I. 17TH-Century Historical Background

A. James I. 1603-1625.

1. Succession---Scots.

2. Rise of Puritanism

a. Religious questions: How far should Reformation go?

b. Political question: How much power for monarch?

c. "Court vs. Country": Court meaning the monarchy and "country" designating the alienated landed magnates in the countryside as well as the middle classes—especially those adept at commerce---of the ``City'' of London. This older view has been questioned by recent historians who argue that Charles I—and James I---inherited a the problems that lead to the Civil War.

3. General restlessness and disillusionment (possibly from a collective sense of a blighted Renaissance).

4. Foreign policy: James I's peace policy vs. anti-Catholic war party. Thirty Years War in Europe, in which England was basically neutral.

5. Unpopularity of court favorites (Smith, 203-04. Trev. 106- 07).

6. Official corruption: Cecil and Bacon, court monopolies.

7. ``Divine Right of Kings'' vs Parliament's and Puritans growing assertiveness. James I: ``No Bishop, No King'' approach to governing irritated nascent "republican" tendencies of puritans.

B. 1625-1660: Charles I, Civil War, Commonwealth/Protectorate

1. Persecution of Puritans.

2. Rise of Modern England: but problems aren't being solved.—and probably incapable of being solved peacefully.

3. 1629-1640: ``Eleven Years Tyranny''---Charles rules w/o Parliament. Gets money through old laws, wardships, obscure taxes, ``ship money,'' corruption.

4. Prelude to Civil War (1640-42)

a. Laud attempts to impose English episcopacy on Scots.

b. Scottish Presbyterian army wins against King's army.

c. Charles calls English Parliament to put down rebellion.

i. Long Parliament (1640-1648)

ii. Parliament sides with Scots.

iii. Parliament demands reforms.

iv. Parliament’s execution of King's ministers: Strafford-Wentworth (1641) and Laud (1645) for treason. Threats to impeach queen.

v. Rebellion of Irish Catholics (Oct, 1641).

vi. Parliamentarian Reforms: Root and Branch (against Church), Grand Remonstrance and Militia Bill (against King).

vii. Charles with 400 troops attempts to arrest five opposition leaders while in Parliament, including ``King'' Pym.

vii. June: Parl. offers King 19 propositions.

viii. Aug 22. King raises standard at Nottingham.

5. Civil War: Part I (1642-1646)

a. Solemn League and Covenant of English Parliamentarians with Scots (Sept. 1643).

b. Parliamentarian army at first does badly; then Self-Denying Ordinance gets politicians out of army commands (April 1645).

c. Parliament's New Model Army formed, headed by Cromwell. Naseby victory for Parliament (July 1645).

d. Charles turns himself over to Scots to avoid capture by New Model Army (May 1646).

6. Civil War Part II (1646-49)

a. ``Conservative'' Presbyterians (biggest denomination of English puritans; almost only denomination of Scots puritans) vs. ``Radical'' Independents, who dominated the army: Examples of Puritan sects: Ranters. Quakers, Levellers, Diggers, Seekers, Baptists, and Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchists, Millinerians.

i. Presbyterians in Parliament attempt to dissolve New Model Army (filled with radical Puritans from lower classes).

ii. 11 Presbyterians banned by Army from Parliament

iii. English Presbyterians join with Scots and Charles.

iv. New Model Army wins Battle of Preston (Aug. 1648).

v. Army sponsor’s ``Pride's Purge'' of 143 members, mostly Presbyterians who opposed radical army (Dec. 1648): this is the end of Long Parliament, beginning of ``Rump'' Parl. (only 58 sat).

vi. Commons declares itself supreme: House of Lords abolished and King executed (Jan. 30 1649).

7. Rise of Oliver Cromwell

a. Ends social radicalism of Army at Battle of Burford (mutiny of Levellers and Diggers; May 1649).

b. Subdues Ireland (1650). Expropriates 2/3 of land.

c. Beats Scots again at Marston Moor (Sept. 1651).

d. Rump vs. Army: Cromwell disbands Parl. (Apr. 1653).

e. July-Dec. 1653: "Barebones Parliament" (Smith 255): unpopular Parliament of "ultra Puritans"

f. Dec. 1653: Lord General of the Army becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. (``Instrument of Government''[1653-55])

g. Jan. 1655. Cromwell rules alone.

h. 1652-54: Wins First Dutch War.

i. 1655-58: Successful wars against Spain.

j. Dies Sept. 3, 1658 (Trevelyan 313-14)

II. History: 1660-1688

1. Charles II recalled.

a. Richard Cromwell forced to call back Rump (April 1659).

b. Army-Monck disbands Rump (Dec. 1659).

c. April 1660 Long Parliament recalled.

d. Long. Parl. authorizes return of Charles II, disbands.

