John Miltons Paradise Lost - Essay Example

John Milton's Paradise Lost Introduction A number of critics and book reviews homogeneously assert on Milton's Paradise Lost as greatly associated with images reflecting on several verses in the bible. As a matter of fact, there are numerous situations in Paradise Lost that resemble biblical happenings and scenarios. While Milton's approach to his book does not boldly imitate verses in the bible, it is fairly evident that he had just unnoticeably utilized different names that apparently reveal the books resemblance to the images from the bible. This article argues on the question of whether John Milton uses images from the bible in representing the great epic Paradise Lost and gives clarification and substantiation in supporting the final stand of this paper. Edenic and Mosaic Law in Paradise Lost Milton's view on the first acts of disobedience by Adam and Eve sounds critical and defensive worrying that universal despair and death will appear inadequate and incommensurate with the violation of a single dietary prohibition. This is in line with the concluding two ignored scriptural verses that say: "Anyone who examines this sin carefully will admit, and rightly, that it was a most atrocious offense, and that it broke every part of the law. For what fault is there which man did not commit in committing this sin He was to be condemned both for trusting Satan and for not trusting God; he was faithless, ungrateful, disobedient, greedy, uxorious; she, negligent of her husband's welfare; both of them committed theft, robbery with violence, murder against their children (i.e. the whole human race); each was sacrilegious and deceitful, cunningly aspiring to divinity though thoroughly unworthy of it, proud and arrogant. Correspondingly, Eccles. vii.29 states that "God has made man upright, but they have thought up numerous devices, and in James ii.10 states that "whoever keeps the whole law, and yet offends in one point, is guilty of all. Such verses where referenced by Milton's Paradise Lost saying that Adam and Eve become manifold in sin with their disobedience of one law. The primal act is death's equivalent of the original single cell from which all life is said to have derived, fertilized in a flash of lightning as the earth cooled, leaving traces of itself in all its varied progeny. Milton exploits the Preacher's choice of adam for "man" in the Hebrew text of Ecclesiastes 7:29 as well as his shift from singular to plural in the second clause. This rabbinic interpretation of texts rewrites the verse in an Edenic context and adds Eve as a sinner by means of binary fission. Rashi elucidates and expounds adam in the verse ("God created Adam perfectly upright"), and both Rashi and the earlier Midrash Qoheleth Rabbah explain the use of the plural "they": "when Eve was created from the body of Adam, he became two people" (as cited in Rosenblatt 1994). The concluding verse of the paragraph from James emphasizes the strictly permanent and unbreakable unity of the Pentateuchal law, ultimately a rabbinic idea, although its most famous formulations occur in the letters of Paul, who appropriates and transforms it. Taunting the Jewish Christians, less pious than the Pharisees, who yet refuse to ignore the ceremonial law, Paul insists that if they adopt Jewish law they must perform it all (Sifra, Kedoshim 8b; Sabbath 31a). Paul always views the law's unity negatively, as in Galatians 3:6-14, which attempts to illustrate that the law is impossible to keep in every detail and that only faith can save (Segal 1990). Milton mentions not Paul but rather the noticeably unProtestant and un-Pauline James, whose assumption of the law's unity strengthens his positive declaration that works must go along with faith. The law in Milton's Eden was just, efficacious, and easy to keep. The long list of sins in De doctrina constitutes a complaint against Adam and Eve, not against the law itself, and so Milton appropriately cites James's positive rather than Paul's negative view of the law's unity. The aggregate of violations implies a vast network of prohibitions, and the verse from James proves conclusively that, in order to accommodate the proliferation of sin, the simple Edenic law must give way to the complex Mosaic law. Milton's use of James to place the Fall in a Mosaic context is thoroughly commonplace. Thomas Worden (1664) describes the "covenant of works, which every carnal man and woman is bound unto by nature, and lives under, even to fulfill it in the most accurate measure thereof. This covenant was made with us in the state of innocence, which requires perfect obedience in thought, word, and deed constant, continual obedience to the last breath. So that if a man but fails in one point of the Law of Works, he is guilty of the breach of the whole, James 2.10." Hebraic Monism Genesis 1-2 is the source of Milton's paradise and, not coincidentally, of his most forceful monistic arguments on the indivisibility of soul and body, can be understood without reference to the dualistic and hierarchical oppositions that constitute Pauline interpretation. A presence felt early in the poem - inherited rather than invented - is that of Moses, although the example he sets in the Bible and in Milton's work of fortunate beginnings and incomplete endings is reflected in the tendency of critics to relate him to the epic voice only in the first quarter