Introduction and Guided Reading: The White Devil OCR

'Lamentable Tragedy, Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth'

The 'mixed' moral standard, it is not surprising that readers find it hard to gauge the tone of Webster's 'tragic' writing.

Webster's tone is rarely solemn for long, but endlessly decorated with parts that are quirky and camp so that the audience should be able to laugh comfortably. In Jacobean tragedy, the sustained serious tone of Shakespearean tragedy is the exception rather than the rule.

                         


Horrid Laughter

A mixed even confused response to the events of his tragedy is probably therefore one of Webster's aims. Torturers and  murderers in TWD wind the nerves of their victims and the audience so tight that they take such contorted delight in what they are doing that our laughter may often be no more than an escape valve.

                               



An example is Flamineo staging his death rather than dying in earnest. His language can, in retrospect, seem comically exaggerated. It becomes a chilling parody of the conceits revengers.

A Play of Paradox 

The title itself is a paradox and is assumed to refer to the nature of Vittoria. However, this sense of ambiguity, even duplicity is not confined to Vittoria. It is reflected in every major character of the play- eg. Flamineo whose speeches are hard to interpret

Not What I say, but What I do!

The double signals Webster's characters continually give out is partly owing to the 'mixed' nature of his tragic form. But some critics insist it is also due to the unusual nature of Webster's writing methods.

                                 


Webster focuses more on how events and outcomes, might, after many windings and surprises combine to establish a tragic figure and how much of his meticulously gathered poetry that figure might then plausibly be made to speak.

The Morality Tradition

Before permanent professional theatres in England opened this meant that theatrical performances were given by itinerant companies specializing in Morality plays with characters that were labelled as Vice or Virtue.

                             


It follows that many of the plays of the Jacobean repertoire were expected to convey firm 'morals' so Webster in TWD gives a sententious moral statements to most of his characters. Giovanni, the moral anchor of the play says these a lot (what a fucking wanker)

Yet wise saws are repeatedly placed into the mouths of characters whose actions contradict their statements. Despite the flag-waving conviction of its 'authority figures', moral ambiguity remains the play's prevalent note.

Webster's Women

Women are frequently seen be men as mere commodity. Heroines are accused of lust, infidelity, and men, under the guise of honour are violent and derogatory towards them, partly through malice, partly through an imperial sense that the blood that beats in the veins of a female relation is literally their own.

Dod and Cleaver- Influential 1598 Conduct Book
"Silence is the best ornament of a woman and therefore the law was given to the man, rather then to the woman, to shew that hee should be the teacher and she the hearer."
 
                                

Vittoria's role is its comparative brevity for a title character and how different is her impact in each of them.
In Act 1 -  resilient under sexist curing but tempts Brachiano
Act 2- dispatches the shit lawyer and personates 'masculine virtue' but regains her female voice to cry rape. Assume the qualities of both genders
Act 4: silence and unexpectedly squashed
Final scene: poetic adventurer trying on many modes and roles, from glimmering acceptance of misfortunes to eternal dread

Remakes herself radically between appearances and may be echoing her Flamino.

Her changing role reflects not a shifting or duplicit personality but the brutal accomodations and decit demanded of all women if they are to survive in the patriarchy. An actress not synthesise not a single composite personality but to play a series of distinct, raw female stereotype.


                                    

Zanche is inured to intrigue, promiscuity, theft and betrayal is more professional victim even than Vittora. Traded her emotions so long she seems only vaguely aware of them. Isabella = chaste wife and is a toy for her powerful male relatives and has unpleasantly punitive fantasies towards her rival.

All these women seem victim beneficiaries of a sexist society showing 'masculine virtue' when challenged, but a tendecy to exploit the role of 'wronged woman' when their going is easier.

Interpretations

Monarchy, the Civil War and the Restoration Society

A + E initial respect for their Lord and Maker turns into apprehension and bitter irritation. Eve calls God the 'great Forbidder'. Symbolises the nation realising that the monarch is not the benevolent God's emissary in Britain but rather a tyrant keeping the nation under surveillance and control.

                               


Satan: metaphor for a troubled nation, destroyed by years of unfair monarchic rule, who lost their morality. This nation seeks to overthrow the monarch using radical, brutal steps just like Satan

                       


The title- the Paradise lost to people could suggests the opportunity of forming a republic, also lost to society as the Restoration of the monarchy was carried out. Promise of a new, fair, orderly country was, to Milton, a promise of a political Paradise. PL seems to be Milton's lament over these hopes.

Critique of the restoration or the revolution?