2. Charles II (1660-1685).

a. Declaration of Breda (April 1660): general amnesty (Act of Indemnity---only 13 [regicides] executed) and general freedom of religion.

b. Land restoration to royalists (Smith 272).

c. King guaranteed annual income (limited one).

d. Religious settlement---Clarendon Code:

i. Act of Uniformity (1662): 250 Puritan ministers ousted.

ii. The Corporation Act of 1661: Public officials must conform to Anglican rites.

iii. Conventicle Act (1664): 5 or more non-conformists meeting in one place is sedition.

iv. Five Mile Act (1665): non-conformists ministers can't live within 5 miles of town.

e. Political settlement---Royal power.

i. King calls and dismisses Parliament

ii. King can veto Parliament's acts.

iii. King is head of army and conducts foreign policy.

iv. King doesn't account, to Parl. for expenditures.

v. King chooses own advisers.

vi. King can suspend any act of Parliament

f. Political Settlement---Parliament

i. Impeachment power over Royal ministers

ii. Source for revenues.

g. Clarendon flees to France (1667). Causes:

i. Loses Dutch War

ii. Plague and Fire (1665-66)

iii. King's Declaration of Indulgence (1662)

iv. King's marriage to Catholic Catherine of Braganza.

h. Government by Cabal (Smith 281)

i. Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale.

ii. Pro-French Treaty of Dover (1670)

(a). England enters continental wars.

(b). Third Dutch War

(c) Second Declaration of Indulgence for Catholics (in return for subsidies from French king Louis XIV).

iii. Rescinds Declaration of Indulgence and adopts Test Act (1673)

(a). Parliament provides funds to fight war.

(b). No dissenters or Catholics can hold office.

(c). Catholic Duke of York forced to resign.

i. Earl of Danby replaces Cabal.

j. Popish Plot (1678-81).

i. French threat.

ii. Duke of York openly Catholic.

iii. Earl of Shaftesbury exploits crisis (Smith 284-85).

iv. Danby falls in Dec. 1678.

v. Charles' French negotiations revealed.

vi. Titus Oates creates hysteria with his ``reports''

vii. Charles dissolves Parl. (Jan. 1679)

viii. Elections in Feb.; Exclusion Bill debated; in July Parl. dissolved; Aug. King very ill. Passions subside at fear of King's death.

ix. Recovered Charles orders arrest of Shafttsbury (1681)

k. Charles II becomes independent through French subsidies.

l. Charles dies Feb. 1685.

3. James II (1685-88).

a. Parliament ignores Test Act; James wants it repealed.

b. Argyll's and Monmouth's rebellions.

i. Battle of Sedgmoor

ii. Bloody Assizes executes rebels

c. Louis revokes Edict of Nantes (had granted Protestants limited freedom of relligion)

d. James' 13,000 Catholic officered army camped near London

e. James demands repeal of Test Act.

f. James dismisses Parl (Nov. 1686).

g. James issues Declaration of Indulgence for Catholics (and dissenters) (1687)

h. James replaces important officials with Catholics.

i. James orders English troops home from Dutch (to ally with France)

j. James issues 2nd Decl. of Indulgence (May 1688)

k. James has a Catholic son (June 1688)

l. King William (Protestant champion of Europe) and Queen Mary (James' daughter) of Netherlands are sent for by powerful magnates who fear that James' political actions, now that he has a Catholic heir, will become permanent (June 30)

m. English side with William; James flees.

4. Glorious Revolution (1688-89): Settles conflicts of 17th century and provides basis for Whig rule in 18th century.

a. Almost bloodless.

b. Declaration and Bill of Rights (1689): limited royal power: power was to be wielded by a few powerful noble families (``oligarchs'') and Parliament.

c. Mutiny Act (1689): 1 yr. limit to martial law.

d. Toleration Act (1689): religious settlement: practical toleration of all except non-conformists (extreme puritans) and Catholics.

5. Important Political Dates, 1688-1798

a. 1702: Death of William and ascension of Queen Anne (Mary's sister)

b. 1707: Act of Union combines England and Scotland into Great Britain.

c. 1714: Death of Anne, last of Stuarts, and succession of German ``princelings,'' the Hanovers. This consolidates the Glorious Revolution, since this succession was sponsored by the Whigs, who wanted a weak monarchy.

d. 1745: Last Jacobite (supporters of Stuart claimants to the throne) uprising, lead by Bonnie Prince Charlie. "Butchered" by English at Culloden

e. 1760-1783: George III attempts to act as a strong monarch, but is destroyed by the loss of the American colonies.

III. Milton: Biography

A. Early Biographers

1. Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew, composed biography for edition of his state letters (1694)

2. Anonymous biography, found in 1889, among Anthony Wood's papers; apparently composed by John Phillips or Cyriack Skinner

3. John Aubrey's material collected for Anthony Wood's Athenae and Fasti Oxoniensis (1692)

4. John Toland's biography for an edition of Milton's works (1698): Toland was a radical, whig ``free-thinker'' (rationalist/deist)

5. Jonathan Richardson (portrait painter, friend of Pope)

6. David Masson's 7 volume work (1859-94)

7. William Riley Parker (1968)

B. Milton's life:

1. See Chronology in text

2. Early life and Cambridge: Hanford, 12-16; 22-23.

3. Milton’s early poetic ambitions and studies: Text, 718-19, letter to Diodati; Hanford, 365-369 (Apology for Smectymnuus); 373-77 (Reason of Church-Goverment)

4. Milton’s trip to Italy (1638-39): Hanford 29-33

5. Milton’s return to England (1640-49): Hanford 33-46

6. Milton as Latin Secretary to puritan Council of State: (1649-1655/60): Hanford 46-50.

7. On his blindness: Hanford 378-82 (Second Defense)

8. Retirement, great poems, last years (1660-1674): Hanford: 50-57.

9. Personal Habits: Hanford 57-67.

IV. Poetry: ``L'Allegro'' and ``Il Penseroso'' (citations refer to John Milton: "L’Allegro and "Il Penseroso" edited by Elaine safer and Thomas Erskine (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Publishing Co., 1970).

