The imagery of Paradise Lost

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Authors Merkle, Crete Museller, 1882-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553373 THE IMAGERY OF PARADISE LOST

by

Crete Mueeller Merkle

A Thesis

submitted to the faculty of the

Department of English

In partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

In the Graduate College

University of Arizona

1938

Approved j s * 7+ ******* ajor Professor Date

TO

Professor S. F. Pattison

and

Professor Sarah E. Dudley

In appreciation of their valuable assistance

11 TABLE OF CONTMTS

Chapter Page

Introduction ...... 1

I Milton1s Religious Interests ...... 4

II Milton’s Concept of Man and His Background . 13

III Milton’s Knowledge ...... 23

IT Milton’s Love of Beauty ...... 50

Conclusion ...... 67

Bibliography...... 73

H i Ill citations frra Paradiae lost sppaszlnG In thio work are from David Haaaon* a Poetical Works of John Milton. Tol. IT. INTRODUCTION

The work of a genius is the revelation of a divine idea

through the mind of man. We must seek, by every possible

means, to learn just what that idea would say to us. There

have been studies and studies of Shakespeare and not even yet

do we feel that the last word has been said about the immor­

tal works of that great poet. And of Hilton, who also holds

a high place among the poets, there have been studies and

studies and not yet has the last word been said. With that

in mind, the writer of this paper has undertaken a study of

Milton's Imagery in his epic. Paradise Lost, in the hope that

such a study may add even a very little to the understanding

of the workings of a prodigious mind. Perhaps we may be par­

doned if we think that each one who approaches the study of

a great work with an open mind may find something here and

there which has not before been observed, may see a faint

glimmer of light where all has hitherto been darkness. It

should follow, then, that the more who study a masterpiece

the more will be known of the mind of the master; but the

chances are that even then, we shall never know all• We

know the main facts of Milton's life, but the facts of one's

life do not reveal completely the inner man. Another person

'may have lived a life quite similar and yet not produce any-

1 2 thing of great creative value. So, to know the master mind, we seek enlightenment in the creative works of that mind, and always, if we seek earnestly, we are rewarded with increased understanding.

In this particular study, the writer has confined herself to Paradise Lost and made the study Intensive rather than in­ clusive. Though Paradise Lost may not he John Milton’s greatest work, it is surely his chief work— the work which he looked forward to for many a long year and the true objec­ tive of almost a lifetime. "It came first with him. It was his task and his concern. . . . It had filled his thoughts for more than twenty years,"3- says Hilaire Belloc. In seek­ ing out the imagery in detail of that master poem, the writer believes that she has had a certain revelation of Milton’s chief interests and of the content of his great mind. Belloc says that there are three characteristics which distinguish

Milton the poet: rhythm, visual imagination, and form. In studying his visual imagination. It is a pleasure— often an inspiration— to note how clearly the images and pictures of

Paradise Lost stand forth as the projections of a master mind of genius. Humbly then, in the following pages, the writer seeks to disclose what the study of Milton’s imagery has re­ vealed to her.

In considering Milton’s imagery in Paradise Lost the

^-Hilaire Belloc, p. 244. 3

writer has not always confined herself only to the ordinarily accepted rhetorical figures, but has broadened the definition, as did Miss Caroline F. E. Spurgeon in her study of Shake­ speare’s imagery, to include pictures that call up visual

Images. ■ ; CHAFTEH -I- ^ / . . :

' KILTOH.^ HS1IGIQUS iKTKRESTS

Writing at a time when the first extravagances of the

Ref ormation had been superseded by more conservative good sense, when the deep fundamentals of Christian faith were being revalued in the light of costly experience, when pub­ lications touching on religion in England were critically censored, and when England was, on the verge of the Restora­ tion after a Catholic monarchy, Milton, who was very nubh the product of his own period, could not escape this general absorption in matters of faith. It is not in^robable that part of his purpose in writing Paradise Lost was to state a solution, for his own satisfaction, of certain problems of far reaching religious concern— problems which were in his day being brushed aside without the consideration they merited.

The reader leaves Paradise Lost with a feeling that Milton has not slighted any aspects of his. vast task of justifying the ways of God to men. All the religious problems that engaged the interests of the period— the nature of God, of angels (good and bad), of good and evil, of man1s sin and his redemption; the doctrines of fore-knowledge and fore­ ordination, of free will, of reason, of grace, of the elect

4 5 and many more--all these Milton handles as the necessary part of his great undertaking. The aim of the present study has been to show that the imagery used by Hilton in Paradise Lost has had no small part in clarifying and enhancing his presen­ tation of abstract thought on all these subjects.

A study, in some detail, of the imagery of Paradise Lost brings, the writer believes, a more intense, a more vivid realization not only of the high quality of Hilton*s visual imagination, but also of the man's interests, of the matter that habitually filled his mind, which was there always for reference, for comparison, and for enrichment.

With this in mind, let us first seek to find how Milton's images of God Himself throw light upon his conception of God.

That Milton had a definite image of God in his own mind seems evident. When in Book three he pictures God looking down upon Satan's progress and talking to his Son, there is sug­ gestion of a friendly form. Of course, it is merely a way of speaking that implies a human quality.

"Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage Transports our Adversary?

... Whose fault? Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me All he could have; I made him just and right* Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.-*-

Incidentally these last words may also be interpreted as the keynote of Milton's theology of the doctrine of free will.

•^Paradise Lost. Ill, 80-81, 96-99. 6

Again, when Milton pictures God walking at evening in

the Garden hut Invisible to Adam and Eve, there is implica­

tion of form analagous to that of man or angel. The voice of God they heard Mow walking in the Garden, by soft winds Brought to their ears, while day declined.2 God is also depicted as having the motion of wrath, similar

to man’s wrath.

Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy father's might; Ascend ay chariot; guide the rapid wheels That shake Heaven’s basis; bring forth all my war; My bow and thunder, my,almighty arms, Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh; Pursue these Sons of Darkness, drive them, out From all Heaven’s bounds into the utter Deep There let them learn, as likes then, to despise God, and Messiah his anointed King.3 Another example of wrath we find in: '

See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance To waste and havoc yonder World, which I So fair and good created, and had still Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man Let in these wasteful furies, who impute Folly to me (so doth the Prince:of Hell And his adherents), that with so much ease I suffer them to enter and possess A place so heavenly, and conniving, seem To gratify niy scornful enemies, That laugh, as if, transported with some fit Of passion, I to them had quitted all. At random yielded up to their misrule; And know not that I called and drew them thither. My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which Man’s polluting sin with, taint hath shed On what was pure; till, crammed and gorged, nigh burst With sucked and glutted offal, at one sling Of thy victorious a m , well-pleasing Son, Both Sin and Death, and yawning Grave, at last

2Paradlse Lost. X, 97-99.

5Ibld.. 71, 710-18. 7

Through Chaos hurled, obstruqt the mouth ofHell For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. Then Heaven and Earth, reviewed, shall be made pure To sanotlty that shall receive no stain: Till then the curse pronounced on both precedes.4 5 Yet there are times when Milton presenta God as humanly

gentle. For example when lie tries Adam by pretending he does

not intend a mate for him, we observe that human trait of a -

father’s love for his son. \

’What call’st thou solitude? Is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the Air Replenished, and all these at thy command To come and play before thee?

A nice and subtle happiness, I see. Thou to thyself proposest, in the choice Of thy associates, Adam, and wilt taste Ho pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary.

I, ere thou spakest. Knew it not good for man to be alone. And so such company as then thou saw’st Intended thee— for trial only brought, To see hew thou couldat judge of fit and meet. What next I bring shall please thee, be assured. Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self. Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire.’0

But when there is definite need for a description of

God, these mere implications of form disappear. God becomes figuratively light; brilliant, unapproachable, inneffable light— a symbolic creation without defined form—

Fountain of light, thyself invisible Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt’st Throned inaooessible, but when thou shad’at The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud Drawn round about'thee like a radiant shrine

4Paradise Lost. X. 616-40.

5Ibid.. VIII, 369-72,.399-403, 444-51. 8

Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.6 *78

That He was the Creator of the universe and the life and cen­

ter of it and that He had created earth "like to Eeav'n," we

find in a passage in the ninth book; he describes all the - -:v.r ■: : r ^ " : ' . - ■ " ' other "Eeav’ns" as seeming to have been created to bring light

to the earth and then he brings God into the picture:

' As God in Heav’n Is Center, yet extends to all, so thou Centring receiv'st from all those Orbs." Plainly, in the above lines, Milton reverences God and stands

in awe of him as the "Center" of all the universe. That he

also thinks of God's power as absolute, unyielding, and that

He is not influenced by the prayers of man who would go against

His will, there is evidence in these lines:

But prayer against his absolute Decree * No more avails than breath against the wind. Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth.8

There is also here an idea that God's power is absolute and

perhaps somewhat dictatorial. The old Hebrew idea of a war­

rior God comes out in Milton, as we see in this bit of vivid

imagery.

