Chinese Citizen Milton

Although I was skeptical at first, I was unable to shake some of the connections between modern Chinese culture and ideas persistent in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Some of the similarities include his ideas about knowledge, heroism, power, and gender roles. Many of these topics seem contradictory when reading it from a modern American culture perspective. For example, the fact that Satan is so active and Christ is so passive seems at odds with our ideas of power. Milton has fallen under much gender role criticism because Eve seems inferior by our American standards, but after a little study I've found a few interesting things:

The Power of the Feminine and the Power of the Moon: Eastern Thought in Eden

We've talked about the idea of passivity being the superior trait to dominance. This is a hard concept for our minds to grasp and is at the center of many gender debates right now. Passivity often characterized as a very feminine characteristics and is much less desirable than dominance. However, it seems like all the glorified characters in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are as dominant as they are evil. They dominate the books in regards to time and initiation of events. Satan is active. He makes stuff happen! He fights against God, he traverses Chaos. On the other hand, God and Christ are both very reactive and seem to have very little screen time. The GREATEST STORY OF ALL is Christ's reaction to Satan.

One thing that our culture does to throw a wrench in the works or make this seem contradictory is relate greatness to dominance. If, however, we read using the Eastern theories of power, things are easily reconcilable. Take, for example, some popular quotes from Taoist literature:

“The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground
While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above.”
― Lao Tzu

“The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished.”
― Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony

Probably the most interesting reading I did this week was from the book The Chinese National Character: From Nationhood to Individuality. In it is addressed the idea that since WWII, American men have fought hard against the idea of relativism and passivity because they defined it as feminine. "In America, the immediate postwar era witnessed a censure of relativism, especially cultural relativism in anthropology, and the rise of a more affirmative attitude toward Western values vis-a-vis the totalitarianism of the Eastern Bloc." Other cultures, including the Chinese culture, do not see it that way. "Our Chinese colleagues objected strenuously whenever the word 'passivity' was used in connection with the Chinese preferences for a life of contemplation." In the eyes of the Chinese, it is the "passive" things (or "feminine" as defined by American ideals) that define success. For example, being well-read and scholarly is often in the form of memorizing poetry and learning languages. Good health is defined by eating light, not necessarily working out. Exercise is walking and badminton not lifting weight. In China, these are ideas of power. Perhaps reading Milton as a modern American inhibits our view of him and the real view of power. Power is less like dominion and more like vulnerability. It is the power to feel, the power to influence. It is the power of the feminine and the power of the moon.

Two Falls, One Redemption: The Fates of Satan and Eve

Here is it! The paper! So much to explore, so few pages to explore it all in. I finish it late last night and decided to sleep on it and read it again in the morning to make sure it make some kind of sense. Here's hoping! It was extremely interested to consider the similarities and differences in the characterizations of Satan and Eve in Paradise Lost. I feel like I only had the opportunity to scratch the surface of the discussion and hope to delve further into some aspect of it for my final paper. Enjoy!

Pre-writing, Strength in Submission

I want to look at the perspective of Eve's nature through contrasting her decisions and fate with Satan's to show that Eve's weaknesses end up becoming her strengths, and without them, though the fall may not have happened, redemption would have not been possible without application of those same weaknesses.

Thesis:

While Eve's portrayal in Paradise Lost seems to set women as the weaker gender, the great irony of Milton's epic poem is that it ennobles weakness and degrades strength; Eve finds redemption in her “weakness”, while Satan remains fallen because of his “strength”.

  

Quotes:

“All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome?”

Book 2 Lines 106-109

“O then at last relent: is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced With other promises and other vaunts Than to submit, boasting I could subdue Th’ Omnipotent.”

Book 4: 78-88

“But what if God have seen, And death ensue? Then I shall be no more, And Adam wedded to another Eve, Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct; A death to think. Confirmed then I resolve; Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe: So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.”

Book 9: 826-833 (dependance on Adam)

Adam “And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee Certain my resolution is to die; How can I live without thee, how forgo Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined, To live again in these wild woods forlorn?”

Book 9: 906-910

Basic outline:

1. Introduction
2. Characterizations
   A. Weakness of Eve
   B. Strength of Satan
3. Two falls
   A. Eve's decisions
   B. Satan's decisions
4. One Redemption
   A. Eve's dependence
   B. Satan's refusal to submit
5. Conclusion

Paradise Lost and the Fall: Men as Superiors

Keep reading, my post will deal with this eventually.

As a modern reader of Paradise Lost I am always tempted to look at Adam and Eve as equals and apply that belief to the story. But the fact of the matter is that Adam and Eve are never equals in this story. Adam is always superior. This should be unsurprising given the anti-feminist movement going on during Milton's day. He would have had easy access to the pamphlets circulating, as scholars such as Shannon Miller suggest. It's easy to read Milton's poem and think, "Yeah, here's another example of misogyny," yet the arguments between Adam and Eve in Book X of Milton's poem actually allows readers to consider the whole premise of the Fall. Women during Milton's day were looked at as seducers because of the interpretation of the creation myth, and so any arguments women made for themselves were looked at as seductive and not to be trusted. So when Adam blames Eve when God asks what's up, he has a perfectly valid excuse for blaming her: she was obviously up to no good. What's a man to do when she can't even open her mouth without trying to sway him from his will?

So how does this all tie in with my first idea, that Adam is always superior and never looks at Eve as an equal? Well, it has to do with the many Adam and Eve creation myths circulating out there.

Her the Inferior, Yet...

Yeah Milton, put Satanic Eve in her place.

"Of Nature her the inferior, in the mind
And inward faculties, which most excel;
In outward also her resembling less
His image who made both, and less expressing
The character of that dominion given
O'er other creatures:"

Many female critics abhor this section of Paradise Lost where Adam is describing his reaction to Eve. Sandra M. Gilbert, speaking specifically of this attitude in Milton's work expressed,

 "for [Woolf], as for most other women writers, both [Milton] and the creatures of his imagination constitute the misogynistic essence of what Gertrude Stein called 'patriarchal poetry.'"

While this reaction towards Milton is extraordinarily common among most critics, it is also helpful to realize where Milton is coming from. 64 years before the first publication of Paradise Lost, England mourned the loss of their Protestant, female ruler. The social and ideological implications of her rule on the English mind, more specifically on Milton's, raise so many questions. For example, did Milton view women as fit to rule on their own or did he see Elizabeth as a product of her male counselor? Did he sympathize with Elizabeth as a Protestant or was he a critic of her as a dictator?

Eve: The Problem Child

Did it bother anyone else that Eve is content to be an object in Paradise Lost? It got my feminist tendencies going a little bit. I have "ugh" written in the margins of the section where she says:

“My author and disposer, what thou

 bidd’st 

Unargued I obey; so God ordains, 

God is thy Law, thou mine: to know no more

Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise."

Milton, John (2009-10-28). The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library) (Kindle Locations 14820-14823). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.