Christ vs. Classical Learning: Milton's Divine Calling

Working Thesis: Milton’s use of classical allusions throughout his works and then refutal of them through Christ in “Paradise Regained” is in order to establish the view of Christ as the pinnacle of intellectual learning. We learn of all these things (Milton's upbringing and classical training), we copy them, imitate their works, trying to perfect them when in reality the image of perfection we should be striving for is Christ. Don’t let the copia and of these secular/classical writers get in the way. They are a means to an end. And Christ/Christianity (in its truest form) is that end. 
(It is big, bumbling, and wordy but it gets the point across which is what I am most concerned about currently.)

Milton bends these traditions - by writing Paradise Lost as an epic, but turning it away from the traditional, pagan stories. In fact, he uses those stories to further his divine cause, to expand understanding of God and Christ.
Milton is using what people are familiar with in order to relay something new. Traditional forms but new content. Higher, elevated content. Christianity. 
He is rendering into "common tongue” (of the time period, what people are familiar with.)  

Milton’s sense of divine calling - it begins as an effort to justify the ways of God to man, Milton begins to realize that in order to justify these things we need to understand the nature of Christ. This explanation would qualify the disparity of characteristic between Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. In Paradise Lost we are sucked into as Hillier describes "Milton’s Christocentric universe, charged with the Son’s grandeur.” The Son is treated with an awe-like deference. In Paradise Regained he becomes a person, a man, albeit an elevated one, but with a personality, characteristics, someone we could come to know. People care about him (Andrew & Simon, Mary.) And demons fear him (Satan…the other demons.) And that knowing, that coming to understand Him is what Milton feels he is called to call us to do.

What does this mean for all of those classical allusions?

Is Milton a Closet Feminist?

In my first paper, I primarily focused on the way Milton glorifies Eve through her independent quest for knowledge. For the larger scope of this research paper, I am going to explore feminism in a variety of Milton's works and his personal experiences. I was tempted to study out Milton's progressiveness: feminism, access to information, divorce...etc but I think it would be somewhat disjointed. Instead, my working thesis currently is: Feminists have largely touted Milton's portrayal of Eve as submissive and demeaning, yet in analysis of Milton's works as a whole and his own life, I would argue he exhibits clear traits of feminism including a high standard and desire for intellectualism, as well as equality as individuals and within relationships, thus classifying him as a progressive thinker and feminist.

I was surprised to find so much research done on the topic of Milton and Feminism. It seems that many people have wondered whether Milton identified himself as a feminist (or misogynist or sexist or anything at all, really). My goal is to make a claim  that is unique and enlightening, so I may tweak my thesis as I read more on the issue.

I was delighted to find Anne Ferry's "Milton's Creation of Eve" available online through the library's website. Although Ferry agrees Milton is not objectifying Eve, she does see distinct differences between Adam and Eve and their interactions with each other. My concern with this is that many feminists base their argument on the fact that men and women are equal in that they are not biologically suited for certain roles. .

Kat Sanger's article "Milton: Misogynist, Feminist or Sexist?" studies the different identities Milton could claim and how he could do it. It's a short article, but it has lots of great resources.

This article by Arpi Paylan is the type of essay that I would have originally wanted to write-with allusions to the Divorce Tracts and  Paradise Lost. So now I am going to draw what I can from this article to make an innovative argument!

Research Proposal: Looking at Milton and Satan Through Political Lens

So I've refined my thesis a bit: "Milton channels his own views and personality into Satan in order to create a more human version of the devil as opposed to the previous versions of the devil in christian literature. Milton creates this new form of Satan in order to make a political statement on the monarchy in the Church."

I'll tweak it more as I do some more research but that's the basic idea. As for research, I need to look up other versions of the devil in Christian literature to compare to Milton's Satan. I could probably use the devil from Doctor Faustus. I could probably even use the Bible for that as well. I also need to do research on some of the political issues Milton was fighting against during the time he was writing Paradise Lost, particularly on his feelings on the politics in the Church. If you guys happen to find anything related to that, let me know. 

Seeing Through the Mist of Eurocentricity: Oriental Influence in Paradise Lost

After searching for hours, I was awed to find a miracle: Robert Markley wrote a book titled The Far East and English Imagination, 1600-1730 published 2006. In the book there is a chapter named "China and the limits of Eurocentric history: Milton, the Jesuits, and the Jews of Kaifeng." What?! Turns out Markley is the recent expert on Chinese relations with 17th century literary England. There have been at least two other scholars that have referred to his works and two more that have written reviews of the book. This conversation is still fairly new and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Part of what has been said is that the Western world has been hopelessly Eurocentric in its view of the historic world which inhibited its view of how things were at the time. Our view of the world has seen England as the great power when really it paled in comparison to China. He also has claimed that because of Milton's view on the Jesuits preaching in China, Milton was decidedly at odds with everything we now deem as other in oriental culture.