Women

In the 17th century, significant improvement in women's contribution to the society and community. Women were increasingly involved in the newly formed Quakers religious group. Allowed to be active members of the Quaker community but they could also be priestesses- socially empowering change for women in England

Contextual Overview- John Milton

The ''desire to know' is one of the defining characteristics of humanity and a central theme in Paradise Lost.

Political 

The middle decades of the 17th century are the period of the most intense political upheavals and shocking constitutional changes that Britain had not seen yet.

• Religious disputes + complaints over the royal perogative and unjust taxation lead to the Civil Wars of 1640
• Parliamentary troops fought in open rebellion against the King Charles I
• Charles was taken prisoner and tried before parliament and was executed in 1649- leaving England without a crowned head of state
• Stuart Monarchy is restored in 1660 when Charles II returns from exile and rides in triumph to London in 1660
• Restoration is widely celebrated and comes as a great relief to the nation. 
• Over the previous 20yrs every part of the British Isles experienced military maneuvers, forced sequestration of goods, armed skirmishes, the violent suppression of revolt and the murderous power of the canon and musket

Milton's deepest fear- English nation would not prove itself worthy of its newly won civic liberty, Idolatrous tendency in man to settle for the familiar, to resist change and to accept compromise. For Milton the restoration of the Monarchy is a form of self- enslavement by the English nation and a scandalous rejection of their God-given right to freedom.

Epic poem is an attempt to re-educate the English not as a chosen nation but as individuals and restore the ruins of the Restoration. To make the audience fit to become the 'children of reviving liberty'.

Rooted in political disillusionment rather than celebration of national supremacy. Contempt for imperial ambitions- narratorial voice beset with insecurity and anxiety. Story is the failure to live up to an ideal.

However, the epic narrative does admit the possibility of renewal, embedding that message in its imagery: light and darkness, creative forces that are stronger than destructive ones, love that overcomes malice, the seed of hope that grows after despair.


Heroes in Paradise Lost

Real heroes are those who are willing to suffer and to face persecution in the cause of truth. eg. Abdiel, repentant Adam and Eve.

Individual fortitude, inner strength and the courage shown by the solitary individual who keeps faith against the odds are the only achievement deemed worthy of praise in the new world order.

Charles II passed a number of Acts of Parliament are passed which repress all religious observance not conforming to the liturgy of the Church of England. To Milton this is spiritual coercion and  he would encourage the godly minority to hold firm in times of repression

In PL there is an apocalyptic perspective. For Milton it will require the Second Coming of the Son and the destruction by fire of 'Satan with his perverted World' before true prosperity will return to man.





Satan 

Styles himself as an indomitable champion and a brave adventurer though we see him as a profiteer and a colonial exploiter of a new world. Satan's voice is the first thing that gains our attention.

In Satan's vocab we recognise the values closely associated with the pagan hero of Homeric epics- strength, courage audacity etc. and above all else prestige and reputation and fame. Satan combines the strength and pride of Achilles with the linguistic skill of Odysseus. But rhetoric remains obsessed with the founding of an empire.

Satan as an embodiment of evil ambition rather than just evil. Within Satan's version of events, he is the champion of choice and freedom and God is the tyrant, a repressive and envious force. Satan is truly obsessed with being himself one of the gods to be glorified by his followers and to torment ill fated victims of his own.



Paradise Lost as an Alternative Presentation of Homeric Motifs


Narration of the War in Heaven makes us remember the destructive and futile escalation of aggression, the illogicality of immortals engaging in mortal conflict and the diabolical invention of gunpowder. Such shit is contrasted with solitary courage of Abdiel.

From the perspective of Heaven, Homeric war is sterile and destructive and not even the obdient angels manage to keep their dignity as they face cannon shot or throw mountains around.

It can be seen that Milton's presentation of the destructive futility of war draws to the contemporary experience of Civil War.


The Fall

Many think that Adam and Eve fell on the day that they were created. They are in Paradise for 2 weeks- they work, have a sex life and shows them to be rationally monotheistic creatures. He has them to scrutinise their situation, assess a troubling dream, converse with an angelic messenger + debate between themselves.

Sympathise with both individuals at their moment of trial and traces the complexity of their motivation. Uses Edenic experience as a means of discussing human nature and free will.

Responsibility for one's actions and beliefs always lies with the individual. Each individual has ultimately to be able to show their working. Within the epic, revelation is shown to be an unfolding process and one that admits interrogation by rational creatures.

Salvation is neither arbitrary nor pre-selective but lies in the active choice of the individual to accept or deny God's grace.

John Milton: A Brief Guide

Paradise Lost is a covert account of the ageing Milton's response to the momentous historical events in which he had played such an active and uncompromising part: English revolution.

