John Milton

Hello I am Emisha Ravani.today I am dealing with the very important figure of the puritan age who is 'John Milton'. Milton has same consideration as Shakespeare has in the English literature because Shakespeare and Milton are the two figures who has made English literature famous. Each is representative of age that and together they form a suggestive commentary upon the two forces that rule our humanity- the force of impulse and force of a fixed purpose. Shakespeare is the poet of impulse, the loves, fears, Jealousies, and ambitions that swayed man of his age. Milton is the poet of steadfast will and purpose ,who moves like a God amid the fears and the hopes and Changing impulses of the world ,regarding them as trivial and momentary things that can never swerve a great soul from it course.



JOHN MILTON

Time Line: 1608- 1674

Milton's Life :

Milton is like an ideal in the soul ,like a lofty after mountain on the Horizon . We never attained ideal , we never climb the mountain but life would be expressibly poorer were either to be taken away. In character the elder Milton was a rare combination of scholar and businessman, medical puritan in politics and religion, great musician, whose tunes are Steel song, a lover of art and literature. Poet mother was a woman of refinement and social grass deep interest in religion and in a local charities. So the boy grew up in a home which combine the culture of the Renaissance with the piety and moral strength of early puritanism.Two things of personal interest deserve mention in this period of milton's life, his marriage and his blindness.

Notable Works: “A Treatise on Christian Doctrine” “Areopagitica” “Artis Logicae” “Comus” “Defense of the English People Against Salmasius” “Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, The” “Eikonoklastes” “History of Britain” “Il Penseroso” “L’Allegro” “Lycidas” “Of Education” “Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England” “On Shakespeare” “On the Fifth of November” “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” “Paradise Lost” “Paradise Regained” “Samson Agonistes” “The Second Defense of the English People by John Milton, Englishman, in Reply to an Infamous Book Entitled “Cry of the King’s Blood”” “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates” 

Milton is best known for Paradise Lost, widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in English. Together with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, it confirms Milton’s reputation as one of the greatest English poets. In his prose works Milton advocated the abolition of the Church of England and the execution of Charles I. From the beginning of the English Civil Wars in 1642 to long after the restoration of Charles II as king in 1660, he espoused in all his works a political philosophy that opposed tyranny and state-sanctioned religion. His influence extended not only through the civil wars and interregnum but also to the American and French revolutions. In his works on theology, he valued liberty of conscience, the paramount importance of Scripture as a guide in matters of faith, and religious toleration toward dissidents. As a civil servant, Milton became the voice of the English Commonwealth after 1649 through his handling of its international correspondence and his defense of the government against polemical attacks from abroad.

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Abandoning his earlier plan to compose an epic on Arthur, Milton instead turned to biblical subject matter and to a Christian idea of heroism. In Paradise Lost—first published in 10 books in 1667 and then in 12 books in 1674, at a length of almost 11,000 lines—Milton observed but adapted a number of the Classical epic conventions that distinguish works such as Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid. 

Milton's Paradise Lost 

Among these conventions is a focus on the elevated subjects of war, love, and heroism. In Book 6 Milton describes the battle between the good and evil angels; the defeat of the latter results in their expulsion from heaven. In the battle, the Son (Jesus Christ) is invincible in his onslaught against Satan and his cohorts. But Milton’s emphasis is less on the Son as a warrior and more on his love for humankind; the Father, in his celestial dialogue with the Son, foresees the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, and the Son chooses to become incarnate and to suffer humbly to redeem them. Though his role as saviour of fallen humankind is not enacted in the epic, Adam and Eve before their expulsion from Eden learn of the future redemptive ministry of Jesus, the exemplary gesture of self-sacrificing love. The Son’s selfless love contrasts strikingly with the selfish love of the heroes of Classical epics, who are distinguished by their valour on the battlefield, which is usually incited by pride and vainglory. Their strength and skills on the battlefield and their acquisition of the spoils of war also issue from hate, anger, revenge, greed, and covetousness. If Classical epics deem their protagonists heroic for their extreme passions, even vices, the Son in Paradise Lost exemplifies Christian heroism both through his meekness and magnanimity and through his patience and fortitude.

Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,

In the beginning how the heav’ns and earth

Rose out of chaos; or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God: I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

This muse is the Judaeo-Christian Godhead. Citing manifestations of the Godhead atop Horeb and Sinai, Milton seeks inspiration comparable to that visited upon Moses, to whom is ascribed the composition of the book of Genesis. Much as Moses was inspired to recount what he did not witness, so also Milton seeks inspiration to write about biblical events. Recalling Classical epics, in which the haunts of the muses are not only mountaintops but also waterways, Milton cites Siloa’s brook, where in the New Testament a blind man acquired sight after going there to wash off the clay and spittle placed over his eyes by Jesus. Likewise, Milton seeks inspiration to enable him to envision and narrate events to which he and all human beings are blind unless chosen for enlightenment by the Godhead. With his reference to “the Aonian mount,” or Mount Helicon in Greece, Milton deliberately invites comparison with Classical antecedents. He avers that his work will supersede these predecessors and will accomplish what has not yet been achieved: a biblical epic in English.

Paradise Lost also directly invokes Classical epics by beginning its action in medias res. Book 1 recounts the aftermath of the war in heaven, which is described only later, in Book 6. At the outset of the epic, the consequences of the loss of the war include the expulsion of the fallen angels from heaven and their descent into hell, a place of infernal torment. With the punishment of the fallen angels having been described early in the epic, Milton in later books recounts how and why their disobedience occurred. Disobedience and its consequences, therefore, come to the fore in Raphael’s instruction of Adam and Eve, who (especially in Books 6 and 8) are admonished to remain obedient. By examining the sinfulness of Satan in thought and in deed, Milton positions this part of his narrative close to the temptation of Eve. This arrangement enables Milton to highlight how and why Satan, who inhabits a serpent to seduce Eve in Book 9, induces in her the inordinate pride that brought about his own downfall. Satan arouses in Eve a comparable state of mind, which is enacted in her partaking of the forbidden fruit, an act of disobedience.

Paradise Lost is ultimately not only about the downfall of Adam and Eve but also about the clash between Satan and the Son. Many readers have admired Satan’s splendid recklessness, if not heroism, in confronting the Godhead. Satan’s defiance, anger, willfulness, and resourcefulness define a character who strives never to yield. In many ways Satan is heroic when compared to such Classical prototypes as Achilles, Odysseus, and Aeneas and to similar protagonists in medieval and Renaissance epics. In sum, his traits reflect theirs.

But Milton composed a biblical epic in order to debunk Classical heroism and to extol Christian heroism, exemplified by the Son. Notwithstanding his victory in the battle against the fallen angels, the Son is more heroic because he is willing to undergo voluntary humiliation, a sign of his consummate love for humankind. He foreknows that he will become incarnate in order to suffer death, a selfless act whereby humankind will be redeemed. By such an act, moreover, the Son fulfills what Milton calls the “great argument” of his poem: to “justify the ways of God to man,” as Milton writes in Book 1. Despite Satan’s success against Adam and Eve, the hope of regeneration after sinfulness is provided by the Son’s self-sacrifice. Such hope and opportunity enable humankind to cooperate with the Godhead so as to defeat Satan, avoid damnation, overcome death, and ascend heavenward. Satan’s wiles, therefore, are thwarted by members of a regenerate humankind who choose to participate in the redemptive act that the Son has undertaken on their behalf. 

Emisha ravani

mkbu, dept of English