My working thesis is this:

Our projection of Eurocentricity and Americentricity onto Milton's culture has caused us to have the mistaken impression that Milton was more at odds with oriental ideals than he actually was. Even in Markley's critique of Milton's Eurocentricity, he is himself Eurocentric.

Following are some of my claims:

There are pieces of 17th century England (or at least Miltonian ideals) that shared viewpoints with 17th century, ancient, and current Chinese culture. (God and the Son's "passivity," Satan's "activity," there are many ways to say/see one thing, putting the most important thing at the end of the sentence, masculine emulation of our current "feminine.")
Postcolonialism England is blind to its negative influence as a power. Eurocentric England is blind to other powers' positive influences. (Delft and Gardens all came from China.)

Milton was against Jesuits preaching because of his non-Jesuit sentimentalities, not fear of pagan/Chinese assimilation.

Milton had no qualms using pagan doctrine to prove Christian points. It seems very unlikely he would be unsettled by Christian "assimilation," especially after his idealism of China in referring to Christ's second coming in Book XI referring to China as "the seat,/ Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls/ Of Cambalu" (XI 386-388).

Statist Information Control in a Fallen World

Behold my working thesis in all it's glory:

Areopagitica decries statist information gatekeeping as “contrary to the manner of God and of nature;” ironically, after the reinstated monarchy imprisoned Milton and publicly burned many of his political tracts, he apparently reverses this claim through a revelation from Michael invented for the final book of Paradise Lost.

The portion of the revelation referenced above that supports this argument is the retelling of the fall of Babel. In the paper this thesis has grown out of, I claimed that the Tower of Babel situates the following statement by Michael within the context of communication and human progress:

Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being…
Therefore since [man] permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God in judgment just
Subjects him from without to violent lords.

While I haven't yet excavated a source contemporary to or predating Milton that corroborates this contextualization of Babel, I stumbled into an article that affirmed it via "the Netziv, writing in the nineteenth century, and later cited approvingly by Lord Sacks." Netziv "interprets 'the whole world was of one language and of one speech' (Genesis 11:1) to mean that freedom of expression is suppressed in Babel." This same article discusses the political implications of the biblical Babel story in connection with, interestingly, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. This historical/political intersection might prove to be very fruitful, especially if there's any merit to the claim that Paradise Lost can be viewed as a critique of Hobbes' Leviathan.

Further, it looks like Babel was frequently discussed during the English Civil War as a political symbol. I've only glanced at one article that addresses this element and would love any additional sources any of you might have to offer.

Man's Fallen Condition in Milton's Satan Figure: A Working Thesis

I just wanted to take a minute to post my working thesis for Paradise Lost and some recent reading from Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin. I've posted my thesis previously as part of my first paper, and I've tackled Fish's work a couple of times already, but in any case, I want to spend more of my time tonight reading/researching rather than blogging, so this will likely be quick.

Working Thesis: In Paradise Lost, although Milton draws upon strong religious and archetypal currents in crafting his Satan figure, truly understanding his character (and thus, the epic as a whole) requires that the reader dissociate Satan's character from that of the Biblical adversary. Rather, Satan should be interpreted as a representation of the fallen condition of mankind and thus as a lens for better understanding the nature and degree of human fallenness.

The Reader, by Edouard Manet
Wikimedia Commons

Today in Surprised by Sin, I finished off a big section on the reader's involvement in his own edification. Fish asserts that through Paradise Lost, the reader "becomes the detachedly involved observer of his own mental processes" and thus becomes an investigation of sin and fallenness within the reader himself (54). Fish suggests that Milton basically forces the reader to find the conflicts of Paradise Lost within himself and within his own psyche, and understanding the work requires that the reader acknowledge that the poem is essentially concerned with his salvation specifically. Fish notes, "The value of the experience depends on the reader's willingness to participate in it fully while at the same time standing apart from it" (43). He must see himself within the poem and yet see the poem as an independent entity. This is, in some ways, similar to my view that the reader must see himself in the Satan character (or vice versa) while still preserving the distance necessary to place him as a set character within a largely fixed narrative of the Edenic encounter.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my working thesis. Where are some areas where it's lacking, and does this contribute meaningfully to a study of Paradise Lost?

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Fish, Stanley. Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. 1967. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1997. Print.

Hunger and Consequences

So after much consideration and probably not quite enough research I've narrowed my original topic down quite a bit:

And, since this is a really
 short post, here's how I feel
about the autumn season.

Thesis: In Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained Milton uses hunger, both physical and metaphorical, as the defining tool for character development in Satan and Christ respectively, ultimately illustrating the author's point that it is not circumstance which defines the individual, but how that individual chooses to act.

I'm still banging out a few obvious flaws, but I've ditched Adam and Eve to focus on Satan and Christ. I think this has the potential to shed some light on the dichotomy between these two principle characters, and I'm thinking I'll pull in some of Milton's other works where he characterizes them to draw parallels. I'm also still considering bringing in other figures in Milton's work who suffer from hunger.

Unfortunately I haven't quite figured out how to work actual food in. But the night is young, I may find a way yet.