JOHN MILTON

In his youth (as seen in his Latin epistle to Diodati – Epitaphium Damonis) Milton was a gentle and sociable youth, a lover of music, dancing, women, plays and country pleasures; at the same time studious, religious, high-minded and modest, a man of Protestant views. His early works include L’Allegro and IlPenseroso, Arcades, Comus and Lycidas. The first two of these offer a quintessence of English life, and the contrast in these 2 poems is that of 2 moods. Under one influence a man seeks light-hearted mirth. He delights in the cheerful sights and sounds of the morning, in the hay time and the harvest, in the simple feasts of the country folk. If he has left the country for the town, his pleasure is in pomps and pageants, in sumptuous weddings, in comedies and masques. Under the other influence he loves the quietude of the country, the trim garden in the repose of evening, the study of astronomy and philosophy, the sterner side of poetry the more religious notes of music. Arcades and Comus (a masque presented at Ludlow Castle) were set to music by Henry Lawes. Appearing after the publication of Prynne’s Histriomastix (a Puritan work attacking stage plays) they show that Milton did not share the extreme Puritan view that drama is evil in itself. Not the use of the dramatic form but its misuse was the evil. Comus is Milton’s first exercise in blank verse. Lycidas is a pastoral elegy on the death of Edward King. In this poem Milton refers to the myths of the ancient world, the teachings of Christianity and the political and ecclesiastical problems of Milton’s own time. Milton’s sonnets are in the Petrarchan form, 5 of them being written in Latin. Many of the sonnets serve as outlets to the deep poetic feeling which only awaited leisure for the making of a great work. Milton returned to poetry in the last phase of his career. The epic poem Paradise lost, originally in 10 books and subsequently rearranged in 12, was, first printed in 1667. Summary of the poem

Bk I - The poet states his theme (the Fall of Man through Disobedience) and his aim (to justify the ways of God to men). The defeated archangel Satan and Beelzebub are seen to be in the burning lake of hell. Satan convenes a council and his palace Pandemonium is built.

Bk II - The Council debates over the means of revenge. Beelzebub announces the creation of earth and man. Satan undertakes to visit earth alone.

Bk III - Milton invokes celestial light to illumine the darkness of his eyes. God is described and his success as well as the fall of man through free will is foretold. The Son of God offers himself as a ransom and is exalted as the Saviour. Satan alights on earth.

Bk IV - Satan overhears the conversation of Adam and Eve about the Forbidden tree of Knowledge and resolves to tempt them.

Bk V - Eve has a dream of temptation inspired by Satan. Raphael, sent by God, warns Adam about the temptation. Raphael’s narration about Satan’s rebellion.

Bk VI - Raphael’s narration.

Bk VII - Raphael’s narration ends with the creation of the earth and man.

Bk VIII - Adam talks of his life in Eden, the creation of Eve, etc.

Bk IX - Satan tempts in the body of a serpent, Eve brings Adam to the Forbidden fruit; Adam, recognizing that she is doomed, resolves to perish with her; they eat the fruit, lose innocence.

Bk X - Adam and Eve confess before the Son of God.

Bk XI - Michael relates to them their future—the death of Abel, Flood, the New Covenant.

Bk XII – Michael narrates the rest of the O.T. and the corrupt state of the Church until the Second Coming.

In Paradise Lost Milton tried to do away with the fictitious element which he saw in the great epics of Greece. He could not foresee an age to which the story of Adam would appear a mere myth. But this resolve deprived his own work of freshness and diverted him from the evergreen themes of the passions and purposes of man. The verse of Paradise Lost shows a spontaneous ease and is the natural product of previous thought. Paradise Lost was first designed as a drama and it still has a strong dramatic element, especially in the characterization of Satan. Dryden, as well as later critics, have said that Satan is the hero of the poem.

As yielding to the temptation had brought the Fall of Man, so in Paradise Regained Milton presents the foiling of temptation as the cause of man’s restoration. In the earlier work there is unity, but not simplicity. Milton’s taste, growing ever simpler, preferred Paradise Regained, because its theme has unity as well as simplicity. But the later work is far below in greatness and is a mere repetition of the theme of eternal conflict between good and evil.

For Samson Agonistes, published along with Paradise Regained, Milton took a hero whose physical affliction was the same as his own. Though a closet drama modelled on Greek tragedy, critics have claimed that its spirit is more Hebraic (or Christian) than Hellenic. As a writer, Milton’s towering stature was recognized early. Although appreciated as a master of polemical prose as well as of subtle lyric harmony, his reputation rests largely on Paradise Lost, which Dryden described as “one of the greatest, most noble and sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced”. Poets and critics of the 18th century were profoundly influenced by Milton’s use of blank verse and his treatment of the Sublime. But even then there were murmurs of dissent from Dr. Johnson, Addison, Bentley and others. Blake, in his The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, commented that Milton was “the Devil’s party without knowing it”. Shelley regarded Satan as the real hero of the poem. In the 20th century, T.S. Eliot was a strong critic of Milton.