A. ``L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso'': 24 hrs in the life of ``the cheerful man'' ("L'Allegro") and ``the pensive man'' ("Il Penseroso'').

B. Babb distinguishes between negative (31-32) and positive forms (34-35) of melancholy treated in each poem. Milton's poems illustrate this difference. Thesis on 36.

C. Tillyard/LeComte debate: when/where were poems written.

Tillyard believes that the ``debate aspect'' suggests the influence of Prolusions, therefore they were written at Cambridge. Milton's First Prolusion (ca. 1628) was on ``Whether Day or Night Was More Excellent''; LeComte believes that they were written at Horton because of similarities of verse to A Mask.

D. Leishman's statement of poems' subject: different pleasures of melancholy and cheerful man (46). Milton doesn’t make one way bad and the other good: instead, each personality is positive and enjoyable.

E. Allen argues that poem records Milton's search for ``prophetic strain'' and in that search ``Il Penseroso'' is an advance on `L'Allegro''

F. Questions: ``No mirth can indeed be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in his mirth'' (Samuel Johnson, who called the poems ``two noble efforts of imagination'').

1. Which pleasures did Milton prefer?

2. Did Milton believe one type of pleasure superior?

3. Parallels between poems:

1. Banishes melancholy, invokes Europhrosyne 1. Banishes deluding joys, invokes goddess-nun Melancholy (1-40) (1-60)

2. Lark and cock (41): day begins at morning 2. Nightingale (61): day begins at evening

3. ``Walk not unseen'' (57) 3. ``walk unseen'' (65)

4. Sun robed in flames (61) 4. wandering moon (67)

5. Tower in trees holds beauty (81-116) 5. Tower where speaker reads all night (85-120)

6. Sundown: goes to town (117-50) 6. Sunrise: goes to woods to sleep (131-76)

7. Dream of secular things (129-30) 7. "Some mysterious dream" (147-167)

8. Orpheus' imagined total success (145) 8. Orpheus' heartbreaking success (105)

9. Concluding plea 9. Concluding plea

V. A Mask, more widely known as Comus (1634)

A. Background

1. Henry Lawes, to celebrate 1631 appt. of Earl of Bridgewater to Lord Presidency of Wales and the Marches and more recent assumption of residence at Ludlow, was requested to compose a mask. Lawes was music tutor to Egerton children and a composer/musician in King's Private Musick. Milton had high opinion of Lawes' music. See Sonnet 13, page 79.

2. 1630-4 (date uncertain): Milton and Lawes had collobarated in Arcades for Earl's step-mother, Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield. Mask is a short work of three songs and pentameter couplets.

3. Mask-genre: a private entertainment, performed at least partially by aristocrats from audience, depending for its effect primarily on song, dance, and pageantry.

a. Imported from Italy in Henry VIII's time

b. Moral emphasis added by Ben Jonson, who quarreled with partner Inigo Jones for emphasizing pageantry/style over poetry/substance.

c. Jonson also added comic element of grotesques in ``anti-mask'' played by professional actors (in Milton's mask Comus and crew of monsters function as the anti-mask).

d. Subject matter usually is combination of allegory and mythology.

e. Delicacy and prettiness often emphasized over dramatic effect (especially, as Milton perceived it, at court).

f. Probably greatest influences on Milton are Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618), William Browne's Inner Temple Masque (1620), Hendrik van der Putten's neo- Latin play Comus, George Peele's Old Wives Tale (1595), Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess (1610), and elements of The Faerie Queen (e.g. Bower of Bliss, Sabrina {also in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History) and Sidney's Arcadia.

4. Milton's modifications

a. De-emphasized pageantry and dance

b. Expands dialogue far beyond usual limits

c. Fable usually is triumph of a moral ideal: in Milton it is an ethical philosophy.

d. Milton's is a reformist mask, in which he critiques the fashionable court masks of 1630s and acts out his role as tutor to the aristocracy.

6. A Mask was Milton's second published work (his first was his lines on Shakespeare in the Second Folio); publication arranged by Lawes to avoid copying it to satisfy numerous requests for it (his music was a ``hit''). Milton's name did not appear in the publication (1637), but he included the work in 1645 and 1673 editions of his poems; a different version appears in Milton's Cambridge manuscript. There also is a stage version that was preserved by the Egertons, published earlier this century.

7. Performed on Michaelmas night (Sept. 29) 1634.

8. Children were performed by Alice Egerton and her two brothers, Lord Brackley and Thomas Egerton; Lawes was Thyrsis, and actors filled the other parts.

