Paradise Lost Quotes and Ideas

I've been thinking about my final research topic, and part of that has been putting together a good number of quotes on different topics. I'm going to be sticking with my initial topic: the reader should see Milton's Satan figure not as the Biblical adversary but as a representation of one of the degrees of fallen-ness in mankind. Truly understanding the work requires that we disassociate Satan from Satan and look at him as a literary character or even as a human. I'll also be touching on Adam/God vs. Eve/Satan and what kinds of implications those associations might suggest in Milton's view of gender, etc. (though that's more of an ancillary point).

Anyway, I figured some of you might have topics that touched on some of the same ideas, so I wanted to post my quote blocks with the hope that others will find some use in them (and maybe throw some ideas back my way). This is something that I would have never done a year or two ago, but Dr. Burton is getting to me in terms of the whole collaboration mentality. There are a lot of quotes here in general, so they'll be posted under the jump break, but in any case, the topics are:

AMBITION, VANITY, REVENGE (Milton = Satan = Eve)
CAPACITY FOR PAIN, DOUBT, SORROW, FEAR
PARADISE INSIDE
COLLECTIVE FALL
MISCELLANEOUS
DESTINY / ANGER AT GOD
SATAN AND EVE
EVIL BY NATURE / REASON AS VICE
VIRTUE UNASSAYED
HUMANITY OF SATAN / STRUGGLES WITH SELF
SHAME / LIGHT

Christ’s Awakening To Divinity

 I’ve always found it interesting to think about what Christ thought of himself as he grew up. To what extent was he aware of his divinely appointed mission? What did he know about his heritage and what did he not know? How did he feel as a youth growing up, did he feel more mature, different than everyone around him? So many interested questions that we have little to no knowledge about from Biblical Accounts. We have accounts of Apostles writing about the divinity of Christ but nothing written by Christ himself about his life or mission. In our own Mormon literature, Jesus the Christ offers some insight into some of these possibilities but beyond that we don’t have much.

The first chapter Paradise Regained offers an interesting perspective on some of these questions in a narrative written from the perspective of Christ. I think Milton did a fantastic job at diving into these questions and creating a persona that I could see as a very possible reality for what the young Jesus may have thought.

What You See is What You Get

GET: verb \ˈget, ÷ˈgit\  to find out by calculation <get the answer to a problem>

When looking at these pictures is it more important to know what you're seeing or how you see it?

This distinction is a key theme in Milton's "Areopagitica" as well as his beloved Paradise Lost. Milton argues the point that it is the mind or soul that is good or bad, not the environment or knowledge in and of itself. We hear things in Paradise Lost like

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” 

We see examples like Satan disobeying and being thrust to hell juxtaposed with Adam and Eve disobeying and, though fallen, are given a way to have "Paradise Regained."

Milton's own perspective was heavily influenced by the Bible. In his "Areopagitica," he often quotes biblical passages like Titus 1:15,"To the pure, all things are pure." His religious belief in purity of self over purity of environment led him to speak out for liberty in press and in government.William Haller, speaking of Milton said, "When other men argued for liberty, it was always a liberty with some kind of limitation . . . When Milton spoke, it was to clarion forth a liberty pure, absolute, entire."

With this perspective on liberty pure, however, comes a kind of frightening application. It means that perhaps no information is inherently bad. It means that, in terms of media at the very least, anything goes.

Milton: Torn Between Two Worlds

"And if [ministers] keep their learning by some potent sway of nature, 'tis a rare chance, but their devotion most commonly comes to that queasy temper of lukewarmness that gives a vomit to God himself..."

 This interpretation of Revelation 3:16 given by Milton in his treatise "Of Reformation" might have hit audiences like this hits us:

Milton pulled no punches when it came to condemning the aristocracy of the Church. I think it's safe to say that he was not in agreement with the top-heavy authority in Church or State. He definitely took a very vocal stand against it and this is what separated him from very recent Renaissance culture and concept of the self. (For reference of how rulers were expected to be treated, see the Introduction to the King James Bible published shortly before in 1611. Nice and flowery.)

