How is Milton's personality reflected in Paradise Lost, Book I?
Discuss, with reference to Book I of Paradise Lost, the view that Milton himself is in every line of this epic poem.
There is no doubt that Paradise Lost is a deeply personal and autobiographical poem. "Nothing that was Milton, nothing that happened to Milton, throughout his dreaming, passionate and disillusioning life. but is to be found in Paradise Lost." Milton constantly returns to himself in this epic poem. His own personality is the central force of the poem. Quite a number of scholars have treated this epic as Milton's spiritual autobiography, and have searched for personal information in it.
We have, however, to confine our attention to Book I only. There is ample evidence even in Book I that Milton projects himself and his views into his writing. Book I, like the rest of the poem, is highly coloured by Milton's own temperament, personality, and life-story. Milton makes a reference to his blindness in the very opening passage when, in his invocation to the Holy Spirit, he says: "what in me is dark, illumine". This reference to his blindness lends a touch of pathos to the invocation.
Milton's puritanical and moral fervour find abundant expression in Book I. The very theme of the poem, namely the fall of man, is a religious subject derived from the Bible which Milton regarded as an authentic document. The very opening lines refer to the theme of the fall of Adam and Eve from Paradise as a consequence of their disobedience to God in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree:
Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit
Brought death into the world, and all our woe
With loss of Eden...............
Of that forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Milton's object in writing the poem is also highly religious and shows his deep piety. His object is to "assert Eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men". Milton's criticism of Satan for having instigated our grand parents to eat of the forbidden fruit, is couched in denunciatory language, thus showing the intensity of his resentment and indignation against the forces of evil represented by Satan. He refers to Satan as "the infernal Serpent". He points out that it was by "guile" that Satan, "stirred up with envy and revenge," deceived the mother of mankind. It was on account of his pride that Satan was driven out of Heaven, with all his host of rebel angels. Satan's war against the throne and monarchy of God was impious and proved vain. "Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, down to bottomless perdition." This is strong language and shows Milton's personal feeling.
The puritanical zeal of Milton is found again in his description of Hell. He makes Hell a most hateful and repulsive place, and his intention doubtless is to warn all followers of the Devil against the consequences of evil-doing. Milton's Hell is a horrible dungeon burning like a great furnace. Its "darkness visible" serves only to reveal sights of woe and regions of sorrow. It is a place where "peace and rest can never dwell," and where "hope never comes that comes to all". Satan himself is tormented by the thought both of the happiness that he has lost and the lasting pain that he will have to endure. The fallen angels feel most miserable here, and Milton exclaims: "Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell".
As a Puritan, Milton was a sworn enemy of paganism, pagan beliefs, and pagan deities. He does not give us the original names of the fallen angels, his reason being that he wishes to identify them with heathen gods, and he thus obtains some of the most powerful effects in his poem. It was the traditional Christian view that false religions were the work of the Devil and his companions. The catalogue of the fallen angels in Books I reveals Milton's own personalty and outlook in two ways: as has already been said, it shows his contempt for the pagan creeds; secondly, it may be regarded as a list of his aversions, that is, of the evils which he genuinely detested in life. The first pagan god to be named is Moloch who was worshipped with the sacrifice of children by means of fire. Moloch was associated with violence, savagery, cruelty, and noise. Next is Chemos who was worshipped by the Israelites with obscene ceremonies for which they had afterwards to suffer a heavy punishment. Moloch and Chemos had their places of worship close to each other, which means that hatred or murder represented by the former, and lust represented by the latter, became neighbours. Then follow Baalim and Ashtaroth, the various sun-gods and the moon-goddesses. Next is Thammuz whose fate inspired the girls of the city of Sion with a frenzy of passion. Milton goes on to mention Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, etc. Last of all comes Belial:
Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for itself.
It is obvious that, considering the harsh and bitter words in which Milton describes the worship of the various gods, this catalogue of the fallen angels reveals his own intense hatred of heathen rituals, as also of the vices and evils which these deities personify. During the Reformation the Christian tradition of attacking idolatry was directed by the Protestants against the Church of Rome. Milton's picture of idolatrous religions is inspired largely by his rejection of what he considered the corruptions of Catholic Christianity.
One other heathen god finds mention later in the poem. He is Mammon who represents the love of gold. Milton hated avarice or greed, and it is his own hatred for wealth which inspires his scathing attack on Mammon:
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine...........
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Here Milton sarcastically conveys to us Mammon's craving for gold even when Mammon lived in Heaven in God's presence. And Milton goes on to tell us that it was at Mammon's suggestion that human beings have ever since then been ransacking the bowels of their mother Earth to obtain gold, diamonds, etc. Milton, who was an ardent believer in the spiritual values of life, is here castigating the thorough-going materialism of the large majority of human beings who are the worshippers of Mammon.