Milton was famous throughout western Europe for his justifications of the execution of King Charles I. Many people were like Milton in disapproving of the increasingly ceremonial high manner in which the church was being to run.

Milton was a puritan and desired a simplifying the forms of worship between the individual believer and God. His confession of commitment to Purtianism was seen in Lycidas (1637) which was an attack on bishops whom Milton thought were causing such harm. Three years later, Milton attacked the very idea of a bishop at length in his anti-episcopal tracts.

In 1640's, Milton argued with the Church over the censorship in the church which forced many authors and works underground and resulted in violent punishment of others.

This is found in Areopagitica which was named after an ancient council in Athens which argued for widespread press freedom that constantly affirms the benefits of permitting people the responsibility to choose between good and evil.

Milton also argued for fundamental changes in the law of marriage. The divorce tracts forced a contradictory awareness between an intense idealisation of female beauty and companionship with a general patriarchial despising of female ability, a conflict which provides its later poetry with so much of its energy and lack of resolution.

Contrast between the allegory of the birth of Death from Sin and Death's rape of his mother in PL Bk 2 with the description of Eve in Bk 4. Beauty is used to point up her frailty until she is effectively blamed for the Fall of Mankind.

Words as sinews

In PL, Milton chooses to abandon rhyme (which he regarded as a personal and political 'bondage') and deliberately ran sentences over lines, to create that 'sinuous' syntax which he thought so necessary for his own language. Milton viewed language in this way as he had been trained in the classical arts of eloquence, oratory and rhetoric.

Rhetoric revived in Renaissance Europe under largely monarchial regimes, origins were in the political ideal of the ancient republican city states, where the requirements of citizenship were fulfilled by virtuous public speaking.

Classical literature showed Milton that kings usually degenerated into tyrants. This was the opinion of Aristotle and in Greek and Roman tragedies, kingly tyranny was exposed at its worst. The only true King is the King Jesus in heave and that the best kind of kingship on earth is the capacity for self-control. 

Reversal 

Having punished England once with the Civil War for an unreformed church, God was now punishing England again, for the policies of the 1650s. In Bk 2 the parliament in Hell can be seen as a reflection of Milton's disillusionment with secular republicanism as the speeches of Satan etc. are just piles of fucking shit. Also seen to be disparaging of language of republicanism.

Context in a Nutshell- John Milton

John Milton was born in 1608 in London to a wealthy family of a composer and scrivener. His strong appreciation for religious values and Puritan traditions influenced his writing.

Milton was very well educated and studied humanities at Cambridge university and graduated with a masters degree in 1632. In 1638 he visited France and Italy, He gave up prospects of training to be an Anglican priest in favour of becoming a poet.

Poetry= serving God and propagating Puritan ideas. He wanted to convey messages of the way of God, to praise morality and to picture disdain for sensuality and baseness.

Keen supporter of the republican movement and in opposition to Royalists.

He had radical thoughts which were controversial at the time but was admired by Republicans for his courageous works.

His vast knowledge of foreign languages meant that the political leader Oliver Cromwell appointed Milton as the Secretary for Foreign Tongues in the Commonwealth of England- the republican state created after King Charles I was executed. After the Civil War in 1642, King Charles was executed in 1649. Milton was devoted to writing republican propaganda and pamphlets

After Cromwell's death in 1658, there was confusion around the government and the ideas of how it should work. Society did not want or need anymore political upheaval but wanted to return to a pre-war 'normality'. Therefore the restoration of the Monarchy took place in 1660 and Charles II came back from exile.

Return of the monarchy left Milton disillusioned. However, he continued writing political tracts on the lack of need for a monarch in England.

Republicanism was no longer the general thought in England therefore he had to hide and was imprisoned for a short time.

Milton eventually became blind and in 1667 dictated Paradise Lost to his daughters.

A New Kind of Hero- Dr Sean McEvoy

Between 1642 and 1650 nearly 200,000 died from famine and plague in the Civil Wars between the Crown and Parliament. The combined population of England and Scotland was only about 6,000,000 in 1640.

By the time he came to write PL in the 1660s he lamented that despite 'God proclaiming peace':

"Yet live in hatred, enmity and strife,
 Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy" 

In Book 9 came the rejection of the code of military heroism

Flawed but Free Heroes

His heroes are not the vengeful, honour obsessed warriors typical of Homer's Illiad or Virgil's Aeneid bu out common ancestors, a man and a woman commit a tragic and fatal error of judgement in human history.

The mistake is not out of self- regard or vindictive anger. They fall because they think honestly for themselves as free-beings and out of love. Like classical heroes, Eve is able to take responsibility for her actions but unlike Greek forbears, their suffering is not catastrophic.