9. Comus is Greek for ``revelry.''

B. Criticism (citations refer to "A Maske at Ludlow": Essays on Milton’s "Comus," ed. John Diekhoff (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve, 1968).

1. Is it a complex work or ``simple beauties of obvious commonplaces set in musical language'' (Adams 101)

2. What is poem's conflict?

a. Sensuality vs. Chastity?

b. Marriage vs. Virginity?

c. Nature vs. Grace?

d. Passion vs. Reason?

3. Allegory: what is represented by the journey of the children to the parents?

a. Platonic: Read Jayne (Deickhoff 171-72, 173, quote from Ficino). Soul (Lady) triumphs over passion (Comus) through Reason (Haemony) provided by God (Jove) via the Attendant Spirit: Doctrine of Chastity: Is it negative?

b. Woodhouse's theological allegory: Man (Lady) must triumph over evil (Comus) with Reason (haemony) and Grace (Sabrina)

i. Milton in mask reconciles values of ``nature'' and ``grace'': e.g. chastity/nature is reconfirmed as virginity/grace.

ii. What is good in one is confirmed in another.

iii. In brief, Milton a rational optimist, Christian ``deist''

c. Jayne

i. Initial scheme: Children represent Faith, Hope, and Charity/Chastity, who defeat evil (Comus) through Divine Intervention (Attend. Spirit).

ii. Milton's final scheme: Lady is unaided Reason that can resist, but not drive off, the passions (Comus) without aid of philosophy, represented. by a) Haemony brought by b) brothers, who receive it, like Socrates. from a daemon (Attdnt. Spirit, explained on 185), who is sent by Jove (divine providence). Comus, then, must escape because body/passions must be subdued but not destroyed. This leads to ascent toward heaven by ``mens'' (Sabrina) the platonic term for the higher part of the soul that is furnished by natural providence (Neptune).

4. Note ``dispute'' structure, as in ``Il Penseroso'' and ``L'Allegro''

5. Necessity of conflict (pp. 59-60, 70).

VI. Early poems on death, Lycidas (1637), Epitaphium Damonis (1638)

A. Lycidas

1. Written in November 1637 (dated in Cambridge manuscript) to commemorate death of King on August 10.

2. Last poem in Justa Edurda King, tribute from classmates to Edward King, who died in shipwreck (1637-38).

3. Analogues (Models)

a. Theocritus' First, Fifteenth, and Thirtieth Idyl (ca. 350 B.C.)

b. Bion (Lament for Daphnis) and especially Moschus (Lament for Bion), Greek-Sicialian pastoralists (ca. 100 B.C.)

i. Procession of mourners.

ii. Nature mourns as well.

c. Virgil's Fifth and Tenth Eclogues (or Bucolics) (ca. 40 B.C): poet no longer needed to know anything about rural life only conventions of pastoralism; also Virgil lends an epic grandeur to pastoral (a popular but not prestigious genre), echoed in Milton's opening lines.

i. Invocation

ii. Numerous direct echoes and borrowings in Milton’s poem

iii. Flower passage

iv. Immortality for deceased

v. The ``majesty'' and ``smoothness'' of the style

d. Petrarch Latin Sixth & Seventh Eclogues (ca. 1400)

i. Satire against abuses in church

ii. Pastor-Pastoral connection

iii. Includes St. Peter

e. Castiglione's (Latin elegy) Alcon (ca. 1500)

i. Emphasis on friendship of singer and deceased

ii. Flower passage

iii. Singer laments absence when deceased died

f. Jacopo Sannazzarro's Latin first piscatory eclogue (ca. 1500) (and Italian eclogues in his Arcadia: see canzone)

i. Laments drowned shepherdess

ii. Closely parallels ``genius of the shore'' passage

g. Italian canzone (as defined by Dante in De Vulgari Eloquentia): 2 intricate stanzas linked by shorter line; also several stanzas with concluding shorter stanza: in Lycidas, 10 and 6 syllables lines, and final stanza is 8 lines in ottava rima corresponds to commiato (concluding brief stanza of canzone)

h. Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar (a pastoral poem for each month) (1579)

i. ``May'' contains ecclesiastical satire

ii. ``October'' expresses Spenser’s poetic ambitions

iii. ``November'' portends consolation of Lycidas

iv. ``April'' has flower passage

v. Numerous echoes in Lycidas

4. Johnson's strictures on pastoral (Patrides 56-57)

5. Who or what is subject of poem? King or Milton? Something else?

6. Form: (citations refer to Milton’s "Lycidas: The Tradition and the Poem, ed. C. Patrides, (New York: Holt, 1961)

a. ``There did not at the time exist anywhere in England, among the poems done by competent technical poets, another poem so wilful and illegal in form as this one'' (a positive statement by John Crowe Ransom)

b. Barker's 3 movements in the poem, each of which climaxes with a ``crescendo''

i. Lines 1-84: climax in Apollo's response

ii. 85-131: climax in Peter's response

iii. 131-185: climax in Swain's vision

c. 11 verse-paragraphs, of 10 to 33 lines, closely but irregularly rhymed, with 10 unrhymed lines scattered thoughout.

