Chapter 8
The Stars with deep amaze
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze...
-John Milton "On The Morning Of Christ's Nativity"
PARADISE LOST: MILTON HERO
Since no book or mention of Milton's incomparable epic, "PARADISE LOST" should
ever be overlooked or understudied, I decided to go back to college to learn one day
at a time. Disability funds paid for my courses, where I learned Milton had suffered
more than any other writer and given back what he could at such a cost that he was
jailed, beaten,and blind yet never gave up. Like the archetypal Christ he stood for
freedom and proved that wisdom was the only way to the true Transcending Love, God.
I wrote the following essay with the spirit of Milton in mind, to "argue freely"and
"according to all conscience, above all liberties."
Milton is the true hero in Paradise Lost. Milton said his aim to do "things unattempted
yet in prose or rhyme" was for one thing to "justify the ways of God to man." But in saying
this, as a man, he was trying to justify the ways of God to himself. That appears to be why
Milton, as narrator, is the most powerful and heroic force to be reckoned with in the poem.
And while Milton revolutionized poetry by writing his epic in blank verse ( which even his
20th century detractors like Pound and T.S. Eliot, for example, are indebted to him for
English non-rhyming poetry as well as enjambment where poetic lines continue into the
next line and can be shorter than the previous line ) he also created a type of Monotheism
that was derived from so much erudition, surely from other religions, even Eastern ones,
that he shocked the clergy which was no doubt his heroic intention. Certainly, Satan
appears heroic especially in the first few books with his open and brilliant speeches after
his war with God's angels who are not always like Biblical angels. Milton's depiction of
male homosexual angels outraged the church, for example, and his constant mixture of
pagan references with Christian ones was also considered blasphemy by exasperated
prelates which endeared him to almost every poet and critic up to Tennyson. Byron
said Milton's Satan "led a noble revolt against political tyranny." Certainly, Milton's puns
in his epic infuriated the church,too, since the clergy were totally sanctimonious and
humourless about the Bible. Indeed, the opening lines: "Of man's first disobedience and
the fruit" with the pun on "fruit" was Milton's foreshadowing irreverence.
Milton's God is seen as austere, cruel and vengeful since he banishes Satan yet uses
him to tempt Adam and Eve. If God is the creator of all including Satan then He is responsible
for evil. And instead of having a very simple resolution where he saves all and even redeems
the rebels he invents a complex salvation where no angel steps forward to be sacrificed but
his son does "to regain that blissful seat ". Here we see God willing to bring suffering on his
Son for his own selfish purposes: why not have His son come without being innocently tortured
so there is less suffering and why keep allowing Satan false hopes? Satan says "evil be thou
my good" out of frustration and constant manipulation and unspeakable horror. This supreme
epic ( Edgar Allen Poe, for example, said it was the greatest epic under the sun, and all The
Romantics held it in the highest esteem ) has been interpreted so differently by each generation
of poets and critics because of its tremendous depth and intricacy of meaning.
Since Milton did not believe in The Trinity,and other traditions which the Church labelled him a
heretic for, God's Son was a creation and therefore somewhat of a brother to Satan. But, instead
of treating Satan like the Prodigal Son because if God was the Father of all, he would want him to
come back to him because as Shakespeare wisely pointed out love shouldn't alter. We see
Adam's love for Eve so great that he is willing to die for her. But God's love is always conditional
and although He is a merciful God to many, clearly Milton struggled with this idea. Milton was
more aligned with Jungian ideas derived from his epic, such as the "collective unconscious." He
was also as many realize now the first to have New Age ideas since he believed that spirits
could shape-shift, and he was among the first to write of beings on other planets: PL Book III lines
565- 572 : "Through the pure marble Air his oblique way/ Amongst innumerable Stars, that shone/
Stars distant but nigh hand seem'd other Worlds,/ Or other Worlds they seem'd, or happy Isles,/
Like those Hesperian Gardens fam'd of old,/Fortunate Fields, and Groves and flow'ry Vales,/
Thrice happy Isles, but who dwelt happy there/he stay'd not to enquire..." Here we see Milton's
Satan as a space traveller passing enlightened worlds and beings to get to Earth. What is puzzling
is how he conceived about life on other planets since no one understood what he meant until
much later.There is mention that John Donne, the metaphysical poet/preacher who passed away in
1631, believed in other worlds but Milton never referred to him, probably because he hated the clergy.