Their disobedience leads to repentance which will merit a loving God's self-sacrifice in human form.

Testing Virtue and Truth

This is the situation in which God has placed mankind by giving him free will to choose between sin and virtue. It is an argument echoed in Milton's political tract 'Areopagitica'  in 1644 against government censorship.

During the marital debate Adam sees that Eve's personal integrity requires personal freedom and concedes:
"Go, for thy stay, unfree, absents thee more"

Rejecting Classical Learning

As Eve departs she is compared to the chase hunter-goddess Diana but is like us for she is only armed with gardening tools lol,  As a result she will only have human wit to defend her.

Here, heroic classical rhetoric sis here the work of the devil. Milton is able to use high-status classical learning only to reject its values.

Eve's Choice- Free Will 


Satan tells Eve that he has tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and it has given him speech and intelligence beyond a serpent. Shifting into the discourse of the classical world he asserts it will make them 'gods'. Eve is confused by the argument but still succumbs out of free choice.

After the Fall in them nature does not seem to blame humans for the terrible and irreversible environmental damage caused by Eve's mistake:

"Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat.
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost" 

The Motive of Love

The fallen Eve's motive to make Adam eat the fruit are mixed but not wicked. She reflects that if God has seen her transgression and she does die than Adam will be granted a new woman in her place so jealously motivates Eve.

"So dear I love him, that will all deaths/
I could endure, without him live no life.! 

Adam sees what is going on and the garland he holds made from 'choicest flowers' withers and dies. In Book 18 of Iliad- the hero Patroclus is about to die, the helmet Achilles has lent him falls to dust. Milton echoes this but Adam's demise is not about fighting soldiers and glory but out of love.

Adam follows Eve's disobedience as he can't live without her:
"Loss thee/
Would never from my heart"

Modern Responsible Heroism 

Adam is 'fondly overcome with female charm' . As Adam eats, 'nature gave a second groan' as a new sinful world is born. Fallen Adam invites Eve to make love with him which recalls the seduction of Helen by the hero 'godlike' Paris in the Iliad.

Classical heroism is part of the fallen world. But unlike Patroclus or Paris who will not live to see Troy fall, A + E survive expulsion from Eden, wiser and repentant confident of God's grace and of the importance of their own freedom in the fallen world beyond the gates.

"They hand in hand with wandering steps and slowly,/
Through Eden took their solitary way"

Modern heroism is not to fight and kill but to take responsibility for one's actions in an imperfect but shared world to continue to love and to maintain hope in the prospect of a better world to come.

Eikonoklastes

Introduction 

• Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for  the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649.

• By appointment of the Council of State, Milton was assigned to write Eikonoklastes as the      Secretary of Foreign Tongues in March 1649.

• Declaring that “I take it on me as a work assigned rather, than by me chosen or affected,” Milton    wrote Eikonoklastes as a response to Charles’ Eikon Basilike. Commissioned by the Council of State  in March 1649.

Eikon Basilike

• Eikon Basilike , “The King’s Image” was written in defence of King Charles I, who ascended the    throne in 1625 subtitled "the Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings." It  purports to be the king's spiritual autobiography. Written in simple, direct, and moving language, it  ran into many editions and was translated into several languages.

• It claims to be a private record of the thoughts and prayers of Charles through the last years,    months, weeks, days, even hours of his life. Charles is pictured as a monument to piety,  conscientiousness, and faith; he is shown as a man who loves his family, a King concerned for the  welfare of his people, and a pious Protestant much given to earnest prayer.


• It was circulated shortly after his execution in an effort, as editors Daems and Faith Nelson suggest,  “to embed the rhetoric of kingship into the minds of its early modern-readers, despite the physical  absence of the king.”


• Charles was executed in January 1649 following disputes and charges from
 his parliament, and he was perceived by his English opponents to be a
 political tyrant based on his desire for divine authority and kingly rule


• Eikonoklastes primary purpose was to counter Eikon Basilike, therefore the text was written in    English as it was intended for an English audience

• Eikonoklastes aims to shatter the king’s image. With its text title of the Greek word for “iconoclast,” which means “a breaker or destroyer of images”, Eikonoklastes strips Eikon Basilike,

• The language and style of Eikonoklastes, show that Milton’s intentions were specifically aimed towards demystifying Charles’ political misrepresentations and unveiling his real intentions.

• Milton employs linguistic methods to persuade his readers while integrating political references and biblical scripture in achieving his goal.

• Milton attacks Charles I's rhetorical flourishes throughout Eikon Basilike, and he claims that "the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie".