7. Content

a. What is signified by plucking of unripe berries: unprepared poet or untimely death? If speaker is Milton, what about Mask and ``l'Allegro'' and ``Il Penseroso''? Was Milton really immature as a poet, and his works unripe? And if he were, would Milton have admitted it?

b. Occasion is King's death: subject is untimely death: how far is this subject intertwined with art?

c. The poem’s classicism: does it complement or oppose the poem’s Christian element?

d. What exactly is the problem raised by King’s death?

e. What is Milton’s solution to this problem?

B. Epitaphium Damonis: pastoral elegy in Latin

1. Diodati, unlike King, was actually Milton’s close friend; he died in August 1638

2. Milton writes the poem in 1639/40.

3. Published privately in 1641 .

4. Close reading: how does Milton’s response to early death compare with the consolation in Lycidas?

5. Poem is not nearly as esteemed as Lycidas: some readers consider it a poor effort.

VII. Sonnets

A. Chronology, Hanford 170.

B. Possibly the sonnets were the only poetry that Milton composed between 1640-1660.

C. No classical precedent. The sonnet was renaissance Italian (Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso) that became popular in English (Spenser, Surrey/Shakespeare). Milton apparently was heavily influenced by the Italians. See Nicholson 143-44.

D. Milton wrote 23 sonnets:

1. Conventional (tributes to persons 9, 10, 13, 14, 20, 21).

2. Personal (19, 22, 23)

3. Public events (8 , 11, 12, ``On the New Forcers,'' 15, 16, 17, 18: Italian precedents (Tasso) for using sonnets to comment on public events.

4. Chronology

a. ``To the Nightingale'' and 5 Italian sonnets written at Cambridge

b. ``How Soon Hath Time'' written on his 24th birthday.

c. #8 and ``Captain or Colonel'': 1642

d. #9 and #10: 1644

e. #1-10 appeared in 1645 edition of his poems.

f. #11-23 composed 1645-1658, some of which were published in the 1673 volume of Milton’s poems, from which he omitted the 4 political sonnets, which appeared in 1694.

E. Milton’s sonnets were a great influence on revival of sonnet in late 18th century, into Romanticism.

VIII. Areopagitica (1644)

A. This was Milton’s response to Presbyterian crackdown of pamphlets, Licensing Order of 1643. Also, Milton’s Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce had been denounced in a Presbyterian sermon before Parliament.

B. Structure follows that of the classical oration ( the title echoes Isocrates) as set forth by Quintillian and practiced by Demosthenes and Cicero: Introduction, Statement of the Facts, Thesis, Body/Proofs, Refutation, and Conclusion.

C. Arguments against prior censorship

1. Censorship associated with Papists (Council of Trent 1563, reassertion of Roman Catholic privilege), then Anglicans (243-44, 248-49, 254, 258, 270)

2. Books as things indifferent (246)

3. Evil is essential to development of good (247, 252, 269)

4. Censorship is detrimental to learning (249)

5. Licensers cannot be thought more impervious to corruption than other men (249-50. 252).

6. Physical impossibility of licensing, reading all the books and then enforcing law (253-254)

7. Censorship is counter-productive because it withers learning and encourages lazy intellects (254-57}

8. Censorship produces hypocrites because goodness can't be externally forced (261-62, 270)

D. Fable of Truth as Osiris (263, 269)

E. Exhortation: Patriotic outburst (264-65, 267)

F. Milton's ideal poet/writer/orator/prophet/priest (271)

G. Didn't get act repealed; possibly the tract was largely ignored.

IX. Paradise Lost

A. Some of the more significant of Milton's hundreds of analogues

1. Homer's epics (ca. 800 B.C.)

2. Quintus of Smyrna's continuation of Iliad (ca 300 B.C.), assigned to Milton's pupils.

3. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica (ca 200 B.C.) also assigned to Milton's pupils.

4. Vergil's Aeneid (ca. 30 B.C.)

5. Ovid's Metamorphoses (ca. A.D. 10): this work, however, is not an epic.

6. Lucan's Civil War/Pharsalia (ca A.D. 60)

7. Statius's Thebiad (ca A.D. 90)

8. Joshua Sylvester's translation of the work of a French Huguenot Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur DuBartas: his Divine Weeks and Days, a non-epic poem on creation (1592/1605)

9. A Latin play of Hugo Grotius (a prominent Dutch writer whom Milton met in Paris, 1638): Adamus Exul (1601)

10. Giovanni Battista Andreini's Adamo (1613): Voltaire claimed that Milton saw this play in Italy and that it gave him his idea for the epic.

11. Vondel’s (another Dutchman) play Lucifer (1654)

12. Other Renaissance works: Spenser's Faerie Queen, Cowley's Davideis, Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (translated by Harrington).

B. Milton's Statements on Epic

1. Milton’s attitude toward classical epic: PL 9. 1-19

2. Milton's epic ambitions: See III.B.3. above and E. below.

C. Genre influence

1. Tragedy (Book 9)

2. Mask (Books 11 and 12)

3. Allegory (Sin, Satan, and Death in Book 2)

4. Epithalamium (for marriage of Adam and Eve, 8.500-520)

5. Historical narrative (war in Heaven)

6. Satire (descriptions of Satan/devils and the Paradise of Fools)

7. Pastoral (life in Eden)

8. Topographical (description of Eden)

9. Romance (throughout the poem)

10. Literary epic devices: in media res, catalogues, epic similes, epic games, voyage, councils, interaction between divine and human, war, etc.

