John Milton, English
History, and Paradise
Lost
James I dates:
• 1603 – Death of Elizabeth
• And ascension of James I (James VI of Scotland), son of
Mary Queen of Scots, father of Henry (who died before his
father) and Charles I
• 1605 – Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament (Guy
Fawkes) led to reprisals against Catholics
• 1611 – King James Bible
• Shakespeare part of King’s Men (patronized by James I),
retires by 1613, dies in 1616
Jacobean Drama
•
“The plays of the Jacobean period become even more complex, even more
passionate and violent than the plays of the Elizabethan age, as they go more
deeply into problems of corruption and human weakness. The masterpieces of
Jacobean tragedy include the plays of John Webster, especially The White Devil
(published in 1612), and The Duchess of Malfi, written about the same time.”
[From The Penguin Guide to English Literature, London, 1996. ]
• 1620 The "Pilgrims," Puritan Separatists who had fled to the Netherlands, sail
to America and found colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts
• 1625 Charles I becomes king
• 1628 Oliver Cromwell becomes Member of Parliament
• 1633 William Laud appointed Archbishop of Canterbury; "Great Migration"
of Puritans to New England
• 1641 The House of Commons presents Charles I with Grand Remonstrance
• 1642 English Civil War begins; most Puritans side with Parliament against
King Charles I
The “Long Parliament”
•
1643 Parliament calls assembly of Puritan leaders, who produce Westminster
Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and Directory of Worship
•
1645 Archbishop William Laud executed by Puritan-run Parliament
•
1645 Charles I defeated by Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary army
•
1649 Charles I is beheaded by Parliament; Commonwealth begins under Cromwell
•
1649 Cromwell massacres 3,500 Irishmen at Drogheda
•
1653 Cromwell becomes England's "Lord Protector," dissolves Parliament, and
advances Puritan objectives
•
1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell on September 3
•
1660 Parliament restores the monarchy; Charles II becomes king
•
All above from Christianity Today: Christian History, 2011. Web.
Archbishop Laud
•
Archbishop Laud was attempting progressive reforms in the Anglican church (church of
England), which was the establishment
•
Laud would have succeeded in keeping Church and monarchy in order except that
Charles I was exceptionally incompetent. He believed that the Monarch held absolute
.
power
Difference between Puritans &
Anglicans (Church of England)
• Anglicans used stained glass windows, statues, music,
and incense as aids to worship
• Puritans did not – hundreds and hundred of dissenters
from the Church of England (Anglicans) were
imprisoned for their beliefs
• Puritans were against usury (loaning money at
interest), which was seen as related to the devil
What was Milton
really like?
• He agreed with ideas of Archbishop Laud
• John Milton was an Iconoclast who said that Monarchy was “a civil kinde of
Idolatry” but this idea about the King did not make him a Puritan
• He rejected predestination (important to Puritans)
• He advocated self-esteem and a just pride in personal virtue
• His God was rational, and sometimes even identified with Reason itself
• He often invoked the Muses as inspiration
• He treated polytheistic mythology with the same respect as Christianity and
often seems to prefer Orpheus to Jesus
• All from David Hawkes’ “Signs of Grace” TLS Sept. 2011. 3+. Print.
Milton’s Private Life
• Age of 18 he declared himself a lifelong devotee of Cupid
• Later declared that “exposure to temptation was necessary” in
order to become virtuous
• He was temporarily expelled from university and went to the
theater!!
• He “conducted a passionately intimate friendship with a male
schoolfriend”
• In Italy, enjoyed homosocial life. One enemy accused him of
getting money there by “selling his buttocks for a few pence”
• All from David Hawkes’ “Signs of Grace” TLS Sept. 2011. 3+.
Print.
What Milton’s
Friends said
• Sense of humor
• Loved to sing
Cared about his appearance – that he be fashionable
Collars were frilly lace and his hair wavy and long
Wore a sword
Love and Marriage
Fretted about sexual frustration
Fathered 5 children by 2 of his three wives
While separated from first wife, proposed bigamous marriage
to another lady
Believed in polygamy and was accused of founding a sect of
sexual libertines: “The Divorcers”
One woman claimed he rotated his wives at four every two
weeks
All from David Hawkes’ “Signs of Grace” TLS Sept. 2011.
3+. Print.
Paradise Lost:
Intentional Epic
• Milton intentionally wrote in the centuries-old epic
style: The Reason of Church Government: Milton
declares his desire to write a great work that will serve
to glorify England as earlier poets had glorified their
native lands and cultures: "what the greatest and
choycest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and
those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my
proportion with this over and above of being a
Christian, might doe for mine" (RCG 2).
• He declares his intention to write in English rather
than another language such as Latin, and then ponders
what genre to adopt: epic, tragic, or lyric (RCG 2).
Characteristics of
Epic
• In deciding to write an epic, Milton consciously places
himself in the tradition of prior epic writers, such as the
ancients Homer and Virgil, and the Medieval and
Renaissance poets Dante . . . and Spenser.
• By doing this, he raises specific sets of expectations both for
himself and for readers.
• it begins in medias res;
• it concerns heavenly and earthly beings and the interactions
between them;
• it uses conventions such as epic similes, catalogues of people
and places,
• and invocations to a muse;
• and it contains themes common to epics, such as war,
nationalism, empire, and stories of origin.
Who is the epic hero?
• What is Milton doing? Is Satan the hero?
• As Lewalski writes, "by measuring Satan against the
heroic standards, we become conscious of the
inadequacy and fragility of all the heroic virtues
celebrated in literature, of the susceptibility of them all
to demonic perversion" (78).
Other Genres in PL
• there are elements of lyric poetry, including the pastoral mode, as
in the descriptions of Paradise, the conversations between the
unfallen Adam and Eve, and their joyful prayers to God in the
Garden (PL 4.589-735).
• There is an aubade (PL 5.136-208),
• There are also elements of tragedy, as in Book 9 when Milton,
preparing his readers for the fall, writes, "I now must change /
Those Notes to Tragic," and continues throughout the book to
employ tragic conventions, as when he apostrophizes Eve (PL
9.404-411) and describes the earth's response to the eating of the
fruit (PL 9.782-4 and 9.1000-4).
• Throughout the poem Milton makes use of soliloquy, another
tragic convention.
Satan Exalted sat
•
"High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd
To that bad eminence." John Milton
Paradise Lost
Angels gone wrong
Eve
Satan rouses
Beelzebub (Dore)
Fallen Angels Roused
Pandemonium
Satan Hurled from
Heaven
Temptation
Creation
Expulsion from
Paradise
Another Expulsion