• Milton criticises every aspect of Eikon Basilike to the point that when Charles I claims that he was with gentlemen, Milton responds "Gentlemen indeed; the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels".

The Main Points in Eikonoklastes 

• Milton’s defense of the regicide of Charles the First takes both political and religious angles.
     
Religious Justifications for the Regicide 
• Responding directly to the Eikon Basilike,Milton stresses repeatedly that service to God and service to the King are not one in the same, that is, service to God could (and indeed, in Charles case did) constitute the removal of the King.

• Milton’s discourse in effect shatters the icon of the "Godly" ruler from a protestant angle by subjecting the notion of a King's right to rule by divine right to critical interpretation, separating the King from the religious doctrines that justified his reign.

• Milton’s religious argument is grounded in his protestant ethic: He repeatedly stresses that God’s favor (the supposed instrument of a King’s right to rule) cannot center around one individual but is instead accessible to all.

• Thus, Milton asserts that Charles' execution was justified in the eyes of God because the King had threatened to trivialize the purity of the Church of England by moving it in the wrong direction that confused the authority of God with the power of the King.

The Radical Politics of a Regicide
• Milton establishes Parliament, not the King, as the most genuine expression of the collective will of the English nation.

• His political argument stresses the King’s manipulation of Parliament by only calling it into session for the purposes of requesting wartime appropriations, and the frequency with which he dissolved it when the commons refused to cooperate with his goals.

• He uses this example to equate Charles’s rule with subjugation for the English people, that is, Charles had as much concern for the people's aims as he did parliament's.

• Milton shows the reader that Charles’ ruled with an illogical single-mindedness that was antithetical to the kind of religious republic that he, and radicals like him, hoped to create.

• Milton argues that there is a potential in all monarchical governments for the potential of enslaving a population, which was an argument he previously relied on in his The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

• Milton's view of freedom was not limited to just having the right to property, but to be free from the potential of arbitrary domination by a monarch.

• Starting in 1649, Milton began to connect his various prose publications with the plan of a future epic to be composed, and Eikonoklastes was one such work.

• Some critical interpretations highlight the multiple parallels between the actions of Charles I monarchy and Satan's rule in hell found within Paradise Lost. Although, this interpretation is perfectly fine, care must be taken to not simplify ‘Paradise Lost’ into a political category- this is does not examine the deeper subtleties and meanings within the text

• However, the description of a rise of an antichristian monarchs near the end of Eikonoklastes declares that such individuals rely on an ambiguous language to gain power. Likewise, Milton's Satan relies on the same kind of rhetoric. Likewise, the deviant followers of Charles I are connected to demons in hell who drink and blaspheme

Quotes from Eikonoklastes
• Milton’s intent is "for their sakes who through want of better custom, simplicity, or want of better teaching, have not more seriously considered kings than in the gaudy name of majesty" to argue against the pious picture of King Charles that has been presented in the recent book, Eikon Basilike.

• “ inevitably throw us back again into all our past and fulfilled miseries; would force us to fight over again all our tedious wars and put us to another fatal struggling for liberty and life, more dubious than the former."

• “that our consciences were destined to the same servitude and persecution … under him, or if it should so happen, under his son; who count all protestant churches erroneous”

• Charles’ death does not, in and of itself, make him a true martyr: "if to die for ‘the testimony of his own conscience’ be enough to make him martyr, what heretic dying for direct blasphemy, as some have done constantly, may not boast a martyrdom?"

• that people that should seek a king claiming what this man claims, would show themselves to be by nature slaves and arrant beasts—not fit for that liberty which they cried out and bellowed for, but fitter to be led back again into their old servitude like a sort of clamoring and fighting brutes

• “ know not how to use or possess the liberty which they fought for, but with the fair words and promises of an old exasperated foe are ready to be stroked and tamed again into the wonted and well-pleasing state of their true Norman villeinage, to them best agreeable."

Critical Views 


• The work failed: it is the general view that Milton's work did not succeed, in terms of rebutting the Eikon Basilike

• However, this book was the first work by Milton to be at all widely read. Public sentiment still supported Charles I, but the tract was able to appeal to a larger audience than many of Milton's previous works.

• The Act of Oblivion was enacted on 29 August 1660, and Milton was not among those who were listed to suffer the death penalty for their part in Charles I's execution.
• On the other hand, a proclamation by the king demanded that Eikonoklastes and Defensio pro Populo Anglicano be burned.

The Author/Narrator Difficulties- Who Really Speaks?

The short introduction is narrated by an omniscient, third person narrator. But in the main body of the text are the first person narrator who uses third person narrative to report the characters' proceedings to us.

