Page 178 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

Unit 20: Paradise Lost-I (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis–I

Analysis Notes
The beginning of Paradise Lost is similar in gravity and seriousness to the book from which Milton
takes much of his story: the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The Bible begins with the
story of the world’s creation, and Milton’s epic begins in a similar vein, alluding to the creation of
the world by the Holy Spirit. The first two sentences, or twenty-six lines, of Paradise Lost are
extremely compressed, containing a great deal of information about Milton’s reasons for writing
his epic, his subject matter, and his attitudes toward his subject. In these two sentences, Milton
invokes his muse, which is actually the Holy Spirit rather than one of the nine muses. By invoking
a muse, but differentiating it from traditional muses, Milton manages to tell us quite a lot about
how he sees his project. In the first place, an invocation of the muse at the beginning of an epic is
conventional, so Milton is acknowledging his awareness of Homer, Virgil, and later poets, and
signaling that he has mastered their format and wants to be part of their tradition. But by identifying
his muse as the divine spirit that inspired the Bible and created the world, he shows that his ambitions
go far beyond joining the club of Homer and Virgil. Milton’s epic will surpass theirs, drawing on a
more fundamental source of truth and dealing with matters of more fundamental importance to
human beings. At the same time, however, Milton’s invocation is extremely humble, expressing his
utter dependence on God’s grace in speaking through him. Milton thus begins his poem with a
mixture of towering ambition and humble self-effacement, simultaneously tipping his hat to his
poetic forebears and promising to soar above them for God’s glorification.
Milton’s approach to the invocation of the muse, in which he takes a classical literary convention
and reinvents it from a Christian perspective, sets the pattern for all of Paradise Lost. For example,
when he catalogs the prominent devils in Hell and explains the various names they are known by
and which cults worshipped them, he makes devils of many gods whom the Greeks, Ammonites,
and other ancient peoples worshipped. In other words, the great gods of the classical world have
become—according to Milton—fallen angels. His poem purports to tell of these gods’ original natures,
before they infected humankind in the form of false gods. Through such comparisons with the
classical epic poems, Milton is quick to demonstrate that the scope of his epic poem is much greater
than those of the classical poets, and that his worldview and inspiration is more fundamentally true
and all-encompassing than theirs. The setting, or world, of Milton’s epic is large enough to include
those smaller, classical worlds. Milton also displays his world’s superiority while reducing those
classical epics to the level of old, nearly forgotten stories. For example, the nine muses of classical
epics still exist on Mount Helicon in the world of Paradise Lost, but Milton’s muse haunts other
areas and has the ability to fly above those other, less-powerful classical Muses. Thus Milton both
makes himself the authority on antiquity and subordinates it to his Christian worldview.
The Iliad and the Aeneid are the great epic poems of Greek and Latin, respectively, and Milton
emulates them because he intends Paradise Lost to be the first English epic. Milton wants to make
glorious art out of the English language the way the other epics had done for their languages. Not
only must a great epic be long and poetically well-constructed, its subject must be significant and
original, its form strict and serious, and its aims noble and heroic. In Milton’s view, the story he will
tell is the most original story known to man, as it is the first story of the world and of the first human
beings. Also, while Homer and Virgil only chronicled the journey of heroic men, like Achilles or
Aeneas, Milton chronicles the tragic journey of all men—the result of humankind’s disobedience.
Milton goes so far as to say that he hopes to “justify,” or explain, God’s mysterious plan for
humankind. Homer and Virgil describe great wars between men, but Milton tells the story of the
most epic battle possible: the battle between God and Satan, good and evil.

20.1.2 Summary: Lines 27–722: Satan and Hell

Immediately after the prologue, Milton raises the question of how Adam and Eve’s disobedience
occurred and explains that their actions were partly due to a serpent’s deception. This serpent is
Satan, and the poem joins him and his followers in Hell, where they have just been cast after being
defeated by God in Heaven.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 171