11. Sonnet (embedded in poem)

12. Hymns (5.153-208)

D. Editions of Paradise Lost

1. 1667, by Samuel Simmons, one of few printers to escape fire

a. 10 books, no apparatus

b. Milton received 5 pounds, and another 5 after 1300 copies

c. 6 variant issues were published, 1667-69

d. It perhaps became a quick classic: in 1674, Dryden asks Milton's permission to turn it into an opera

2. 1674: the poem was published as 12 books, with chapter summaries, 15 extra lines, Milton's comments on ``The Verse,'' and poems by Marvell and Dr. Samuel Barrow.

3. To make 12 Books (possibly to reflect Virgil’s Aeneid), Milton divided books 7 and 10. However, the restructuring refocused the theme: in 1667 version, fall is emphasized: in the 1674 version, recovery is highlighted.

4. 1688: illustrated version by subscription was sold by Jacob Tonson: Tonson becomes wealthy selling Milton's works. In 1732: Tonson published Bentley's edition of the poem; and in 1763 his firm publishes Newton's multivolume edition of the poem.

5. 1852: Henry Todd edits a Victorian Paradise Lost.

6. 1891-96, 1910: A.W. Verity ed.its the poem as part of 10 volume works of Milton.

7. 1931-38: Frank Patterson, ed.: the poem is included as part of a modern standard version of Milton’s collected works: The Columbia Works of John Milton.

8. 1957: Merritt Hughes edits a standard modern version of the poem.

9. 1993: Roy Flannagin edits a new edition that includes recent perspectives.

E. Composition of Paradise Lost

1. Milton's epic ambitions

a. July 1628: Poetic impulse in Vacation Exercise (pp. 76-77) (preceded by Sixth Prolusion: Milton had been chosen to preside over festivities marking beginning of long vacation at Cambridge)

b. Dec. 1629: Elegy 6 (``To Charles Diodati: Staying in the Country'') (pp. 76-7): pure life of epic poet.

c. Lycidas: swain leaves pastoral for ``pastures new'' of epic.

d. Mansus (1638): epic ambitions (p. 149)

e. Epitaphium Damonis (1639-40): contemplates Arthurian epic (p. 159)

f. Reason of Church-Government (1642): epic ambitions (pp. 169-71)

g. Cambridge manuscript (1640-42): Adams Banishment /Adam Unparadised outlined as a drama (Hanford 182-187)

h. Apology for Smectymnuus (1642): Milton on poetry (pp. 180- 82)

2. Milton writes poem

a. Dates of actual composition are unclear.

b. Milton’s Quaker friend Thomas Ellwood sees entire manuscript, Autumn, 1665.

c. Invocation to Book 7 clearly suggests that Restoration had occurred.

d. Aubrey, relying on Edward Phillips, says it was begun in 1658.

e. Likely dates: 1658-1665: Milton writes it in morning, between Fall and Spring equinoxes (Edward Phillips)

f. Daughters did not write it down: Milton apparently had several amuenses, and then there were several printers' compositors. The original manuscript of the entire poem has not survived.

N. Milton's theology

1. Rejects Catholic tenets: papal authority, intercession of saints, Purgatory, real presence, the efficacy of sacraments.

2. Rejects Anglican episcopacy and prescriptive forms of worship in gneral.

3. Rejects Calvinist pre-destination: Milton believed some were predestined for salvation, but the rest of mankind can attain salvation by use of their free will to accept God's grace. For his emphasis on free will, Milton sometimes has been labeled an Arminian who interpreted God's decrees as conditional (rather than as absolute as Calvin interpreted them). Arminius was Milton's Dutch contemporary James Arminius.

4. Milton's heresies (not clearly evident in the poem)

a. Subordination of Son to Father:

b. God created world from eternal, pre-existing matter

c. Mortalism (soul dies, and is resurrected, with the physical body)

O. Theory of accomodation: what Milton writes, and what the Bible contains, should be accepted as truth, but it isn't literally true because God transcends comprehension by mortals. For example, Milton in Christian Doctrine, Book 1, chapter 2, writes that ``we ought not to imagine that God would have said anything or caused anything to be written about himself unless he intended that it should be a part of our conception of him. On the question of what is or what is not suitable for God, let us ask for no more dependable authority than God himself. If `Jehovah repented he had created man, Gen. vi. 6, and repented because of their groanings,' let us believe that he did repent. But let us not imagine that God's repentance arises from lack of foresight, as man's does, for he has warned us not to think about him in this way.''