• After Satan's soliloquy, the narrator words are scarce + intertwine with the characters' monologues in the form of short comments on who is speaking and the tone. The narrator is then reduced to structuring the characters' narrative. Reminds us of stage directions- dramatic, theatrical qualities. 

• Elaborate soliloquies and monologues gives characters a degree of narrative authority. First person, subjective narrative

First person narrative is not reliable- not omniscient and subjective. If our narrator is not all knowing than how can he narrate biblical events with the focus on emotional depth and insights into Adam, Eve and Satan. Possible for 3rd person narrator but uses the 'I'- enables the narrator's objectivity. 

Narrator draws the reader into the narrative by using 'we', highlighting the reader's equality to the narrator. Technique is slightly rhetoric- forms a bond between the narrator and reader as equal moral standing= same guilt and shame of the original sin. 

Poem scripted by the author. Work is not all art but a religious revalation, inspired by divine forces- not Milton. But possibility it's him- narrator's racist remark about Native American people in A + E's downfall:

"To that first naked Glorie. Such of late

Columbus found th'American so girt/

With feathered Cincture, naked else and wilde."

Newly fallen Adam compared to the Native American colonised by European empires. Compares Adam's worst traits with the Native American people is an echo of Milton's own imperial outlooks.

Blank Verse 

No rhyme structure. Does not look or sound as structured and melodic as rhymed poetry. Slows the poem down, interrupts the easy 'flowing' of the text. Makes text harder and more laborious. Complements the mood of the poem- sombre tale of human tragedy. 

Speech-like quality- makes poem's narrative sound more life-like. Run on lines adds to the poems realism + renders its sound like a speech. 

Iambic Pentameter 

Natural rhythm of the English language. 5 unstressed syllables followed by 5 stressed ones. 

Narratives and monologues are more realistic. PL as a product of religious revelation rather than a crafted piece of literature. 

Syntax

Foreign feel of Milton's syntax is due to the author's first studied language being Latin. Milton wanted his epic poem to resemble the greatest literary works of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Milton creates a sense of his poem being a replica or a translation of an ancient poem.

Elevate the poem's style- more lofty and worthy of the epic field. Makes the reading slower and more difficult. 

Binary Oppositions 

Create a moral depth- contrasting the good and evil. 

• God/Satan
• sin/virtue
• punishment/praise
• infernal/the divine
• God's creating/Satan's destroying inclinations

Create tensions and turning points. Organize the plot + dictate the audience's sympathy. But when binary opposites are broken (virtuous Eve tempted to sin) challenges the text + unsettles the audience.  Questions characters and morality. 

Satan's first soliloquy. Binaries are:

• light/dark
• pleasure/torment
• productive/destructive
• delight/woe
• sweet/bitter

Showcase Satan's troubled state of mind and anger. 

The man/woman binary introduces a differentiation based on characters' gender. Also shows how one of the genders is superior to the other. 

Binary oppositions highlight Eve's moral superiority to Satan. 

Images of 'innocence', 'softness', 'sweetness' vs 'evil', 'fierceness', 'malice', 'envie' and creates a tension and suspense in anticipation of Satan and Eve's first interaction. 

Oppositions are troubling- know that Eve is going to commit the sin. Undermines the oppositions present in the text. Does it also undermine the God/Satan and punishment/praise. Linked to political interpretation- the Civil War. 

Lexis and Its Effect on the Imagery 

Bk 9 Ln 145-178 

Satan is gliding through the Earth's underground in the 'midnight vapor' Everything is 'obscure', 'dark' and 'foul'. Add uncertainty, mystery and unpleasantness and danger.  Satan laments that he has to enter Paradise as 'a beast' who is 'mixt with beastial slime'. Abundance of forceful, negative lexis in this passage.

Presented with bitter 'revenge'. There are thickets of 'Danck and Drie' picturing the setting as moudly, damp and disorderly. Introduces images of decay and destruction. Semantic fields of beastiality and anger contribute to the grim, dark imagery of the passage. 

Rhetoric 

Rhetoric widely used eg. Eve to persuade Adam to seperate + work in different parts of the Garden. Used by Adam to prevent her from doing so. Satan uses it to tempt Eve.

Examples

Adam and Eve. Eve uses many personal pronouns e.g. 'us' , 'we'  and 'our'. which she repeats. Employs emotive, forceful phrases combined with rhetorical questions: "How are we happie, in still in fear of harm." Eve's repetition as she repeats 'foul' three times. Lastly Eve uses Adam's love and submission to God:

"Let us not then suspect our happie State/

Left so imperfet by the Maker wise."

Adam uses a similar array of rhetorical devices to keep Eve by his side and dissuade her embarking on solitary work. Uses personal pronouns and praises Eve: "immortal Eve/For such thou art, from sin and blame entire."