On the other hand, the Romantics were said to think of the self in more free terms as "always independent from society and effectively independent from God" (Stevens, 263). Was Milton the first Romantic then? Stevens argues "nowhere is this conception of a transcendent self . . . more accurately represented and valorized than in the figure of Milton's Satan" (Stevens, 263). The reason one critic, Paul Stevens, gives is that perhaps he may have in part agreed with these ideas of freedom, but that he did not "wholly" commit to the idea.

There is no denying the apparent contradiction in applying some of his own, most publicly lobbied values to the culturally acknowledged embodiment of evil itself. But could that be because he, himself was conflicted?

Stevens, Paul. "Discontinuities in Milton's Early Public Self-Representation." Huntington Library Quarterly. Volume 51. Issue 4 (1988): 260-280. Web. Oct. 8. 2013.

A Paradise Lost by One

One of the things that has struck me most as I've been reading the first couple of books in Milton's Paradise Lost is the parallel of Satan's and Christ's relationship to their followers. You could say that I've thought a lot about salvation and damnation and what each means and how each is ensured, either by deference to virtue (Christ) or to sin (Satan), but a couple of pretty simple lines have had me thinking about how one figure (Christ or Satan) can figure into the fates of millions of individuals.

In the second book of Paradise Lost, Satan announces that he will "Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek / Deliverance for us all: . . . (2:464-465). The parallel to Christ's salvation here is, I think, more than apparent. Just as Christ is the author and finisher of our salvation--of our ascent back from a fallen condition--so also does Satan become the savior figure for those devils cast out of Heaven. But what really got to me was some lines that I came across among my annotations as I was reviewing the first book:

Millions of spirits for his [Satan's] fault amerced
Of Heav’n, and from eternal splendors flung
For his revolt . . . (1:609-611).

I had never really thought about this before, but just as man is saved by one supernal, vicarious act, so were those among that third part cast out for one singular act of selfishness. Each individual is, of course, responsible for his/her own actions and decisions, but would those "morning stars" and "sons of God" (Job 38:7) have relinquished their glory had not Lucifer stepped forward in defiance? After all, the Bible states that "all the sons of God shouted for joy" when the foundations of the earth were laid. Why then did they follow Lucifer, the light bringer that would cast them into darkness? What is the power of one to save or to damn?

Psalm 100

Sonnet
From Far and Wide with joyful revelry
Praise and serve the Lord and come and sing
With gladness in your hearts before his chivalry.
O search your hearts and know that He is King!
Our Lord with kindly touch our souls hath made
And to Him great obeisance shall we show
For we are His and His we shall remain,
As tender sheep in watchful care to grow.
O come! Come in to Him with grateful heart
Let court and gate reverberate with praise.
For thankful people with Him will not part
And always bless His name with all our days.
The Lord is Good and is forever kind.
His truth it will endure through earth's unwind.





Psalm
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Lamb Child

Remembrest thou that silent, starry floor,
Or thrones of ember, song, and silver light?
Recallest thou that bright empyrean shore,
And sphere-song that reproves the blackest night?
How art thou fallen from this sorr'wing sky
O Lucifer,           thou morning star and son
Of that bright glory forfeited, to fly
In proud rebellion earliest begun.
For thou in fatal flight didst fall to earth--
As Icharus, his waxy wings diswed--
No child of life, no son of mortal birth
But ashen babe of feral fires fed.
    Lamb child, far from thy long forgotten home
    How long in solemn darkness needst thou roam?

This sonnet is based loosely on Isaiah 14:12. One of the things that I am most excited about this semester in terms of literary content is trying to understand Lucifer better through Paradise Lost. Does God love him? Do we love him, and should we? On my mission, I cringed a little when an old man prayed for Satan, but I wonder if he was not so far from truth: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matt 5:44).