"Sufficient to Have Stood, Though Free to Fall": The Parabolic Narrative of Free Will in Paradise Lost Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Bizik, Amy Stewart Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 02/10/2021 08:41:56 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194760 “SUFFICIENT TO HAVE STOOD, THOUGH FREE TO FALL”: THE PARABOLIC NARRATIVE OF FREE WILL IN PARADISE LOST by Amy Stewart Bizik _____________________ Copyright © Amy Stewart Bizik 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2 0 0 8 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Amy Stewart Bizik entitled “‘Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall’: The Parabolic Narrative of Free Will in Paradise Lost ” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 3, 2008 Dr. John C. Ulreich _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 3, 2008 Dr. Meg Lota Brown _______________________________________________________________________ Date: November 3, 2008 Dr. Kari Boyd McBride Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: November 3, 2008 Dissertation Director: Dr. John C. Ulreich 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Amy S. Bizik___________ 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. John Ulreich, Dr. Meg Lota Brown, and Dr. Kari McBride. They inspired me to study early modern literature and they generously provided their time and knowledge to help me complete this project. I am grateful for their constant encouragement. I am also thankful for the assistance Marcia Marma gave me as I completed this project. My family also deserves my thanks for their unwavering support. Mom, Brent, and Evan, I am deeply grateful for your confidence in me and for your love. 5 For Evan, “Heav’ns last best gift, my ever new delight” 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….7 CHAPTER ONE: Parables, Milton, and Paradise Lost ……………………………………………9 CHAPTER TWO: The Parable in the Garden: Eden as a Lens for Interpreting Milton’s Parable…54 CHAPTER THREE: The Role and Perspective of Satan in Paradise Lost …………………………..84 CHAPTER FOUR: The Role of Marriage in Milton’s Parable in Paradise Lost …………………..118 CHAPTER FIVE: Paradise Lost as Parable………………………………………………………145 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………………….152 7 ABSTRACT “‘Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall’: The Parabolic Narrative of Free Will in Paradise Lost ” demonstrates how reading Milton’s Paradise Lost as a parable offers new insight into the lessons of the poem. A parable is a narrative with a moral lesson; it teaches its lesson by using familiar topics in unexpected comparisons that draw readers into the text. Reading Milton’s poem in light of this definition offers new ways to discern the themes and figurative language in Milton’s poem. Specifically, seeing Milton’s poem through the lens of the parable of the Prodigal Son helps readers to better understand the tensions and relationships between the characters and God. This dissertation reveals how looking at Milton’s characters and their roles in a new way—as complementary parts of a parabolic narrative—enables us to better understand how the characters function in Paradise Lost . By examining the characters as parabolic figures, we see how they help readers perceive themselves in relation to a broader, universal experience as humans and how they teach readers the logic of free will. Seeing God’s actions from the divergent experiences and perspectives of the main characters brings new understanding of Milton’s message of the nature of God’s grace and free will. When read as a parable, the poem transforms readers’ knowledge of free will from an abstract theological conception to an experience of personal grace. My dissertation explores how Paradise Lost is a parabolic poem that depicts divine and human relationships in order to demonstrate to readers the logic in the radical idea that doing God’s will enables freedom. It demonstrates how considering Paradise Lost as a parable helps readers to 8 recognize their position in the world, to experience the depths of Christianity, and to gain knowledge of themselves and their relationships with God. 9 CHAPTER ONE: Parables, Milton, and Paradise Lost James Sims alludes to a Biblical parable to suggest how readers of Milton can more fully understand Milton’s texts. He asserts, “the deepening and broadening of the meaning of Milton’s poems require a better than casual knowledge of the Bible. If the seed of suggestion [that] Milton sows falls upon good ground, it will bring forth a hundredfold. But even if the seed falls by the wayside and never takes root, there is enough material in the poems to carry the reader along with Milton’s meaning” (Sims, Bible 250-251). I agree that we can consider how Milton’s Paradise Lost works through this parabolic analogy, but I also want to suggest that we can better appreciate Milton’s poem by considering it to be a parable. As a parable, Paradise Lost teaches readers about free will and prompts self-knowledge. Considering Paradise Lost as a parable brings new insight to the familiar themes and images of the poem. In this dissertation, I will explore the important relationship between the garden and the characters as I discuss how these familiar topics reflect Milton’s idea of free will as he expresses it through the parable of Paradise Lost . The garden, Satan, Adam, and Eve characterize Milton’s poem as a parable because they all illustrate the logic of free will. This dissertation demonstrates how Milton makes the lesson of free will in Paradise Lost applicable for readers by making the poem a parable. Part One: Definition of Parable In order to read Paradise Lost as a parable, we first must understand the genre of parables. The Oxford English Dictionary offers a very basic definition of a parable as “A (usually realistic) story or narrative told to convey a moral or spiritual lesson or insight; 10 esp. one told by Jesus in the Gospels.” Robert H. Stein builds on this simple definition of a parable by considering the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic roots of the term. Stein compares the Greek word parabol ē, which he defines as “an illustration, a comparison, or an analogy, usually in story form, using common events of everyday life to reveal a moral or a spiritual truth,” with the Hebrew/Aramaic term mashal , which he explains could be interpreted as “proverb,” “byword,” “satire,” “taunt,” “word of derision,” “riddle,” “story,” or “allegory” (Stein 16-18). These definitions provide general characterizations of parables; however, to fully understand the implication of this genre, we need to understand how this kind of narrative works to convey a moral or spiritual lesson. This kind of scholarship, which examines parables as narrative texts that inspire spiritual insight, has been conducted primarily by Biblical scholars. New Testament scholars, in particular, are interested in reading these Biblical narratives as parables; however, the research these scholars have done is also applicable for considering a literary parable like Paradise Lost . Biblical scholars understand parables in two primary ways. 1 The first approach, based on the early work of Adolf Julicher, C. H. Dodd, and Joachim Jeremias, argues that parables are historical artifacts that must be understood in light of their historical context; the second approach, developed by Ernst Fuchs, Amos Wilder, Robert Funk, Dan Otto Via, Jr., John Dominic Crossan, and Madeleine Boucher, contends that parables are metaphorical, rhetorical, aesthetic, and/or hermeneutical texts that must be interpreted according to their language, which renders parables as applicable now as they were when 1 For a detailed review of parable scholarship, see Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990). 11 they were written. Since I am not analyzing Biblical parables, the historical context approach is important for my discussion of parables only as it offers definitions of how parables—as a genre—have been understood historically. 2 The formal, structural approach is more directly useful for this dissertation as it offers ways of understanding how language works in parables. For this reason, my dissertation relies on the work of American parable scholarship, including the research conducted by Wilder, Funk, Via, and Crossan, which approaches Biblical narratives like literary texts and analyzes their form as well as their content. This American approach discusses the metaphoric aspects of parables and explains how parables reveal knowledge and engage readers. Since the end of the nineteenth century, parable scholars have distinguished between parables and allegories.