Uses emotive and forcedul lexis and uses triples: "More wise, more watchful, stronger"

Last example is Satan's rhetoric to tempt Eve to the forbidden fruit. Addresses Eve as 'Queen of this Universe' and bestows her with flattery to gain her trust and fondness. Criticises God for denying Adam and Eve the privileges an pleasures of tasting the forbidden fruit. Makes negative points about God's commandements: "Why then was his forbid?... Why but to keep ye low and ignorant."

"By the Fruit? It gives you life..."

Satan makes himself more attractive and accessible. Opposition to God who is 'The Threatener' and offers Eve more positive and encouraging info. Appeals to Eve's common sense.

Includes many contrasts in his speech- binary oppositions to highlight the perceived injustice of God's restrictions

"Shall that be shut to man, which to the Beast

Is open?"

Man'/Beast and shut/open. Fruit should not be forbidden and the ban is not reasonable. Undermines God's reasonability and authority in Eve's eyes. Ultimate effect of Satan's rhetoric- Eve's obedience to the God's commandment, moments after she listens to the serpent's deceitful speech. 

Milton's Theological Heresies

Milton's vast theological treatise, De Doctrina Christiana- assembles thousands of scriptural passages which meant a a great deal to the blind, solitary writer, for he considered it his "dearest and best possession" and his "greatest comfort".

Christian Doctrine was an attempt to illuminate his 'dark' mind with the texts and spirit of the Bible.

The Bible: "the onely Book left us of Divine authority."

As he was working on Paradise Lost, Milton was compiling his voluminous treatise on Biblical matters. Therefore connections can be seen between the two texts.

This text was written with the hope that his work might, "wipe away those two repulsive afflictions, tyranny and superstition from human life and human mind."

Similar to other Puritans, Milton deeply resented the invocations of Archbishop William Laud who had subordinated the status of scripture and individual conscience by emphasizing the Church of England's power and ceremonialism. Church has asserted its splendour + authority.

Milton believed that: "God has revealed the way of eternal salvation only to the individual faith of each man."
The Scripture itself is a vital and dynamic spiritual force both in his age and within the upright heart of each Protestant individual.

As in Areopagitica he valorises 'free discussion and inquiry'. Anti Trinitarian in his theological beliefs. Dismantles the orthodox trinity so that the Son though subordinate to the father is an independent entity.  The Son lacks the Father's omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.

The Son's divine nature is distinct and inferior to the Father's. Milton emphasizes filial subordination.

Milton's radical Arminianism is the most significant for understanding Paradise Lost. Passionate belief in human free will which distinguished him from orthodox Calvinist Puritans. Man's Nature was so debased and enslaved by sin that it precluded his ability to achieve salvation through free will,

Calvinists focus on man's utter depravity, powerlessness and 'infected will- Man's fallen nature is diseased and has corrupted us. No point- already damned to hell...

Milton stressed God's foreknowledge but firmly wished to deny that future events were predestined or happened by necessity. Milton attempts to differentiate his God from the Calvinist God of arbitary power.

God does forsee events but humankind may choose freely to stand or fall when it comes to temptation the choice is always ours- "there can be no absolute divine decree about the action of free agents.' The fall was not inevitable - this is a Protestant poet who attempts to highlight the freedom of human agency though without ever abandoning a belief in God's omnipotence.

Milton's Divorce Tracts

Milton's divorce tracts refer to the four interlinked polemical pamphlets—The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, The Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion. 

Milton's Marriages 

• Milton married Mary Powell in May 1642, and, shortly after, she left him and returned to live with her mother. He wanted to divorce her to marry another, but the legal statutes of England did not allow for Milton to apply for a divorce.

•  Although it is impossible to know why exactly Powell separated from Milton, it is possible that Powell's family, a strong royalist family, caused a political difference that was exacerbated by the English Civil War. 

• Regardless of her reason, the action motivated Milton towards researching and eventually writing on the topic. 

• Milton began writing a series of divorce tracts. Sometime between 1642 and 1645

• Milton met and attempted to pursue another woman known only as Miss Davis.

• During his involvement with her, he attempted to convince her that his marriage should have resulted in a divorce and that it would be appropriate for her to marry him although he was already legally married; this resulted in failure. 

• However, this did not dissuade his campaign to reform the divorce laws, and he continued to pursue the topic until his wife returned to him. 

• Milton and Powell's marriage lasted until 1652; Powell died while giving birth to Deborah, the couple's third daughter. 