P. Cosmology

1. Inconsistent: basically Ptolemaic, but some aspects Copernican. Adam asks Raphael to settle the dispute, but he declines with admonition to ``be lowly wise'' (8.16-78)

2. Hanford's diagram (p. 223) and Hughes' (pp.180-81, 188, 190-91)

3. Statements in poem

a. Hell (2.570-628)

b. Chaos (2. 890-967)

c. Created universe (2.1034-53; 3.418-735; 5. 171- 208; 7.205-547)

d. Heaven (3.56-79; 5.563-587; Book 6)

e. Hell's causeway (10.272-324)

f. Eden (4.208-87)

g. Physical changes caused by Fall (10.651-714)

h. Scale of nature and forms of life (5.469-490; 7.387-547)

Q. God in Paradise Lost

1. "There is something above the reach of human forces to have attempted the creation without bombast . . . to have brought probability and reason amidst the hurry of imaginary things belonging to another world, and as far remote from the limits of our notions as they are from our earth: in short to force the reader to say, "If God, if the Angels, if Satan would speak, I believe they would speak as they do in Milton . . . . Where is that nation that would not be pleased . . . . above all, with that sublime wisdom which Milton exerts whenever he dares to describe God and to make him speak? He seems indeed to draw the picture of the Almighty as like as human nature can reach to through the mortal dust in which we are clouded? The Heathens always, the Jews often, and our Christian priests sometimes, represent God as a tyrant infinitely powerful. But the God of Milton is always a creator, a father, and a judge" (Voltaire). There are also arguments that: God and Son embody the perfect King (Stevie Davies, Images of Kingship in "Paradise Lost": Milton’s Politics and Christian Liberty (University of Missouri Press, 1983).

2. Other readers disagree: "If I may borrow a phrase from Northrop Frye, every time Milton's God opens His `ambrosial mouth,' `the sensitive reader cringes' (Return 99), perhaps in fear that He is going to put His foot in it. Instead of being a philosopher king, Milton's God (perhaps that should be the Christian or Hebrew God in general) can seem to be a tyrant, whining about sinful man being an ingrate''(Roy Flanagan, John Milton: "Paradise Lost" [New York: Macmillan, 1993], p. 44; The Riverside Milton [Macmillan, 1998], p. 320). Flanagan’s edition (possibly the most comprehensive introduction to the poem) also includes Fry’s comments on the``smug and wily old hypocrite'' and John Updike’s statement that ``Milton's God may be a tedious old bluffer, but he fascinated Milton.'' He also points out similar views by the Leavisite John Peter, Robert Graves, and William Empson.

3. Alexander. Pope also refers to Milton's making his character God speak like a ``school divine''; and Joseph Addison had commented, ``If Milton's majesty foresakes him anywhere, it is in those Parts of his poem, where the Divine Persons are introduced as speakers.''

R. Paradise Lost: Questions for class discussion

1. Book 1

a. Why do God's ways need justifying to men?

i. Fault with God or man?

ii. Had they been justified before? By whom?

iii. What, specifically, needs justifying?

(a). If God is all-powerful creator of everything, where did evil come from?

(b). How is an all-powerful God to be reconciled to man's---and Satan's---free will?

(c). Why, in particular, is man sinful?

b. Why did Milton write epic?

c. Many readers consider Books 1 and 2 to be the best of the poem. Why?

d. Satan, clearly, is at his most attractive early in the poem. Why?

e. The poem is written in Miltonic blank verse. What is this?

2. Book 2

a. Can you summarize the courses of action debated in Pandemonium?

b. What is Milton's allegory of Sin and Death?

c. Is Satan a sympathetic character here? Why?

d. Does Satan's predicament in any way reflect Milton's in restoration England?

3. Book 3

a. How does Milton reconcile omnipotence with evil and free will?

b. How would you describe God here? Are the criticisms listed above in Section Q valid? Did Milton anticipate such criticisms and still deliberately characterize God in a ``dull'' or ``tyrannical'' way?

c. What is the problem faced by the Son? How does he solve it?

d. What questions does the invocation raise?

e. How do God and the Son embody the perfect king?

4. Book 4

a. What is Milton's idea of Paradise?

b. Does Satan noticeably degenerate here? Why or why not? See especially lines 505-35. What does this tell us about Milton's view of power?

c. What does Adam and Eve's relationship tell us about family and sexual relations in 1660s England? See especially lines 288-324.

d. How does Puritanism relate to Eden?

e. Analyze, in a paragraph or two, Milton's use of the epic simile of the weighing scales (at the end of book).

5. Books 5-8 (Raphael's discourse with Adam)

a. Is Adam's commentary on Eve's dream consistent with Milton's views on evil in his other works?

b. What do we learn from Adam and Eve's morning prayer (lines 153-208)?

c. If Adam and Eve are going to fall, why does God send Raphael to Eden? How does this influence our view of Milton's characterization of God?

d. Briefly describe Raphael and his mission.

e. Why, according to Raphael, does Satan rebel? Are Satan’s wrongs, in the words of Shelley, beyond all measure?

f. Why does Abdiel, of all the angels who hear him, refuse to rebel with Satan? (5.803-907; 6.35-7)

g. Briefly describe the war in Heaven. What does this tell us about Milton's view of classical-martial heroism? Is it a parody of this heroism? Or is it an apotheosis? Note: the center line of the entire poem is Son ascending the Chariot of Paternal Deity..

h. Is the ``war in Heaven'' a divine joke, played against the rebels? See especially 5.719-33.

i. What is purpose of Milton's third invocation (7.13-39)?

j. What is Milton's attitude toward knowledge in Books 7 and 8? See especially 7.80-130, 8.66-196

k. What is the purpose of the account of creation?

l. Why does Milton have Eve leave Raphael's discourse (8.39-65)?

m. For what error does Raphael rebuke Adam (8.561-594)?