Milton's love of nobility and purity in life and his high moral ideals are also seen in his criticism of public life during the Restoration. With the ascension of Charles II to the English throne, Milton fell on evil days. But it is a measure of his boldness and daring that he criticised the dissolute morals of the people of that time in some of the lines of Book I. It is in connection with his description of Belial that he tells us of the luxurious and licentious life which people of cities, and especially the people at the royal court, were leading at the time. Belial, says Milton, reigns in courts and palaces, and in luxurious cities, where the noise of riot ascends above their lofty towers. "When night darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine." Milton also criticises the false clergy of his time when he refers to the priests becoming atheistic, "as did Eli's sons, who filled with lust and violence the house of God." Thus Milton lashes at the corruptions prevailing in both the ecclesiastical and temporal spheres of life, and these corruptions he personally despised.
The portrait of Satan also shows, unmistakably, the stamp of Milton's own personality and temperament. In his commentaries on Satan, he expresses his loathing for the arch-fiend. For instance, he points out that it was the will of God that Satan should "heap damnation on himself with "reiterated crimes" and that, while he sought evil to others, he should merely "pour treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance on himself. But in the speeches that Satan makes, Milton, while certainly focusing our attention on Satan's inherent love of evil, points out Satan's heroic qualities for which Milton himself had great respect and some of which he himself shared. Satan's love of freedom, his pride, and his sense of honour are part and parcel of Milton's own temperament. When Satan says that "the mind is its own place and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." it seems that Milton himself is speaking. When Satan speaks of being free. though in Hell, it is Milton's own spirit of independence asserting itself. "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven" echoes Milton's personal sentiment. It is because of this projection of himself in his portrayal of Satan that the romantic critics were misled into thinking that Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it, and that Satan should be regarded as the hero of the poem. Milton certainly puts some of his own qualities into Satan, but that was because the requirements of his treatment of the poem's theme demanded it.
Milton's religious piety finds expression in the poem in another way also. In his invocation in the opening passage it is not to the Muses of ancient mythology that he appeals. He invokes a higher Spirit: he invokes the "Heavenly Muse" who "from the first was present" and who made the vast Abyss "pregnant". This is the Spirit who prefers the upright and pure heart to all the temples. Milton genuinely believed that he was divinely inspired and that, in writing this epic poem, he had a divine mission to fulfill. Consequently, his invocation to the Heavenly Muse is also an expression of personal feeling, and no mere conventional affair. Furthermore, the numerous biblical allusions in Book I point to the sanctity which he attached to the scripture and the reverence in which he held it. His veneration for the Bible was, again, not just a formal matter.
Milton's personal circumstances may be traced also in certain minor touches he gives to the poem. For instance, his comparison of the confused and crowded fallen angels with the "autumnal leaves that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa" may be traced to his visit to Italy where he had actually witnessed the phenomenon which finds mention in this simile. Vallombrosa is the name of a valley, about eighteen miles from Florence. The autumnal leaves of Vallombrosa actually choke the brooks that run through the forests there.
The personal and autobiographical elements in the poem show Milton's deep-rooted egoism. This egoism considerably diminishes the objective value of the work. But it lends to the poem a continuous emotion and eloquence, and a lyrical ardour which reach their climax when, embarking on his great subject, he invokes the Holy Ghost or when he bemoans his blindness. In its tragic theme, its pessimistic view of world- history, and its assumption that the ways of God really require justification, many scholars perceive a reflection of the poet's old age and the evil days on which he had fallen.
Important Questions with Answers
- Analyse and comment on the opening of Paradise Lost (Book I).
- What picture of Satan do you get from Book I of Paradise Lost?
- Discuss those traditional prescriptions of the epic from which are illustrated in Book I Paradise Lost.
- What purpose is served by the epic similes in Book I of Paradise Lost?
- On the basis of your reading of Book I of Paradise Lost, brig out Satan's qualities of leadership.
- What picture does Milton present of the angels in revolt?
- Analyse the speeches of Satan in Book I of Paradise Lost to show that Milton does not intend us to sympathies with Satan.
- "To admire Satan, then is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda of wishful thinking of incessant autobiography". Discuss in the light of this remark some of speeches by Satan or statements made by the poet about him in Paradise Lost Book I.
- How is Milton's personality reflected in Paradise Lost, Book I?
- Write an essay on Milton's style as revealed Book I Paradise Lost.
- Explain how Milton's poetry weds the puritan spirit with that of the Renaissance.
- What is blank verse? Discuss Milton's handling of it in Book I of Paradise Lost.