of Paradise Lost. Notwithstanding the fact that Moses stands between biblical Israel and God, to whom there is no access or without mediator, Moses is the figure who ultimately falls short. Hanford (1939) regarded the role of Moses of Platonic philosopher in the third draft as a paradigm of his role in Paradise Lost. He further characterized Moses as the inhabitant of a Hellenistic universe, whose symbolic office is exclusively that of hierophant, interpreting inaccessible divine truth to the unpurged faculties of his audience. Milton's exalted notion of Moses' character presents similar problems in both the third draft and the epic poem. Gabriel displaces the more difficult Moses as prologue in Milton's fourth draft in the Trinity Manuscript. Correspondingly, Milton's early invocation in Paradise Lost of the inspired "Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed" is succeeded by the invocation of a less troublesome model of divinity (Hanford 1939). Milton loses sight of Moses and elaborates the Platonic and poetic symbolism of Urania. Raphael's Account The type of biblical commentary can be evidently seen in the exposition of Raphael in creation of book 7 of Paradise Lost. In Paradise Lost, however, Raphael, even more than the Mosaic bard, is a "Divine Interpreter," who joins a careful rendition of the divine word in Genesis 1 and 2 with an interlinear interpretation of that word. Raphael's dual office here is that of the Hebrew Bible and its commentary. The direct paraphrases of scripture in book 7 are usually even more concise than their principal source, the King James Bible, and the interlinear poetic commentary, free of blatant ideology, celebrates the beauty of the book of nature. Raphael's doctrinal statements are so subtle that it is easy to overlook them, but, occasionally, they betray their generic origins in commentaries on Genesis. Raphael, unlike Luther and Calvin, forbears emphasizing Christ's recreation. He resists strategies that would diminish the physical, present creation by signaling the ultimate inconsequentiality of its loss. Although faith in Christ's redemption of humankind compensates for the Fall, it also weakens the attraction of an earthly paradise. The result, in book 7, of the poet's forbearance is the celebration of a visible, palpable universe-a celebration that is, in comparison with Christian commentaries on Genesis, purer in its sense of longing. Raphael's restraint and patience throughout books 5 to 8, as he educates pupils who he knows will undo his best efforts, relate to his patience as exemplar of a Hebrew Bible destined to be abrogated. He is one more Miltonic hero who will not complete his task, but who is not excused from performing it. Books 11 & 12: The Exemption The last two books of Milton's Paradise Lost withdraw the creative presence of Miltonic bard deserting the epic to Christian doctrine in the New Testament. Those enemies who attacked Milton for presenting a specifically Jewish theory and practice of marriage and divorce would be gratified by the evidence of his repentance in the last books of diffuse epic. Milton's conversionist mission in the final vision and narration harks back to his Observations upon the Articles of Peace. As explained in Milton's Hebraic Monism, there are textual as well as doctrinal explanations for the joy in mere being characteristic of Milton's paradise and for the unease and anxiety in the epic's last books. However, even though he had lost his Miltonic bard in the last two books, the content and his verses clearly uses images from the bible. Conclusion Despite the fact that Milton's work has been later criticized by succeeding authors especially English ones, his twelve books Paradise Lost released in 1667 was still considered the greatest masterpiece epic poem of early modern English literature. Some authors would even question Milton's utilization of biblical images in his works especially that in Paradise lost. The above mentioned topics are just some of the instances wherein Milton uses images from the bible as reflected through the epic. Starting from the first book up to the twelfth Milton imitates images from the bible in realizing what he wanted to convey to the readers. As a result, a unanimous number of authors agree in the position of assessing Paradise Lost that it apparently used biblical images in most of its content. As a final point, the twelve books of the great epic Paradise Lost gained much more attention to authors through its apparent biblical topics that correspondingly utilizes biblical images in its representation. Milton's main intention of writing Paradise Lost, as he had announced, was to justify and give explanations for the ways of God to men that was realized and successful through the use of biblical images. References Hanford, James Holly (1939). 'That Shepherd Who First Taught the Chosen Seed', A Note on Milton's Mosaic Inspiration," UTQ 8 (1939): 403-19. Segal, Alan F. (1990). Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 120. Sifra, Kedoshim 8b; Sabbath 31a: "If a proselyte takes it upon himself to obey all the words of the Torah except one single commandment, he is not to be received." Rosenblatt, Jason P. (1994). Torah and Law in Paradise Lost. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ. Worden, Thomas (1664). The Types Unvailed, or, The Gospel Pick't Out of the Legal Ceremonies (London), p. 19. Read More