest weakness is his love for Eve. He falls in love with her

immediately upon seeing her, and confides to Raphael that his attraction to her is

almost overwhelming. Though Raphael warns him to keep his affections in check,

Adam is powerless to prevent his love from overwhelming his reason. After Eve

eats from the Tree of Knowledge, he quickly does the same, realizing that if she is

doomed, he must follow her into doom as well if he wants to avoid losing her. Eve

has become his companion for life, and he is unwilling to part with her even if that

means disobeying God.

Adam’s curiosity and hunger for knowledge is another weakness. The questions he

asks of Raphael about creation and the universe may suggest a growing temptation

to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. But like his physical attraction to Eve, Adam is

able to partly avoid this temptation. It is only through Eve that his temptations

become unavoidable.