Paradise Regained

 

 

BACKGROUND: Taken from perhaps the best edition of Milton's shorter poems, edited by John Carey.

1.        The topic was supposedly suggested to Milton by Thomas Ellwood, Quaker friend of Milton's, who, upon reading a manuscript of Paradise Lost, responded, "Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?" This occurred about August 1665 at Chalfont -St. Giles, where Milton was staying while the plague raged in London. According to Ellwood, "And when afterwards I went to wait on him there [in London] . . . he shewed me his second poem, called Paradise Regained; and in a pleasant tone said to me, "This is owing to you; for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of."

2.        In Reason of Church Government (1642), Milton had announced his intention to write a brief epic, 'that epic form whereof . . . the book of Job [is] a brief model." Other important models are Girolamo Vida's Christiad and Giles Fletcher's Christ's Victory.

3.        According to Milton's student/nephew/biographer Edward Phillips,the poem "was begun and finisht and printed after the other [Paradise Lost] was publisht [1667]; and that in a wonderful short pace considering the sublimeness of it; however it is generally censur'd to be much inferiour to the other though he [Milton] could not hear with patience any such thing when related to him."

4.        The poem was licensed July 2 1670 and published in 1671, with Samson Agonistes.

5.        Milton, unlike most artists/poets/theologians, follows Luke rather than Matthew in the order of the 3 temptations: turn rocks into food, accept power/kingdoms from Satan, stand on the pinnacle of the temple. Matthew reverses temptations 2 and 3. He follows Matthew however in placing the temptations after a 40 day fast.

6.        The temptations were usually seen as paralleling the sins inherit in eating the apple: gluttony, vainglory, and avarice.

7.        Many commentators assumed there were other temptations: Luke states that Jesus was tempted for 40 days by the devil. Milton adds the banquet and storm, not found elsewhere.

 

 

General Study Questions

1.       The poem has been read as a theological allegory (Howard Schultz, Milton and Forbidden Knowledge): Jesus represents what the Church should be, Satan represents what it shouldn't. It also has been read (Arnold Stein, Heroic Knowledge) as a neoplatonic allegory, with the temptations corresponding to the divisions of a neoplatonist's tripartite soul. And in the two most comprehensive books on the poem, Elizabeth Pope (Paradise Regained: The Tradition and the Poem) argues the temptations' correspondence with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and Barbara Lewalski (Milton's Brief Epic) argues the temptations' correspondence  with the three offices of Christ: prophet, king, and priest. Are these readings helpful? Or is the poem---like its style---something plainer?

2.        What is Satan's purpose in the poem? See especially  1.80-105. How does he intend to accomplish it? See especially 2.225-2.35. Why does Satan choose this method? The answer to this last part is probably a major key to the poem. Hint: Why doesn't Satan kill Jesus?

3.        The poem contains many echoes of  Spenser's Faerie Queen. What thematically is the relationship between the poems?

4.        How can Aristotle  be related to the poem?

5.        React to this statement by Northrup Frye: Jesus is "a pusillanimous quietist in the temptation of Parthia, an inhuman snob in the temptation of Rome, a peevish obscurantist in the temptation of Athens." You might want to answer this with an eye on #6.

6.        The poem would seem to be negative, restricted, barren, with so much rejection in it. How can it be viewed as a liberating poem, Milton's declaration of independence? You might want to answer this with an eye on #7.

7.        Relate the poem to Milton's preoccupation with the parable of the talents.

8.        Relate this poem to Samson Agonistes, its companion poem (they were published  together).

9.        The dynamic Satan of Paradise Lost is usually seen as absent from Paradise Regained. Instead, he's an exhausted, drab, manipulative figure. However, what are striking similarities between Milton's two devils? Do they suggest that the Satan of Paradise Regained is a continuation, a logical development, of the Satan of Paradise Lost?

10.     As a summary to all of these questions, does Paradise Regained teach us anything of significance? Are these lessons---if any---the same that the 17th century reader----or 18th or 19th---would have learned?

 

 

 

 

Specific Study Questions

 

 

1.        Why does Jesus refuse turn the rocks into food?

2.        Do the temptations intensify in the poem, or do they weaken as Satan begins to offer Jesus riches, knowledge, and political power?

3.        As the play begins, does Jesus know that he is the son of God? If he does, does Jesus understand the nature of being the son of God? Or the nature of his becoming "king of the Jews"? Or the nature of his taking the world away from Satan?

4.        Explain Satan's tactics in relation to subversion.

5.        Does Satan know that Jesus is the son of God?  Hint: what was Satan's only other encounter with the Son in Heaven?

6.        Does Satan understand how Jesus is to "regain paradise" (i.e. take the world away from him)?

7.        What is the primary source for the poem's "dramatic" tensions?

8.        Does the poem have a comic element?

9.        Summary question: if someone offered you a million dollars---no strings attached---would you accept it? Explain your answer in relation to the poem.