The brandished sword of God before them blazed. Fierce as a comet.

6?aradise lost. Ill, 375-82. 7Ibld.. H . 107-9 . 8Ibid. , XI, 311-13. /- -- ^Ibid.. XII. 633-54. 9

But vie also find God pictured as the ’’Father of Meroie and

Grace,” Inclined to pity, and hence willing to accept the offer of the Son ”to die for mane offence.” And there la a mingling of awe and reverence as Milton continues in apos­

trophe to the Son, to whom God has delegated his own divine power:

0 unexampl’d love. Love nowhere to be found less than Divine1 Hail, Son of God, Saviour of Men!10

There is more of awe and reverence for the absolute power of

God in the words wrung unwillingly from Satan, God’s adver­

sary, who says that tho Sun is

like the god Of this new World— at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heats.11 12

In connection with Milton’s ideas of God are also found

some of his ideas of faith. The reflection of Puritanic Ideas

appears in a number of figurative passages throughout Paradise

Lost. Early in the second book, we find three lines which

represent the idea of the Protestants’ breaking away from the

Church of Rome:

Free and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easie yoke Of servile pomp.1*

Though the new worship was to be accounted "hard” it was also

1QParadlse Lost. Ill, 410-12.

11Ibld.. IV, 33-35.

12Ibid., II, 255-57. 10

"free,1’ to be governed by eorasolence perhaps, for in the third book, lines 194-95, we read:

And I will place within them aa a guide My Umpire Conscience:.

The profound and dreadful implications of original sin and of the depraved nature of man is brought out in the ninth book, in its effect upon nature personified:

Earth trembled from her entrails, as again In pangs, and Mature gave a second groan; Sky loured, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops Wept at completing of the mortal Sin Original.13

And a little further on in the same book we read how peace was disturbed, for Understanding and the Will no longer ruled but were in subjection to sensual Appetite. But con­ science has power too, for we are told that spiritual laws are forced on every conscience:

laws which none shall find Left them enrolled, or what the Spirit within Shall on the heart engrave.14 :

And with conscience comes a sense of duty, aroused as from unwarranted sleep:

They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, us when men wont to watch. On duty sleeping found by whom they dread. Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.15

Peculiarly enough we find mythological allusions strength-

foparadiae Lost. IX. 1000-1004.

14Ibld., H I , 522-24.

1SIbid., I. 531-34.' 11 ening some leligious ideas of Hilton, for he refers to a pa­ gan legend analogous to the temptation and fall of man when he wrote:

And fabled how the serpent, whom they called -Qphion, with Eurynome, (the wide- Kncroactiing Eve perhapsj, had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn Driven.16

Again the punishment for disobedience and fall is made gra­ phic by a mythological simile:

from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star. On Lemnos, the Aegean isle.17 The whole, of Paradise Lost stands as an immense image

of Milton’s religious interests, embodying in imaginative form his concept of God’s form, creativity, power; and love,

and likewise a fully developed religious philosophy of man’s

situation in the universe. Through imagery we are shown

on the one hand the somewhat anthropomorphic Father-God,

and on the other the unapproachable spiritual Light. The

items in Milton’s Protestant doctrine involving free will,

original sin, redenptlon, and above all the moral struggle

intervening on earth between the fall and the redemption

are made vivid by occasional concrete analagles as well as

by the plot of the poem. Although the tone of Milton’s

belief is conveyed perhaps more accurately in his

ISparadlse Lost. a , 581-83.

17Ibid., I, 742-46. 12 strictly reasoned passages, his intellectual dogmas and arguments on God and man seek Illustration in images, depend­ ing upon them mainly to accomplish a reduction of the vast and immeasurable to suit the human compass. And indeed, the atmosphere of sublimity, beauty, and moral seriousness that envelops the poem as a whole may be thought of as a sort of encompassing figure, a fit image of Milton’s God. CHAPTER II

MILTON* S CONCEPT OF MAN AMD HIS BACKGROUND

Strictly speaking Adam and Eve are the only two repre­ sentatives of mankind that appear in Paradise Lost. Milton’s descriptions of these two furnish the exquisite portraits of the poem, as the fallen angels, who have the physical forms of men, furnish its expressive portraits. Limitations of space in this study preclude dwelling upon these larger pic­ tures— -not strictly images used for illustration. Such pic­ tures, Adam and Eve at the moments of their creation, the two in their domestic life in the Garden, Eve and the Serpent in the great temptation scene, Adam and Eve tarnished by sin and later driven before the flaming sword of Michael— all these pictures furnish much of the actual material of the story; and as such stand somewhat apart from the more or less il­ lustrative images which, as indicative of the range and of the kind of Milton’s observations upon his fellow-men, are the basis of this present study. The fallen angels are here re­ garded as men, since they have, except for size, the phy­ siques of men.

It seems from his writings that Milton regarded oombet- iveness as one of the chief characteristics of man, so many 13 14 times does he refer to man us being In come kind of strife, or as having the qualities of a combative spirit. In the thirty-third line of Book One, he speaks of "that foul re­ volt" and further on in a personification of the fallen

Archangel, he writes;

, but his face Deep soars of Thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge.* Even war itself appealed to Milton and had done so since the

Civil War; Belloc says this is "because-war (so long as it remained human and was not yet basely mechanical) presented the greatest of pageants."2 We find among the imagery of

Paradise Lost a number of vivid pictures of men engaged in the various phases of war. The. first book gives us a concrete

simile:

Thither, winged with speed, A numerous Brlgad hastened: As when bands Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed. Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field. Or cast, a rampart.’* 5 ' And the second book gives us another which portrays that

pageantry so dear to Milton’s heart: As when, to warn proud cities, war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds; before each van Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears.

^■Paradise Lost, 1 . 600-604. %ilalre Belloc, p. 255., 5?aradise Lost. I. 674-78. 15

Till thlokeat legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns.4 A single line, line 713 of the eleventh book, presents a

most telling figure of this occupation of men: "the brazen

throat of war had ceased to roar." One feels that Milton

really likes that "brazen throat of war."

■ Although Milton's figures apparently do not tend to de-

predate man’s combative spirit, to us they are not so pleas­

ing as a few others which he elaborates with evident satis­

faction. In the ninth book there is a charming picture of

man taking delight in the joys of the countryside:

As one who, long'in populous city pent. Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, , Forth issuing on a summer’s morn, to. breathe Among the pleasant villages and farms Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight— " The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound— If chance with nymph-like step fair virgin, pass. What pleasing seemed for her now pleases more. She most, and in her look sums all delight.* 5 The last three lines of the above passage suggest She follow­

ing, also in the ninth book:

' Adam the while Waiting desirous her return, had wove Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn Her tresses, and her rural labours crown, . As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.6

The love and compassion in man’s nature are emphasized in the

following passage, which may have been suggested by the Biblical

^Paradise Lost. II. 533-58.

5Ibid., IX, 445-54.

6lbid., IX, 838-42. 16 phrase, "Like as a father-j>itieth hla ehlMren:*

Thcmgh ecMfortless, a:s when a Father mourns Kis children, all in view destroyed at once.7 Or was it suggested by the fate of the children of Biobe?

Man has faults too, apparently, and here in the ninth book is one which seems to have been common in every age and . clime: " . ' ' ' " i ....

As with new wine intoxicated both. They swim in mirth.8 % ; And it would seem also that Milton had observed a little in~

’ elination on the part of mankind to stoop to thievery:

- Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash Or some rich burgher, whose substantial doors. Gross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault. In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles; ' So cloab this first grand Thief into God's fold: So since into his Church lewd hirelings climb.9 The idea of a punishment; for sin both here and hereafter was

a prevalent m e in-Milton's day; Milton himself was thorough­

ly imbued with that idea. In the first book, beginning with

the sixty-first line, he describes the place of punishment

assigned to the disobedient angels:

A.dungeon horrible, on all sides round. As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames Bo light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe.

And again, ten lines further on: "For those rebellious; here

7Faradise Lost. H , 760-61.

8Ibid», IX, 1008-1009.

9Ibid., IV, 188-93. 17 their Prison ordained."

We find, then, that Milton's images of his fellow crea­ tures do not tend especially to e m i t them; that his attitude was quite in keeping with the Calvinistio ideas of the day in which he lived. But when it comes to his attitude toward

Nature, man's background or setting, Milton’s imagery is sympathetic. Clearly, in that respect, Milton does not be­ long to the age in which he lived. Belloc speaks of Milton!s treatment of persons in his poems as a defect; he brings out strongly the contrast of the treatment of can and the treat­ ment of the beauties of landscape:

But it must be remembered that this defect in the great poem is native to the time, and also nearly unavoidable in a man with so vivid, almost violent, a visual imagination as was Milton’s." If you see in your mind's eye a great landscape you see something heavenly; but if you see in your mind's eye a personality speaking and acting, you cannot (being a man) see other than a man speaking and acting. And this, working literally, tends to v fail where the Deity is concerned— or indeed any­ thing above man'.10

Passages illustrative of this point, that the backgrounds against which men’s lives are lived often seems more attrac­

tive to Milton than - the men themselves, are not wanting in

Paradise Lost* Color takes the first p M e e in' his pictures.