When Abdiel returns from Pandemonium God says "thou hast fought the better fight." Here Milton
portrays God as petty gloating over a minor incident just as Satan did in his early upperhand in the
War in Heaven. So, Milton portays God as not always good and Satan as not always evil. Thus,
Blake's assertion that "Milton was a true poet and of the devil's party without knowing it" is true
although he was of God's party as well. Therefore, we see a kind of dualism where Satan and God
by almost every reader's interpretation are coming across alternately favourable to our human
intellect and on the other hand distasteful, too. We see Milton struggling to figure out how to justify
God's ways but he also has to justify Satan's ways, too. This anticipates the Age of Reason where
reason ( God ) had to keep desire ( Devil ) in check which creates the personality or ego. It is ironic
that Freud was influenced by this idea and derived the super ego/ ego / id notion from Milton's
"Paradise Lost" just as Jung had garnered the "collective unconscious" from it.
But, to The Romantics controlling desire meant controlling imagination which is the true God so
Shelley said" poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." And Milton, like the God who
imagined The Bible and was therefore a poet, was thus seen as an archetype who had redeemed
man by writing the greatest literary work, "Paradise Lost." Milton ended up justifying the creative side
of God as well as the creative side of Satan. He admitted both sides could be destructive so he
recognized the constant battles without mirror the ones within ourselves and by accepting both
sides as hero and villain he taught us that the only constant was love and acceptance of freedom
which is what his God never did but Milton's thesis was He should. So, like Blake, Milton shows us
the higher good: learn through wisdom as we all should and Milton's God should not imprison freedom,
especially of speech, but relax and ease the repression and suffering He creates. This is shown in
"Aereopagitica" where Milton offers the greatest polemic on freedom of speech. And to Milton if God
has his say certainly we must listen to Satan so as Blake said "without contraries is no progression."
This is the main reason why Milton abhorred the church and clergy because he felt they were corrupt,
biased and dogmatic.
What Milton taught us in Paradise Lost was that his epic was the true Bible since the original was
not only far inferior in language but it did not allow Satan freedom of speech. Milton's way of combatting
tyranny was literally playing the devil's advocate. But his overall wisdom came from his constant learning
and desire for knowledge from anyone which is why he read almost everything in many languages and is
the heroic poet of liberty and justice. Milton was believed by Blake, and others including myself, to be
the reincarnation of the pagan Jesus Christ who taught wisdom and to love thy enemies, including Satan.
But, he also believed that tyrants who stifled freedom of speech had to be deposed which is why he aided
Oliver Cromwell in defeating Charles I, which influenced similar overthrows of governments in Europe but
particularly the United States whose founding fathers admired Milton, especially Thomas Jefferson and
John Quincy Adams, who noted Milton had been instrumental in deposing an English King. After the
Revoltionary War of 1776 many of the laws and most of the U.S. Constitution were based on Milton's
writings, particularly "Areopagitica", widely regarded as the greatest polemic ever.
Milton is the true Christ because even today most fundamentalist Christian churches, for example, see
Muslims as evil and Satanic. Fundamentalist Muslims see Christians as Satanic ( or at least as infidels).
Milton, however would no doubt unite the two making them both of "the devil's party" and therefore no
longer enemies or a threat to each other. So, to justify the ways of God to man as a Monotheist and lover
of all humanity Milton would unite the world which would make him as some clergymen condemned him
as a Christian Humanist. He is the least understood writer by even many of the most renowned modern
writers who think he was a fundamentalist which is the probably the biggest illusion versus reality idea
ever. He remains the greatest writer in history towering over even the mighty Shakespeare.
-G.B.
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