6. Book 9

a. Has Satan degenerated beyond recognition at this point? How do 9.99-178 and 444-72 affect your answer?

b. Briefly summarize the steps that lead to Eve's seduction.

c. Why does Eve eat the forbidden fruit?

d. Is her sin really all that bad? Why or why not?

e. Why does Adam taste the fruit? What were his alternatives?

f. What do Adam and Eve immediately do after eating the fruit? Why?

g. Explain the significance of the book's conclusion.

7. Book 10

a. Who judges Adam and Eve? What is this judgement?

b. Satan returns to Hell to proclaim victory. From what perspective is he successful? Why or why not is this ``success'' really defeat?

c. Briefly discuss the comic aspects of Satan's victory speech (10.460-504).

8. Books 11-12

a. These books---the Education of Adam---are sometimes dismissed as the lacklustre production of a tired poet. Are they? Why or why not?

b. One essential lesson taught is the ability to discern good from evil disguised as good. How does Michael do this?

c. Discuss Adam's education using the following terms: right reason, natural reason, rectified reason, grace, inner light, natural law, faith, liberty, and revealed law.

d. Are the values inculcated by Michael (especially 12.553-605) the values taught by Milton's poem?

f. Can you detect a pattern in Adam’s education? If so, what is it, and how does it illuminate Milton’s purpose?

g. How, and how isn't, Adam's education a Renaissance education?

I. Dates

A. Composition: unknown, supposed ly last of Milton's poems, but others argue began it in 1640s.

B. Published: 1671, in same volume as Paradise R.

II. Analogues

A. Greek tradition of Hercules and Deinera

B. Sophocles' Trachiniae (about Hercules)

C. Euripedes' Troades (Helen resembles Dalila) and Medea

D. Book of Revelation (according to Milton in preface)

E. Tasso's Aminta, Guarini's Il Pastor Fido and Andreini's L'Adamo among several Italian Renaiss.works.

F. Vondel's Samson (leaves out Dalila)

G. Francis Quarles' History of Samson

H. Milton in Preface: he followed Italians and Ancients

III. Milton in Preface on tragedy:

A. Tragedy geratest of poems, greatest tragedies were Greek.

B. Seems especially anti-Shakespeare (barbarous habit of mixing tragedy with ``comic stuff''

C, In same passage, denounces Restoration tragedy

D. ``Never intended for the stage''

E. Concludes by exalting Greeks

IV. Structure

A. Samuel Johnson: a play with no middle

B. Milton implies in prefatory note that 5 act structure is discernible, though he doesn't divide it into acts.

i. Samson and chorus: 1-325.

ii. Samson and Manoa: 326-709.

iii. Samson and Dalila: 710-1060

iv. Samson with ``instruments of force'' (Harapha): 1061-1440)

v. Samson at feast: 1441-1758.

V. Drama: Samson's regeneration

A. Samson is regenerated and once more becomes Israel's champion.

i. Chorus and Manoa: Samson repents,

a. admits sin: 45, 373; ``foul effeminancy'' 410, 562-70; another famous passage 530-40, 999-1003

b. needs wisdom: 55

c. famous lament: 67-109.

ii. Samson and Dalila: Samson refuses to fall into old sinful ways

a. Almost comic desciption of Dalila (710-22)

b. Rejects her 748, 952-58.

iii. Samson and Harapha: Samson continues his recovery

a. This clash comic---but Milton had scorned mixing comic and tragic? (1100, 1167, 1230-50)

iv. Samson at feast: Samson again serves Providence: peoples' shouts (1470, 1508)

v. Chorus' final exaltation

A. Chorus on Providence and Samson's marriages (on 307-321).

B. Samson is suicidal (503-08, 575-98, 1585).

C. Samson consistently uses prophecy to excuse his violation of the law (divine and secular) (20-45, 525, 533-640

D. Samson's condemnation of Dalila unwittingly condemns himself (870-905)

E. Samson satirizes the martial hero (1130, 1168): then does Samson attack himself, again, in attacking his enemy?

F. Harapha's attack accurate on Samson seems accurate (1180-91)

G. Samson's defense is an evident lie (1192 ff)

H. Chorus' problematic celebration give Samson a c hoice (1270-98): which does he make?

I. Samson at feast: attendance is another broken law (1320), which can be added to his marriages, his breaking of commandments (1, 5, 6, 8, 9) and his violations of his Nazarite vow by losing hair and not staying away from corpses.

VII. Themes

A. If Samson is regenerated, how can this be tragedy since providence directs the actions?

B. Contrast with PR: 3. 391-97 and Jesus' refusal to do anything that deviates from the law (even eating unlawful foods though he hasn’t eaten for forty days).

D. ``The penalty for sin is death'' theme.

E. Another example of discredited martial hero?