Like the true artist too, he is a keen observer, and he draws

many an effective figure from a thorough acquaintance with

nature in all of her moods and phases. Here is a picture of

a burned forest: .

10Hilaire Belloc, p. 855. 18

as, when Heaven’s fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singed top their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the blasted Heath.J"L

And this simile paints for us a picture of the hush of even­ tide which w© can actually feel:

As, when from mountain top® the dusky clouds Ascending, while the Horth-wind sleeps, o’eropread Heavn’s cheerful face, the louring element Scowls o’er the darkened landscape snow, or shower; . If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, ■ The birds their notes renew, and bleating herd| Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.

We find also in the second book a picture of ships tnat carry men at sea:

As when far off at sea a fleet descried Bangs In the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Dongala, or the' Isles Of Teraate and Tldore, whence merchants bring fheir spicy drugs; they on the trading flood through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape Ply - stemming mighty ■ toward the Pole.3-*5 And not a hundred lines farther on in the same book, we have " ' • a highly wrought picture suggestive of the storms that are a

part of the world In which man must live hia life:

as when two black Clouds With Heaven’s artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian— then, stand front to front. Hovering a Space, till winds tho signal blow To join their dark encounter in mid air.--

So2»tim@E the great tendomoso and sympathy with nature in *14

llparadlso Lost. I, G12-15•

18Ibld., II, 488-95.

1-Ibld.. II, 556-42. 14Ibid., II, 715-18. 19

the pictures Milton paints of her show another quite differ­ ent aspect:

But In wanton ringlet® waved As the vine curls her tendrils.10

In the fifth book there is a picture, tenderly beautiful:

an host Innumerable as the stare of night. Or stars of morning, dew-drops, which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.16

Not always do Milton’s pictures give us a full landscape painting; many figures show a keen and sympathetic observa­ tion of the birds, flowers, animals, and other life. It is true that the following picture from the first book may have been inspired by Vergil, and yet it shows more than second hand acquaintance with bees:

' ... - . As bees In springtime, when the sun with Taurus rides Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers ; Ply to and fro, or on the smoothed plank The suburb of their straw-built citadel. New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer x Their state affairs: so thick the aery crowd Swarmed and were straitened.1” ;

Another beautiful simile found in the third book beginning with the thirty-seventh line embodies a keen appreciation of birds: .-

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move

^^Paradlae Lost. IV, 306-7

16Ibid.. V. 744-47

17Ibid., I, 768-76 20

Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and In shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note.

Even the wild animals are on the list of Milton’s acquain­ tances; he portrays them accurately. The wolf and the tiger both appear illustratively In the fourth book:

As when a prowling wolf, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey. Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve In hurdled cotes amid the fields secure. Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:^

Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied In some purlieu two gentle fawnesat play. Strait couches close; then, rising, changes oft His couehant watch, as one who chose his ground. Whence rushing he might surest seize them both Griped in each pew.1* Nor did the heavens, the stars, the sun and moon, or even the meteors escape the interested observation of Hilton. In the first book he writes of an imperial ensign which "Shone like a Meteor streaming to the wind," and a little further on he compares the Archangel to a heavenly scene:

As when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon. In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Barplexes aonarchs. Darkened so^ yet shone Above them all the Archangel.^0

Even a shobting star gets Its share of glory:

18Paradise Lost. IV, 183-87.

19Ibld., IV, 403-408.

20Ibld., 1, 594-600. 21

. swift as a shooting star In Autumn thwarts the night, itiien vapors fired Impress the air, and shows the mariner From what point of his compass to beware Impetuous winds.21

In the sixth book we find the combative spirit of man

coupled in thought with a heavenly phenonemon:

• of such commotion: Such as (to set forth Great things by small) if. Nature’s concord broke. Among the constellations war were sprung. Two planets rushing from aspect malign Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky & ' Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound***

In the seventh book the.way to "God’s Eternal house" is de­

lightfully compared to

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold. And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear Seen in the Galaxy, that milky way Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest Powdered with stars*85 From pictures such as these-— and Paradise Loot abounds

in them— we may rightly conclude that the vast storehouse

which was the mind of Milton was not filled alone with the

learning which he had obtained from books but with the knowl­

edge which he had gathered from his own powers of observation*

And so it seems to us that his mental equipment lay not only

in a vast storehouse of Information but in a beautiful pic­

ture gallery, as well. .

8^Paradise Lost. IV, 556-60.

22Ibld.. VI, 310-15.

23Ibid., VII, 577-81. 22

It wae upon resources such us these that he drew for imagery to clarify and heighten the epic story of Paradise Lost. His vast canvas— the entire universe suspended by a golden chain unfolds before us, adorned by streaming meteors, burned forests, swarming bees, prowling wolves, and hushed sounds of evening.

It is but natural, perhaps, that figures which Milton draws from his evidently close and sympathetic observation

. of natural scenes should have more actual beauty than those with which he seeks to set forth tne mixed and turgid nature of human beings. Men, for Milton, were compounded of both good and evil. The images he uses indicate this conception. cHAFmi m ■ ■

mxton«s nioslcfico

To a etudent of Hilton or, indeed, even to one who reads only now and then in Hilton1 s work, there in no doubt but that hie nine! was n-vast storehouse of knowledge. In the very chela® of Ilia subjects, he showed ti superiority of intellect attain­ able by only a few and, in M s own day, he stood alone and above-far above— tho nindo of M s oontenporories• Tfiough

M s fane as a poet lias loaned so largo as nlnost to obscure

M s nerits in other fields, there is no doubt at all but that he should be recognised ns a profound scholar* Groat iiinds, wherever he found then, were M s kindred. He traveled over the whole field of knowledge as far as it had boon explored

la M s o m day. Because he loiew m n y languages he could avail.

Mnself readily of all stored wisdon in wlmtevc'r age or coun­ try it was to bo found* A H the natural philosophies, the metaphysics, etMos, Matory, tlieology, and political science

irf M s o\m day or of a former tine were familiar to hln.

According to Walter Bagehot, Hilton was of a ”studious

disposition” even from childhood and continued so until the

end of M s life. Bagehot quotes Hilton bihsolf on this traits

”My father,” h® says, "destined me*..to tho 24

study of polite literature, whloh I embraced with such avidity, that fron the tvjelfth year of sy age I hardly ever retired to rest fron ay studies till aidnight;" and then Bagehot goes on to say:

Every page of his works shows the result of this education. In suite of the occupations of nanhood, and the blindness and melancholy of old age, he still continued to have his principal pleasure In that ’’studious and **» leotw reading, whioh, thou^i often curiously transmuted, lu perpetually involved in the very texture of his works.1 Hilaire Belloo too has recognized the vast scope of Milton** learning,for he says that of all the fruits of his virtues or qualities, “the greatest xms industry.” x ■ , ' ' Itever was such a Kill! Anu it gro'tmd out a vast heap of grist. He can be blamed for displaying his learning too much, but what a wealth- he had to display!...Milton, before he was a man, could not only read hi* Creek and Latin as tongues of daily familiar use to him, but had ’’commenced Italian,“ ...Yes, and Hebrew too, or “the Chaldee" as he will have it.

There was something about him which not only acquired through reading this vast accumulation and through a powerful memory the retention of. it, but impelled him continually to produce; and— what is greatly to his honour— to produce upon a wide field, largely spending and dissi­ pating his forces, which is the best proof a man can give of inexhaustible reserves. Hud he never known what it was to rhyme or construct blank verse, he would still astonish by Lis range of knowledge such few as might cono across his work.*

In another place Bolloo explains it as a “frailty” of *2

■^Bagehot, p. 182.

2Belloo, p. 38. £5

Paradise lost, that Milton "when he is giving ezanplos of

hi® knowledge cannot refrain fron displaying it even at the

expense of his verse, putting in little asidos to let the

reader know that he is learned enough to gloss a bald state-

aant«- But surely we cam pardon in Milton this very luuBfcn

-type;.of “frailty" and honor him because,as Arnold says;•

“Continually ho lived in ooiapaniooship with high and rare

excellence, with the great Hebrew poets and prophets, with

the great poets of Greece and Rome.^

As for his knowledge of the Bible, it is quite in keep­

ing with the spirit of his day that he should be a thorough

student of that book. Previous so the great Protestant

Reformation, authority in doctrine had been the Church cor­

porate and, in the Christian best, the Pope of Borne. Then

came Phrtin Luther and the .Reformation, declaring that all

authority should be placed in the Hebrew and Christian Scrip­

tures. Eat orally there was much argument as a result of this

declaration; as Belloc sayss

A man's business on the Protestant side in ad­ vancing this or that to be true was to.say, "you will find it here, in such-and-such a place, in the Old or the Hew Testament, set out in words which, if you use your plain reason, cannot mean otherwise to you then what I have said they mean.5 5

^Belloc, p. 254.

