Teaching Paradise Lost is always a pleasure for me. Part of it derives from the beauty of the language. Milton can turn a phrase unlike anyone else, and his lines are almost as memorable as Shakespeare's, when he puts his mind to it. There's a precision and clarity that Milton cultivates that I don't see in other work.
One of the things that I love is the ambiguity. Shakespeare's characters will be ambiguous, or have ambiguous motives (like Iago in Othello), but Milton places layers of possibilities, only occasionally directing the reader to one interpretation. An example of the ambiguity comes from this passage from Book 1:
The interpretation relies on the reader: Which group do you side with? Are you of Satan's party, or the Son's? From a strictly literary point of view, Satan is a more interesting, dynamic, and engaging character, with clear motives that he actively pursues. The Son reacts to everything, rather than initiating any of the action of the poem. So that would lead you to side with Satan.
But, because of who we're talking about--and the vividness with which Milton writes--there's a lot of baggage of siding with a character who is representative of the Prince of Darkness. From that point of view, you'd likely want to side with Raphael's version--the challenge to God's authority was, from the get-go, a futile effort. God didn't even have to get involved; He let His Son do all the work, so little was he concerned.
However, since we never get the unbiased version--it's either from the point of view of the losers or the victors; a narrator's take on it is never given--we can suspect both sides. Satan has a motive to lie, and Raphael has an inclination toward telling the story that he best understands--God's unimpeachable power. Could it have been different? It's impossible to know.
That ambiguity--a Choose Your Own Epic, if you will--makes the poem endlessly fascinating. You can read it differently as often as you wish, looking at the different lenses and points of view that Milton interweaves.
Indeed, because the poem's ultimate theme ("To justify the ways of God to men" (1.26)) is accomplished by empowering the exculpatory explanation of free will as to the mechanism by which God is vindicated: In other words, he allows choice constantly throughout the poem. The conjunction or is placed everywhere. Even in the invocation of Book 1, Milton is giving, in that case, the Holy Spirit the options of whatever It prefers in terms of preferential allusion.
And thus his masterpiece goes. Milton's mighty verses are a soundless well, one that yields perpetually and profoundly. I love teaching Milton.
One of the things that I love is the ambiguity. Shakespeare's characters will be ambiguous, or have ambiguous motives (like Iago in Othello), but Milton places layers of possibilities, only occasionally directing the reader to one interpretation. An example of the ambiguity comes from this passage from Book 1:
Here, Satan is saying that he and the rebellious angels fought the war so well that they "shook [God's] throne." Yet in Book 6, Raphael explains this about the Son's engagement with the battle:His utmost power with adverse power oppos'dIn dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,And shook his throne. (103-105)
Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
His Thunder in mid Volie, for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heav'n: (853-855)So which is it? Did Satan actually shake God's throne? Was the battle "dubious" (of undetermined outcome)? Or is Raphael correct? Did the Son (a premortal Christ) not even put forth "half his strength"? Did the Son go easy on the rebel angels?
The interpretation relies on the reader: Which group do you side with? Are you of Satan's party, or the Son's? From a strictly literary point of view, Satan is a more interesting, dynamic, and engaging character, with clear motives that he actively pursues. The Son reacts to everything, rather than initiating any of the action of the poem. So that would lead you to side with Satan.
But, because of who we're talking about--and the vividness with which Milton writes--there's a lot of baggage of siding with a character who is representative of the Prince of Darkness. From that point of view, you'd likely want to side with Raphael's version--the challenge to God's authority was, from the get-go, a futile effort. God didn't even have to get involved; He let His Son do all the work, so little was he concerned.
However, since we never get the unbiased version--it's either from the point of view of the losers or the victors; a narrator's take on it is never given--we can suspect both sides. Satan has a motive to lie, and Raphael has an inclination toward telling the story that he best understands--God's unimpeachable power. Could it have been different? It's impossible to know.
That ambiguity--a Choose Your Own Epic, if you will--makes the poem endlessly fascinating. You can read it differently as often as you wish, looking at the different lenses and points of view that Milton interweaves.
Indeed, because the poem's ultimate theme ("To justify the ways of God to men" (1.26)) is accomplished by empowering the exculpatory explanation of free will as to the mechanism by which God is vindicated: In other words, he allows choice constantly throughout the poem. The conjunction or is placed everywhere. Even in the invocation of Book 1, Milton is giving, in that case, the Holy Spirit the options of whatever It prefers in terms of preferential allusion.
And thus his masterpiece goes. Milton's mighty verses are a soundless well, one that yields perpetually and profoundly. I love teaching Milton.
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