• She was followed by the death of John, their infant and only son. Milton remarried Katherine Woodcock in 1656. This marriage was far more successful than Milton's previous, but, like his first wife, Woodcock died from complications experienced while giving birth. 

OVERARCHING ARGUMENT: Milton's argument hangs on his view of human nature and the purpose of marriage, which rather than the traditional ends of procreation or a remedy against fornication, he defines as "the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evils of solitary life". 

Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce argues for the ability to have a second chance at marriage. In particular, Milton claims, that no one can always know the disposition of their spouse before they enter into marriage. 

Milton's argument and stance on divorce continues to the point that he implies that a divorcer could actually be the one who understands and defends marriage the most. 

"that desire which God saw it was not good that men should be left alone to burn in; the desire and longing to put off an unkindly solitarines by uniting another body, but not without a fit soule to his in the cheerfull society of wedlock. Which if it were so needfull before the fall, when man was much more perfect in himself, how much more is it needfull now against all the sorrows and casualties of this life to have an intimate and speaking help, a ready and reviving associate in marriage."

Judgment of Martin Bucer

Published in July 1644, Judgment of Martin Bucer consists mostly of Milton's translations of pro-divorce arguments from the De Regno Christi of the German Protestant reformer Martin Bucer. 

By finding support for his views among Protestant writers, Milton hoped to sway the members of Parliament and Protestant ministers who had condemned him. 

Tetrachordon

Tetrachordon appeared in March 1645, after Milton had published his defence of free speech, Areopagitica, in the interim. The title means "four-stringed" in Greek, implying that Milton was able to harmonise the four Scriptural passages dealing with divorce: 

Genesis 1:27–28:  "God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it." 

Deuteronomy 24:1- "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house."

Matthew 5:31–32 and 19:2–9 

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

I Corinthians 7:10–16. 

"A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife."

"How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?"

Milton suggests that the secondary law of nature permits divorce in the post-lapsarian world. This tract is the largest and most ponderous of Milton's arguments of divorce, consisting of over 100 pages. Its Scriptural emphasis anticipates that of De Doctrina Christiana.

Colasterion

Meaning "rod of punishment" in Greek, the brief Colasterion was published along with Tetrachordon in March 1645 in response to an anonymous pamphlet attacking the first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Milton makes no new arguments, but harshly takes to task the "trivial author" in vituperative prose.

Areopagitica

• Argues against use of licensing and freedom of speech
• Written in response to Licensing Order of 1643- published on 23rd November 1644
• Name derives from an ancient Greek council situated on the hill of Areopagus in Athens. Isocrates sought to restore the power of council
• Didatic purposes- not in favor of empty flattery
• The value of books
• Milton appeals to history, demonstrating the lack of censorship in enlightened Greek and Roman societies + censorship= Catholic tyranny
• Faith in human ability to reason and decide; God has gifted us with this rationality 
• "Knowledge of is so involv'd and interwoven with the knowledge of evill"
• "He that can apprehend and consider vice... and yet abstain...he is the true wayfaring Christian."
• Controversial books of religion are more of a danger to the learned than to the ignorant- "likeliest to taint both life and doctrine"
• "Evil manners are as perfectly learnt without books"
• "ordain wisely as in this world of evil"
• Censorship only masks vice, it does not eradicate it from its roots: "though ye take from a covetous man all his treasures, he has yet one jewell left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousness"
• Virtue must temper the passions- Aristotelian influence- Golden Mean between extremes
• Motives for working as censor? If they are only financial the work loses its value- they are merely playing up to desires of leaders. Undermines trust in society, discourages writing and scholarship
• "When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him"- the thought and care put into work is not to be lightly dismissed. 
• If we are so suspicious of men "as to fear each book...before we know what the contents are," then we are facing "a second tyranny over learning"
• "Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopoliz'd and traded in by tickets and statues, and not standards." 
• Repression has opposite effect to that intended...."instead of suppressing sects...it raises them and invests them with a reputation."
• "Our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise...Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition"- censorship stands in the way of progress the search for Truth
• Blind obedience to authority is not true faith; it is unreasoning and ignorant - encourages personal, genuine relationship to God and search for religious truths. 
• England is the new chosen nation of God- it is an earthly type of the City of God
• "When there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making."
• Licensing makes priests and clergymen lazy- no need to better instruct their congregation as their truth is forced
• "Let Truth and Falsehood grapple in the open. Truth will win."
• Doctrine of Limited Tolerance: "If all cannot be of one mind."
• If nothing else will work: "It would be no unequal distribution ... to suppress the suppressors themselves."
• To set right the wrong that has been done is the highest and wisest thing that Parliament can do- flattery- "We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formall and slavish.... but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have free'd us."