^Arnold, p,. 312.

5Belloc, p. 295. 86

It follows, then, that Milton had a great purpose In mind in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the Bible and we all know that when a great purpose accompanies the pursuit of knowl­ edge, the results are bound to be far above the average. In his use of Biblical imagery, Milton has employed both unfa­ miliar and familiar material. In Book One the 11 superior

Fiend" has been calling his Legions; aroused, they have sprung up, bestirred themselves, and have obeyed his voice. Here is the picture, vivified by Milton’s knowledge of the Egyptian plague of locusts:

As when the potent rod Of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind. That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung . Like Wight, and darkened all the land of Wile: i5o numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cop® of Hell ’Telit upper, nether, and surrounding fires.6 Just a little further on in the first book after Hilton has invoked his Muse to say the names of those who "Soused from the slumber," in a passage of twenty-five lines, we find as many as twenty-five allusions to the Old Testament. Of these allusions, by no means all are familiar to the average

Bible reader. In fact, it would be only the thorough student of the Bible who would recognize them all, with the ex­ ception, perhaps, of such names as Solomon, Joslah, Israel.

6?aradise Lost..I. 333-46.

7Ibld.. I, 393-418. 27

Still further on, in the same part of the discussion, in the

paasage which begins

Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah,8 9

We have thirteen allusions to the Old Testament in twenty-

two lines. Though there are a few names in this group more

familiar than most of those in the group referred to just

agove, there are still several that are not familiar to any

:■ but the thorough ' ' V- . student...... of the Bible. In writing ' 1 of Belial, ' " \ - than whom a Spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven,

Milton is quickly reminded of Eli*s sons

when the Priest . Turns Atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled With lust and violence the house of Uod.y These words are followed by a passage of twenty-three lines

in which there are nine Old Testament allusions.

In the forty-third' line of the second book we find a

reference to "Moloch, sceptred king." How Moloch was an

Ammonite god to whom human sacrifice was made and a figure

not well known to the average reader of the Bible.

But though Milton, in these references, assumes in his

reader a knowledge of Bible literature few actually possess,

he by no means avoids the use of well-known imagery. Here

8Paradlse Lost. I. 455-57.

9Ibid., I, 494-96. 28

in his interpretation of Belial’s character a quick little

metaphor refers to the story of the manna upon which the Is­

raelites fed in the wilderness.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash LSaturest counsels.10

Again when he refers to the story of the tower of Babel, we

are reminded of that which is quite familiar to those who know

the Bible at all: .

The builders next of Babel on the plain Of Sennaar and, still with vain design New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build.H In the twelfth book there is another reference to the Tower of

Babel where the poet is speaking of how God "oft descends to

visit men unseen," of how he walks through their habitations

and ■ " " ' • ‘ ' ' .

Gomes down to see their city, ere the tower • Obstruct Heaven-Towers, and in derision sets Upon their tongues a various spirit to rase Quite out their native language, and instead To sow a jangling noise of worts unknown.-12 The figure in the last line is especially vivid, for what

noise could be more jangling than that of "words unknown"?

' Where, Indeed, could one get-a better or more concrete picture

of reigning confusion? _

Milton also makes very good use of the familiar story of

10ParadiSr: Lost. II, 112-115.

lllbld.. Ill, 466-68.

IZlbld.. XII. 51-55. 29 * fkeob's ladder. In the third book, where he describes the

SSmetare which the Fiend sees leading up to a "Kingly Palace

Gate With Frontispiece of Diamond and Gold Imbelllshed," he

makes this comparison*

The stairs were such ns whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and'descending, bands , . Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram in the’ field of Luz. Dreaming by night under the open sky _ And waking cried, This is the Gate of Heaven.1 5

Jacob’s ladder serves again for a vivid comparison in the

eleventh book when the heavenly bands have brought on appari­

tion before the eyes of Adam* •'

Hot that more glorious, when the Angels met Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw _, The field pavilioned with his guardians bright.* 14 There are a few other references too to Old Testament

history which are fairly familiar and hence call up, for the

reader, vivid pictures. There is the picture in the ninth book

of Adam and Eve after eating the "fallacious Fruit" and then

the comparison: * . , So rose the Danito strong Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap Of Philietean Dalilah, and waked Shorn of his strength.*8 :

In the tenth book where Satan and his followers, having

been transformed into serpents, reach up to secure the fruit

15Paradise Lost. Ill, 510-15.

1 4 Ibld.. XI, 213-15.

ISlbid., IX, 1059-62. so of the forbidden tree, vie read how

Greedily they plueked . The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew Hear that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed. 16

Paradise Lost does not furnish ns many allusions to the

Mew Testament as to the old. Perhaps the subject matter of

Paradise Lost lends itself to a more ready comparison with Old

Testament themes. Since it takes, more study and more dili- gence to become familiar with Old Testament history than with the Hew Testament, Milton proves.by his allusions that his diligence had never been lax. Most of the Key/ Testament allusions are to the Christ, as in line 477 of the third book where the Pilgrims are seeking "In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven." In the eleventh book, there is a description

of a "Hill of Paradise" followed by a simile from the story of

the temptations of the Christ!

Hot higher that hill nor wider looking round. Whereon for different cause the Tempter set Our second Adam in the wilderness. To show him all Earth’s kingdoms and1 their glory.17

Milton has also shown himself familiar with the Apocrypha,

a part of sabred Scripture not incorporated in the regular

Biblical text. From a story in the Book of Tobit he draws

for us the following picture: .

though with them better pleased Then asmodeus with the fishy fume,

I6Paradise Lost. X, 5G0-62.

17lbld. X I , 581-84. 31

That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent „ From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.*8 Also in the fifth book there is a picture taken from an Apoc­ ryphal legend:

Raphael, the sociable Spirit, that deigned To travel with Tobias, and secured His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid.19

As we find a great wealth of imagery from the Bible in

Milton’s epic, so do we also find a wealth of imagery drawn - ' ' ' ' ^ -A*' - from the realms of mythology. It is but natural, of course, that a student of Greek and Latin should be steeped in mythol­ ogy, for no one can read Greek and Latin without becoming familiar with the myths of the Greek and the Latin speaking peoples. Though to the reader of today, these myths may not be so familiar, yet to the reader of Milton’s day when every educated man knew Greek and Latin, they made quick and easy appeal. However, If In reading Paradise Lost, we are prompted to seek out some of those old stories, we are decidedly the gainers thereby. Hot only did Milton know classical mythology, he also knew, in a measure, the Oriental mythologies.. Nowhere have our poets found more or better material for vivid pic­ tures than in the realm of mythology, a wide knowledge of which

Milton frequently employed. In the first part of his story,

in establishing the great size of Satan, he refers ooipaimtive-

18Paradise Lost. IV, 167-71.

19Ibid.. V, 821-23. 32

ly to all the creatures In ancient rayths that were of mon­

strous sizes.: .

as huge As whoia the fables name of monstrous size, I ' Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den \ By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan.2 0 t ' ■ :: ' . ' . ; . ' The last mentioned monster is, of course, from the Bible, for

Milton, here as often, swings from myths to the Bible or vice

versa very suddenly, a habit which hints to us that he was not

looking up his picture material as he wrote but that it was

being suggested to him from the store of his own learning.

An especially beautiful epic simile which abounds in sug­

gestions from mythology occurs in the first book, beginning with line 301$ . ' . ',

; ' ' . ' . ' ' His legions— Angel Forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Tallombroaa,^vAere;the Etrurian shades High'over-arched embower; or scattered sedge _ Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed. Hath vext the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Menphian chivalry. While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcases And broken chariot-wheels.

In line 543 of the first book, Milton tells us about the shout

that ‘•Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night." And again

in lines 578-79, he speaks of the "heroic race"

That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side Mixed with A m d H a r Gods.

P a r a d i s e Lost. I, 196-201. S3

Tuloan, the fire god, receives his share of glory:

Men called him Muloiber; and how he fell From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the erystal battlements: from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day, and with the setting sun Dropt from the zenith like a falling star. On Lemnos, the Aegean isle. -V Classical mythology was rich in tales of the underworld, of which Milton made frequent use. In line 6 8 of the second book, he speaks of "his Throne itself Mixed with Tartarean »u|Lphur," and in line 506 we read, "The Stygian council thus dissolved."

Further on in the same book, there is a longer picture taken from the mythological underworld: .

Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cooytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls.^ Later on in line 859 of the same book, the "Portress of

Hell-gate" speaks of the one who has thrust her "Into this

gloom, of Tartarus profound"; then when she has taken up her

key, the "huge portcullis" moves "Thick, but herself, not all

the Stygian powers Could once have moved;* she turns the key and

On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate *22

2^Paradlse Lost. I, 740-46.

2 2 Ibid., II, 577-85. ; Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus.2 3 The Blysian fields;whl

inhabited by those who had lived as they were supposed to live ‘ . ' . - are brought Into the story a few times. In the third book when the Angels are rejoining over God’s plan for the redemp­

tion of nan wo read of the "Elysian flowers" and in line 472,

% ' ' f of "Plato’s Elysium." . . ' i From no other field has Milton drawn more figures than

from mythology. Humorous indeed are the allusions to mytho-

logical oharaoters, gods, goddesses, deml-gods, and even

creatures. These figures vary from extended Homeric similes

to quick, passing allitoions. Of whatever nature, they are - - effective, unstrained. His is the easy use of material per­

fectly familiar and well loved. We all know the story of

Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, and so when Mil-

ton says of Beelzebub that he stood ,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear The weight of mightiest Monarchies,24 we need only the one word to create the picture of an exceed­

ingly powerful man* Also in Book II the "harpy-footed Furies*

are mentioned and "Medusa with Gorgonian terror; ” the "Gor-

gons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire;" Hell Hounds with

"wide Cerberean mouths," and . : V ■ ' - ' ^ . - ■- Soylla, bathing in the sea that parts __ Calabria from the hoarse Trinaorian shore.

: / ......

25Paradise Lost. H . 879-85. Z&Ibid.. II, 306-07. 85paradlse Lost. II, 060-61. In the last part of Book II, in a sinile beginning with line

1017, several familiar mythological names appear:

And more endangered than when Argo passed Through Bosporus betwixt the justling .rooks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered.

As we read these lines Milton’s skill in choosing apt compar- ... . ■ iscns is very evident, for where, indeed, could impending danger be more vividly suggested than by the passage of the - good ship Argo through a strait with the islands threaten­ ing t'o close up around her, or of Ulysses passing through the Gulf of Charybdis which thrice each day engulfed all vessels in a whirlpool so terrible that there was no escape from it?

A picture drawn not through likeness but through con­ trast is found in lines 17 and 18 of the third book:

With other notes than the Orphean lyre I sung of Chaos and eternal Might.

At once we are reminded of Orpheus who could produce such beautiful music on his lyre that even the'wild beasts were moved, and we are told to think of music tha- was not like that, a use of the negative which is often very effective.

Further on in the third book we are given a striking illus­ tration of great power when Hilton speaks of the "powerful

Art" of the philosophers which can bind

Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound In various shapes old Proteus from the Sea.26

86Paradlse host. Ill, 603-07. ■ ' \ 3 6 ' ■ - ■ ' . • • - ,

Surely It must have been, that wing-footed Mercury and ever- changing Proteus were as familiar to Milton as if they had been contemporaries of his. And it seems that his acquain­ tance with mythological characters had no U n i t ,for in the fourth book, beginning with line 206, when Milton is describ­ ing the Garden, we come to a passage that teems with names from Mythological lore:

while universal Pan Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance Led on the eternal Spring. Hot that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpln gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis • Was gathered— which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world— nor that sweet grove Of Daphne, by Orontes, and the inspired Castellan spring, might with'this Paradise Of Eden strive; nor that Kyoeinn isle. Girt with the river Triton# where old Ohaa, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan ,Jove, Hid Analthea and her florid son. Young Bacchus, from his atepdame Rhea’s eye; Nor, where Abassin kings their issue guard. Mount Amara (though this by some supposed True Paradise) under the ethlop line By Hilus1 head, enclosed with shining rock, A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend Saw undelighted all delight, all kind Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.

Hot a line but has one allusion or more* The passage is a rich mosaic of mythological allusions not too recondite for educated minds.

A true poet would not be likely to speak of the west

Sind merely as a west wind. A most poetic way of referring to it is, "To recommend cool Zephyr*”8^

^Paradise Lost. IV, 329. 37

Then there, is that delightful picture of Aden smiling

on Eve - . , , - - . ■ ' : : - ■ ■ ' . -

‘1 *: ■ ',' ' as Jupiter , ‘ T :. .• Chi Juno smiles when he^impregns t W clouds ' That shed May flowers.*'® , The imortal gods themselves as described in the ancient lore

could even smile their smiles for Milton, so familiar was he

with all their ways. Even the lesser gods of the forests were

among his acquaintances, for in describing a shady bower, he

says that in a shadier one

Pan or Silvanus never slept, nor Hymph, Nor, Paunus haunted. And here is Eve compared to her upon whom the gods bad bestowed

- " _ ■ " all the gifts they had to give: -

More lovely than Pandorm, whoa the Gods Endowed with all their gifts; and, 01 too like In sad event, when, to the unwiser son Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged On him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire* u For Eve, like Pandora, was very lovely; and like Pandora,

who brought all evil to mankind by opening the box she had

been forbidden to open. Eve also in indulging curiosity

brought all manner of evil upon mankind*

In the description of Adam’s awakening; in the first

lines of Book 7, we are reminded a little of Homer’s "roey-

fingered dawn," when Hilton speaks of "Aurora’s fan, Lightly

■------:------:------...... — — ^ ------— ' BGlbid.. 17, 499—501. 89Ibid.. 17. 707-08.

3 0 Ibid., 17, 714-19. . 58

dispersed,« Somehow the comparison of early morn to a fair goddess never fails to delight the reader. Then in the same

passage comes Zephrus again and his love. Flora, the flower

goddess,;. : l a - -5:..

Twice in Book V Raphael, "The winged Saint," is compared

to mythological subjects: first to the Phoenix, one of the

messengers sent to Achlllest

to all the fowls he seems A phoenix, gazed by all, as that sole bird When to enshrine his relics in the Sun*s Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies.

And again to Mercury, "Like Malays son he stood♦*81

A forceful simile in the first part of the seventh book

refers to Bellerophon, master of the winged horse, Pegasusi

Lest from this flying steed unreign*d (as once Bellerophon, though from a lower clime) Dismounted.^

Further on we find an appeal to Urania, goddess of astronomy,

and that is followed by an allusion to Bacchus, god of wine and revelry:

Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few. But drive far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers, the.race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture.* 50

From several passages we have guessed that Hilton was

^Paradise Lost. V, 271-74 and 285.

s2 Ibid.. VII 17-19. A

5oParadlse Lost. VII, 51-56. 5 8 familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and now, % 5

come to that part of the poem which is about to tell of great tragedy which befell our first ancestors, we find 1 dence that Milton knew Vergil too and his story of the fall of Troy and the flight of Aeneas to another land to found a new city and a new race*

- ' Sad task# Hot less but more heroic than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespouse&$ Or Neptune1s ire, or Juno1s, that so Ions, Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea1s Son:5 ”

It appears that Milton delights in comparing Eve to various goddesses, for beginning with line 536 in the ninth book, there is a passage which likens her to Delia, who is better known to us as Diana of Delos. After a comparison between her and Pomona, the guardian of fruit trees, Milton finishes in a comparison to Ceres, goddess of the Earth:

and, like a wood-nymph light, Oread or Dryad, or of DellateDelia1s train. Betook her to the groves, but Deliafs self In gait surpassed and goddess-like deport. Though not as she with bow and quiver armed. But with such gardening tools as Art, yet *u.uC, Guiltless of fire had formed, or Angels brought. To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned, Likest she seemed— Pomona when she fled Vert minus— or to Ceres in her Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove.0 0

Eve1s tempter, too, calls forth mythological subjects from the poet1s

^ I b i d ., IX. 15-19.

^Paradise Lost. IX, 386-96. 40 And lovely; never since of serpent kind Lovelier hot those that in Illyria changed Eemione and Cedmus, or the God In Bpidaurua; nor to which transformed Amonian Jove, or Capitolina, was seen. He with Olympias, this ivith her who bore Seipio the highth of Home.36

The comparison is continued after a few lines with an allusion y . . . - - \ to Circe,who was almost the undoing of Ulysses and his men:

From every Beast, more duteous at her call Than at Cireeen call the herd diiguised.5 7

IThen the highway over Chaos is being established; we have a

vivid though somewhat horrible simile, alluding especially "

to the legend that Delos was once a floating isle:

Death with his mace petrifio, cold and dry. As-with a trident smote, and fixed as firm As Delos, floating once; the rest his look Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move.3 8

The Gorgons, we know, turned into stone all who beheld them.

Though Paradise Lost abounds in imagery called forth by

allusions to classical mythology, there is occasionally a pic­

ture which shows that Milton knew the myths of other lands

also. In th# first book in the description of tho Spirits

of Satan’s "Legions," we find a pretty picture from a Phoe­ nician belief: '■ '

Came As tore th, whom the Phoenicians called __ Astarte, queen of heaven, with orescent horns;3 9

-S6 5758Ibid.. IX. 504-10.

5 7 Ibid., IX, 521-22.

5 8 Ibld.. X, 295-97. 39paradlse Lost. I, 438-59, and in the passage immediately following that, we find refer- ences to the "Sidcnian Virgins," to «Tliamimiz,« "Lebanon,”

*the Syrian damsels,” and to ”Adonis.” In line 473 of the first book we find names from Egyptian mythology, "Osiris,

Isis, Orus and their Train,n and in the same book beginning with. 763 we have a figure drawn from an old medieval legend:

(Though like a covered field, where champions bold Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldanfs chair Defied the best of Panim chivalry To mortal combat, or career with lance*)

It is evident, then, that Milton*s mind was so steeped in ancient lore and mythology that it was in very truth a magic realm from which he could conjure forth, at will, just the right person, place, or incident to make his picture exactly what he wanted it to be. He has in Paradise Lost covered practically the whole field of classical mythology and we know that if there are omissions, they occurred, not because the writer did not know the material concerned but because they did not quite fit into the plan of his work. We feel that he not only knows all there is to know in this field but that he knows it so well that comparisons come to him easily and without effort. There is nowhere any suggestion of a labored effort to find a fitting comparison or a suitable picture. The prodigious mind of a master here shows the re­ sult of years and years of study and of worthwhile reading.

The artistic effect upon his poem is very profoundly to deepen and enrich his picture. Such profusion is in keeping with 42

Renaissance taste. ' Of course, it w o u M not be natural that a person of

•studious disposition* who had done Rselect reading” all of his life should not be well informed on all historical sub­ jects. History goes hand in hand with a knowledge of the

Bible, and even mythology is history of a sort. And so along with the pictures drawn from the Bible and from ancient leg­ ends, we find pictures taken from the realm of history.

- ' - - ; "■ '' ' ' In the first book the barbarous hordes from the North overrunning Italy are used to suggest the •Legions” of the

”superior fiend. ” This multitude— the multitude of Satan— is far more numerous than any the populous Northland ever poured forth;

A multitude like which the populous Uorth Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Dana?/, then her barbarous sons Case like a deluge on the SoiSh, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

In the fifth book when the ”winged Saint”, Raphael, stands at the gate of Heaven and looks at the Earth, he sees it, ■ - :

As when by night the glass Of Galileo, less assured, observes _ Imagined lands and regions in the Moon.4 -1

The less known figure of Raphael is illuminated by this com­ parison to a romantic Renaissance figure well known to Mil- ton and the people of his period.

4QParadise Lost. I. 551-55.

^Paradise Lost. V. 261-65. 43 It mist have been too that Milton was familiar with the orators of Greece and Rome and with the eloquence poured forth % Demosthenes and Cicero and numerous others, for to such does he compare the forceful argument of the "Tempter^ as he addresses Eve: As when of old some orator renowned In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence Flourished, since mute, to seme great cause addressed. Stood in himself collected, while each part. Motion, each act, won audience ere the tongue. Sometimes in highth began, as no delay Of preface brooking through his seal of rights So standing, moving, or to highth upgrown _ The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began* The story of Columbus and the discovery of America was, of course, well known to nearly everyone of Milton1 s day, but sometimes we find a scholar who is interested in every­ thing else but what is close to his own times— not so, the poet of Paradise Lost— the field of his interests was prac­ tically unlimited. Here in the ninth book, he draws a very apt figure as he compares the nakedness of Adam and Eve to that of the "Americans" whom Columbus found:

Columbus found the American, so girt With feathered cincture, naked else and wiM, Among the trees on isles and woody shores.4 6

We have already noted a very effective mythological al­ lusion in connection with the story of that broad highway which was built to make the way easier from Earth to Hell, but now we note also a striking comparison to a bridge of

4 2 Ibid., IX, 670-78.

- ^paradise Lost. IX, 1115-18.

...... 44

ancient history— that bridge of boats by means of which

Xerxes and the Persian hosts crossed the Hellespont in the year 480 B. C., thus joining Asia to Europe. •

So, if great things to small may be compared, Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke. From Susa his Memnonian palace high Came to the sea, and, over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined. And scourged with many a stroke the indignant waves*44 *-

From an entirely different realm of history, that of

the Oriental, and the Turks under the Mohammedan crescent, . ■ . . - : : ^ comes a picture drawn of Hell when Satan has returned and found it deserted*

As when the Tartar from his Russian foe By Astracan, over the snowy plains, f Retires, or Bactrian Sophi from the horns Of Turkish crescent, leaves all waste beyond The realm of Aladule, in his retreat To Tauris or Casbeen; so these, the late ^ Heaven-banished host, left desert utmost Hell.J

Then back again to the days of ancient Greece and Rome, Mil- ' . - ' ■ ' - ; ' ton turns for a picture of the Archangel as he appeared on Barth *as Man Clad to meet Man:** \

Over his lucid arms A military vest of purple flowed, Livelier than Meliboean, or the grain Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old In time of truce.4 6

Since purple was, in ancient times, a color which royalty ' -• ' ' ; ' . - l - - : alone could wear, Milton emphasizes the majesty of the Arch-

4 4 Ibid.. X. 500-11.

^ Paradise Lost. X, 431-37.

4 6 Ibld.. XI, 240-44. angel by clothing him in royal color •

though it is true that we do not find nearly so many pictures drawn from the realm of history as from the realms of the Bible and of mythology, the diversity of those which we do find attests Milton*s knowledge of that subject and his g r w t interest in it. The very subject matter of the epic ■ • ...... ■ ■ . . - does not call forth so much historical material as Biblical

and oythological* ■ ' ; - . . . - ' It is but natural that a mind so well versed in history

should also contain a mine of geographical information. Be-

esuse of his use of little known geographical names, that

tendency has. come to be called Miltonic. Perhaps Milton him­

self could not have explained his weakness for such names,

but after all, it is only human to have a special fondness or

weakness for something which cannot be accurately accounted

for, and genius must be allowed its touch with the merely

human. Just as Robert Browning, two centuries after Milton, ' . .. - . -.; ' - ' n ' - bad an unusual flair for ferreting out obscure or unimportant

events of history and writing poems about them, so it seems

that John Milton had a flair for seeking out obscure and

almost unknown geographical names and weaving them into the

imagery of his poems. We know too that a person who has

travelled widely is constantly being reminded of places that

the average person never thinks of; then wfcy should not Mil-

ton, who had travelled widely through the medium of his mind. 46 also be reminded of remote and unusual places? Well did he : . ■ - . V- fealize and most effectively did he bring out the magic and ' ■■ ' - "" ' - th® anisic of place-names, Helaire Belloc has clearly explained

' . . , ■ : ' thla particular trait of Milton:

This use of place-names was a function of Milton’s endless erudition, and a poetic reward for the toil of his youth. Maps had always pleased him, because his classics .had taught him. the titles-of seas and rivers far away, and of mountain chains— great kingdoms, and the tribes of men. Even when his blindness had come upon him he begged for maps, and must have had their configuration described to him by those whose eyes replaced.his own. He delights in the outlandish as well as in the civil­ ized; it is no doubt in great part the desire to

sented by his most vigorous memory. But whatever the motive the result is unique and invaluable. It is Milton’s most characteristic gift to English letters.4?

Belloc goes on to cite some of these characteristic passages from the fourth book and then adds that ” if a man has become too poor to travel he can still replace that pastime by read­ ing to himself the fourth book of Paradise Lost.'’48

Perhaps the passage in the entire epic which best typ- ifies Milton’s fondness for geographical and remote histor­ ical names is found in the eleventh book, beginning with line

388 and continuing for twenty-two lines. The passage intends, of course, to .traverse the whole world, for Adam is being shown "all Earth’s kingdoms and their glory”, but surely no poet but Milton would have traversed the earth in just this49 *

4 7 Belloc, p.257.

4 9 B@ 1 1 o c , p. 2 5 9 . way. There ere eono nanea In thio paocugo which arc quite ■iv " ^ ' - -- . ' ■ ' familiar,— Persian, Husolau, Hosoo, Congo, Higer, Harooco,

Algiers, Iloiso, Europe, Mexico, and

many others ttiiioh are totally

ono looks t W m up, such

L, Quiloa, Melind, Atahallpa, end Cusco. The whole pic-

ia imaginative to the nth degree;

a while here to ponder the richness of that mind which

could unroll these names as easily as

era unrolls its film. In the first

ore looking upon the region to which they have fallen. Mil-

ton makes good use of geographical dames to draw an effec­

tive sinilo;/" ■. ■ .

as when the force * Of subterranean wind transports a hill T o m from Felorus, or the shattered aide Of thundering Aetna.*®

A few linen further on in describing the shield of the "su-

perior fiend,” Hilton again makes use of place-names:

Hung on hie shoulders like tho noon, whose orb " Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At Evening, from the top of resole. Or in Yaldnmo, to descry new lands. Rivers, or noxmtnins. In her spotty globe.5 0 In the third book when Satan has alighted upon tho Earth

and is walking d o n e ’’in spacious field,” there follows a oin-

49paradl8G Lost. I, 230-33. ^ I b i d .. I. 280-91. 48

ile containing several highly suggestive geographical names.

As when a vulture, on lifiaus bred 1 : Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds. Dislodging from a region scarce of prey To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs Of Ganges or Bydaspes> Indian streams. But in M s way lights on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive «-•, With sails and wind their cany waggons light*0

Again in the ninth book where Satan has been wandering about

the Earth by night, we come upon a fine passage; There was a place, % low not, (though Bin, not Time, first wrought the change) Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise -Into'a .gulf shot under ground, till part . Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life* In with the river sunk, and with it ros® Satan involved in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid. Sea he had searched and land. From Eden over Pontus, and t M Pool Maeotis, up beyond the River Ob; Downward as far antartie; and, in length, W s t from Orontes to the Ocean barred At Darien, thence to the Land where flows Ga%%es and Indus.^ ;

- This is the passage of which Belloc says:

' It is a pity that the Devil, ranging about the globe, should have come across the river Ob, or that, if he did, Milton should have recorded such a monosyllable— but here again, he could "not bear to hide his knowledge Jo3

Belloc accuses Milton of too frequent pedantry, saying that

he often spoils an otherwise fine passage in this way. Per-

- haps he is right, but if so, it is a natural weakness that a

mind filled to overflowing with choice morsels of knowledge

5 IIbid., III, 431-39.

52Paradlse Lost. IX, 69t 82.

5 5BelIoc. p. 859. 49 should find it difficult to restrain itself. It is natural to wish to express that which v/e know. That the expression does not always conform to good taste is also natural.

In the tenth hook where Sin and Death are preparing to follow Satan and to construct that broad highway over Chaos to the Earth, we,find another simile replete with geograph­ ical names:

As when two polar winds, blowing adverse Upon the Cronian sea, together drive Mountains of ice, that stop the imagined, way Beyond Petsora eastward to the rich ' Cathaian Coast.

Other pictures of this type might be mentioned, but, as

Belloc says, "when it comes to Milton’s play on place-names, one might go on forever."55

The fact that Milton could write Paradise Lost at all proves the fundamental informing worth to him of his educa­ tion. But he also used his widespread reading in mythology and religion and secular history to provide adornment for the solid background of the poem. Whatever scholarship had explored, Milton had explored with equal or greater enthusi­ asm. He can be forgiven for the overflowing display of the signs of erudition in his scholarly imagery, on the one hand because his ba&ic use of his knowledge is so good, and on the other hand because his tremendous range of reference is all transmuted to the finest poetry.

54paradise Lost. X, 289-93.

5 5 Belloc, p. 260. CHAPTER IV

MILTON’S LOVE OF•BEAUTY

Emerson has told us that "beauty Is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world”, and that seems to be especially applicable to Milton. We have already in our study gained a vast respect for the intellect which was his, and how we are about to find that beauty was the form under which he verily did prefer to study the world. It Is with reservation that we regard Milton, generally speaking, as a

Puritan. The ordinary Puritan reformer seems to us to have had no place in his world for beauty or any of its various forms of expression. But Milton fairly worshipped beauty| consequently his modified Puritanism seems peculiar to him­ self alone. Belloc tells us that Milton did not fulfill the Puritan programme in several ways. He says:

That programme directly attacked beauty and joy. By its definition beauty and joy were lures..... Joy in its more solemn form he (Milton) would not abandon: and as for beauty, beauty was for him all his life an appetite, an object and a guide. Of all English poets he is the one for whoa sudden beauty in diction seems most inevitable, in whom you never know under what incongruous conditions beauty at white-heat will not appear, shining through an immortal line. He knew that he was the vehicle, and,after a fashion, the priest of beauty; and he worshipped at the shrine all his life— to our immense advantage.1

^Belloc, p. 15.

50 51 There is little doubt but that without this great love of beauty Milton could not have created an epic which for three hundred years has held a place with all the great epics of the world in whatsoever language they were written. Lis­ tening again to Emerson— the sage, philosopher, ami poet— we learn that "beauty is the quality which makes to endure* *

Emerson1s thought is that both in the creations of nature and in the creations of the mind of man, the final object is beauty and it is that beauty which makes for endurance. This we know from our own experience is true, for that which in all civilization has had permanence and endurance is that which expresses the beautiful in some form or other. It may follow, then, that the very fact that a poetical work has en­ dured for generation after generation attests that it was created through a desire, a divine urge perhaps, to express the beautiful.

Let us take for granted, then, that Paradise Lost came into form and expression largely because its author was a lover of beauty; but here we seek further, for we wish to de­ termine the more particular phases in which MiltonTs love of beauty sought to express itself and to see in what form those phases are revealed in Paradise Lost.

Already we have mentioned the poet1s great love for pa­ geantry in ail of its manifestations. It is natural, since

Milton lived in an age of combat and strife and since he him­ self with his pen took a vital part in that strife that he 52 should prefer to think of war under suoh guise. For it is pageantry which gives to war Its appeal; without that there would be left only its horror, its suffering, and its strife.

Even the victory must come before the eyes of the people in the shape of a great pageant or else the victory would seem not to be. Even his "select reading" would tend to accentuate the point, for where does one find more pageantry than in the

Old Testament? And there is almost if not quite as much in classical mythology, whereas history— all of history— is in itself a mighty pageant. Milton has travelled too and travel­ ing makes the changing landscape itself appear as a glorious pageant. And so the love of beauty, which was one of God's gifts to Milton, finds in pageantry a most, natural and worthy outlet for its activity.

We have already noted that Milton was a close observer of the phenomena of nature; to be sure he did not philosophise about those phenomena as many later poets have done, but he enjoyed them— they were great pictures to him. The sky and the heavens, the stars, and the sun and moon had all contri­ buted to Milton's mind pictures of which he made good use in

Paradise Lost. In the seventh book, when he is relating the story of creation, he describes in a beautiful personification a pageant of the heavens:

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, Regent of day, and all the horizon round 53 Invested with bright rays, jocund to run His longitude through heaven*s high road; the grey Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danced Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the Moon, But opposite in levelled west, was set, Bis mirror, with full face borrowing her light * From him; for other light, she needed none In that aspect, and still that distance keeps Till night; then in the east her twin she shines. Revolved on heaven*s great axle, and her reign. With thousand lesser lights dividual holds. With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared Spangling the hemisphere. Then first adorned With their bright luminaries, that set and rose, . Glad evening and glad morn crowned the fourth Day.2

Another personification Involving the pageant of the heavens appears in the beginning lines of the sixth book as

Raphael is continuing with his story:

All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued. Through Heaven* s wide champaign held his way, till Mom, Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand Unbarred the gates of Light. •

In the second book when the tthost of Hell" are entertain­

ing the R irksome hours "until the return of the "great Chief**,

we find a simile which attributes war to the heavens:

As when, to warn proud cities, war appears 7/aged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds; before each van Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears. Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven thei welkin burns. Raphael’s story in the sixth book gives us another figure in

■ . " - which pageantry of war is attributed to the heavens: . ' " .when all the plain Covered with thick embattled squadrons bright.

^Paradise Lost. VII, 370-86.

"'ibid.. 536-38. 54 Chariots# and flaming arms, and fiery steeds . Reflecting blaze on blaze. This same part of the sixth book also pictures for us the silent marching of the "Legions", ending with a telling simile which shows the poet*s keen observation of natural phenomena as well as serving to bring out the movement of the heavenly leg Ions through air;

moved on In silence their bright legions to the sound Of instrumental harmony that breathed Heroic ardour to adventurous deeds Under their godlike leaders, in the cause Of God and his Messiah. On they move. Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill. Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream divides Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground Their march was, and the passive air upbore Their nimble tread. As when the total kind Of birds in orderly array on wing. Came summoned over M e n to receive Their names of thee.®

In the story of the creation of the earth in the seventh book, where the waters are described as seeking the low places, there occurs another simile suggested by the movements of an army: ' . ■' ... "

, As armies at the call Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard) Troop to their standard, so the watery throng,r Wave rolling after wave, where way they found.® *6

^Paradise Lost. VI, 15-18. = - Ibid.. VI. 65-71.

6 Ibid.. VII,' 2S5-9S. A strong simile from the pageantry of nature— birds of prey lured to the battle field before the battle— lured by scent— -shows Sin ami Death preparing to invade the .realms of the newly--created Earths

So saying, with delight he snuffed the smell Of mortal change on Earth. As when a flock Of-ravenous fowl, though many a league remote. Against the day of battle, to a field, . Where armies lie encamped come flying, lured With scent of living carcases designed „ For death the following day in bloody fight.

From the above illustrations, we may rightly'conclude that Milton’s love of beauty satisfied itself in part at least with the beauty of pageantry, especially with the pageantry of war and the pageantry of nature. However, we must not infer from this, that Milton m s a lover of nature in the same sense that many of our later poets were. We cannot rightly say of him that he held communion with her visible forms nor can we think that he would have been able.to say with Wordsworth,

’’For Mature then to me was all in all." Kor does it seem to us that he saw God in Nature as Tennyson did when he said:

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, 1 hold you here, root and all, in my hand. Little flower— but if I could understand Wh&t you are, roct and.all, and all In all, I should know whet God and man isI

Or as Browning did in his wonderful Saul:

God is seen God In the star, in. the stcuto, in the flesh, ' In the soul and the clod.

7 Paradise Lost. X, 278-78e No, Mature was not a part of the soul of Milton, nor did he regard her as being akin to the soul of man; rather was Nature to him a beautiful picture, something with which to delight the senses and to appease his appetite for beauty. He writes of Nature In a way similar to that of Thomas Hardy, that novelist who drew for us so many beautiful landscapes; yes, and some scenes too which may be described by the one word,

"awful** taken in Its true meaning. Belloc says that r. lit on

"was Intoxicated by landscape;" he enlarges on that thought;

It may be debated whether the landscape of Southern England moulded the English literary mind, or whether It was something In the national spirit (a fantastic suggestion— but then we are dealing with fantasy!) which, by preserving and moulding, created that natural beauty of the English habita­ tion and external world. Englishmen could not have made the English skies, but they had much to do with what you see when you look down the vale of Severn from Bredon Hill. There Is landscape In the largest sense, the landscape of earth and sky and the pal­ aces whereby man had ennobled his habitation; there are ceaseless visions of such external things urging Milton, so that, when with his pen he wrote, as when in his blindness ho dictated. In a facile stream, it Is still great landscape which appears and reappears.®

Later on.in his book Belloc says that there is nothing like "Milton’s verse for glamour In the description of land­ scape or in the calling up of great visions;"9 and then a lit­ tle later, he goes on to say that one of the particular themes which moved Milton to his highest was the matter of landscape

"snd particularly do you find It as he calls up before his blind

®Eelloc, p. 54. Slbld., p. 254. 3 T eyes the English moods and fields at evening,’* Furthermore, at the very end of his discussion of Paradise Lost. Belloc reminds us: "He that knows what landscape can do for the mind is granted, in Paradise Lost, vision of such landscape as we hardly find in the real world."3-0

As we read through Paradise Lost and note the landscape paintings found therein, we are impressed especially with the generous use of color imagery, and mistiness of clouds, the green of the grass, and variegated hues of flowers. Frequent­ ly also Hilton refers to black, "black it stood as night;" but we know that black is the color which serves to color details as when, on a dark night, one sees a white mountain peak sculp­ tured against a black sky.

The long descriptions of the Garden of Eden and of the earth Itself as it emerged during the days of creation are full of insistences on color detail, Satan, viewing Paradise for the first time, sees: the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, , Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.10 11

Adam and Eve, having reclined "on the soft downy bank damasked with flowers,"12 stroll across the floor of the Garden paved with a mosaic of beautiful flowers:

Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine. Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought

10Belloe, pp. 261-62.

^Paradise Lost. IV. 254-56.

^Ibld., IV, 334. 58

Mosaic 5 underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, vith rich inlay Broidered the ground,_»or® coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem.**

The account of the creation of animal life includes innumerable color images. The "painted wings"^ of the small birds flitting from branch to branch make a vivid impression, as does the unsurpassable portrait of the peacock;

- ' - ■ ■ . ■ the other whose gay train.. . .. Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue Of rainbows and starry eyes.15

The rainbow itself, appearing above Hoah*s head after the flood, provides a grander vision of colon

A dewy cloud, and in the cloud a bow Conspicuous with three listed colours gay. Betokening peace from God, and covenant new.1”

That Milton loved beauty just as a true artist loves beauty; that he saw the beauties of the natural landscape with the .eye of the artist,, we have seen clearly. Yet there was more to Milton*s love of beauty than that which he could see with his eyes, there was also that which he could hear with his ears. He had loved music from childhood, for his father had been most devoted to that art and we gather that music was one. of his first artistic impressions and that he was early in life impressed with the importance of music.

"We must admit that the influence of music upon the life of

.^Paradise Lost. IV, 689-705.

l4 Ibid.> VII, 454,

15 Ibid., VII, 444-46.

l6 Ibid.. XI, 865-67. 59

Milton was very great— ■* says Belloc, and he goes on to say:

' How much he cherished music we discover from some of the best and some of the worst of His verses; ...when something in a writer*s life is spoken of by him not only in. the best of his work but in the worst, then may you be certain that that thing is a constant concern*^1?

When a person loves music and mderstands it, he is very likely to be sensitive to music in the various sounds of Mature.

Edmund Burke in his essay« On the Sublime and Beautiful, speaks of Milton as having a very fine ear for sweet and beautiful sounds. Thi$ then, being true, se are not surprised to find a number of sound descriptions.

In the second book when Satan has been addressing the council of fallen ones, we are told that they rose; Mtheir rising all at once was as the sound of thunder heard remote.R

A familiar sound and fascinating— Washington Irving also made use of it in the vivid descriptions of his Rip Van Winkle. He scarce had finished, when such murmur filled The assembly as when hollow rocks retain The sound of b lust ring winds, which all night long Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull Sea-faring men o ,er watched, whose bark by chance. Or pinnance, anchors in a craggy bay After the tempest.*8

Several times Milton makes use of the sound of waters. In

the fifth book, line 872, we are made again to hear applause as

^Belloc, p. 74. 18 x Paradise Lost. II, 284-90. 60

"the sound of voters deep"; in the sixth book, line 829, we hear the roll of chariot wheels "as with the sound of torrent floods"; and in the seventh hook, line 58, we hear the "liquid imriaur" of a atreaia. %it 1%. Book I, where Ikumnon and hia cre>v are dieting for -ureasure,' we hear a sound like that of a pipe-organ:

from the boiling cells By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook; As in an organ, from one blast of wind. To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.*-®

vVe have already noted in a previous chapter, Milton’s fondness for musical geographical names and how he was able, by their use, to ennoble reality with & highly imaginative effect. It would take a keen musical ear, not only to hear the music in these names, but to combine them in such a way , V ^ - that a whole passage becomes filled with the magic of musical sound.

By many critics, Hilton, has been called the poet of light; the detailed study of Paradise Lost shows us that this is a true judgment. It is but human, of course, that a love of beauty should reach cut toward particular tnlags or par­ ticular manifestations of beauty. In I'd It on it seems that the special objects of his love of beauty are color end light, especially the light of the sun, moon, and stars, and their

.antithesis— darkness. This type of light and color, of course, oad manifestations in other natural phenomena; Hilton was a

^ Paradise Lost, I, 706-709. ) 61 veritable v/Izard at picking them out. All through his great epic he shows a special fondness for the brilliant sheen of gold and for the splendor and the coloring.of jewels. Closely allied to this taste is a fondness for the light of fires. Now we know that Paradise Lost is a poem dealing largely with the sublime and we also know that color and light may easily be made to produce the impression of that which is sublime. All colors, of course, are different phases of light, Edmund Burk® has a good idea of the ways light may be used to bring out a picture of that which is sublime:

k'ere light is too common a thing to make a strong impression on the mind, and without a strong impression nothing can be sublime, but such a light as that of the sun, immediately exerted on the eye, as it overpowers the sense, is a very gr^ut idea. Light of an inferior strength to this, if it moves with great celerity, has the same power; for lightning is certainly productive of grandeur which it owes chiefly to the extreme velocity of its motion. A quick transition from light to dark­ ness, or from darkness to li;-ht, has yet" a greater effect."0

We can readily agree with Burke too that Milton was well aware of all this. One of the beet illustrations of the great poet’s idea of light is found in the story of the creation in the seventh book: .

Of Light by far the greater part he, took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed . In the Sun’s orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid light, firm to retain®

2QLdmuna uurke, p. 70. 62

Her gathered beams, great palace now of Light. Hither, as to their fountain other stars Repairing, in their golden urns draw light. And hence the soming planet gilds his horns; Bjr tincture of reflection they augment Their small peculiar, though from human sight So far remote, with diminution seen*'8*-

In the above passage we note the use of the idea of the brilliance of gold and then we note a number of other passages wherein the same or a similar idea is expressed. "With gay religions full of poop and Gold,« we read in the first book.

And in the same book beginning with line 526, Y/e read:

The imperial ensign, which, full high advanced Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind OD With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed.^ This passage couples the idea of gems and gold as the fol­ lowing does also: .

High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat.”S

Again in'line'352 of'Book III, we read "Their crowns, inwove with amarant and Gold". Also in the same book:

Kingly palace-gate With frontispiece of diamond and gold Imbellished, thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone, inimitable on Earth By model, or by shading pencil drawn.24

^Paradise Lost. VII, £59-69.

2 2 Ibid.. I, 372.

25Ibid.. il, 2-5/ 24ibid.,-111,-505-09. 63

Another bit of description in the third, book links colors with gold. ; ,

wings he wore Of many e coloured plume sprinkled with gold.8 8 Then in the fourth book in the description of Eden, we find color and gold Walking together:

Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue Appeared, with gay enamelled colours nixed; On which the sun more glad; impressed his beams Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow. When God hath showered the earth.85 86

Further on In the same picture vve find gold and jewels again:

if Art could tell. How, from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks. Rolling on orient pearl and sands'of gold.8? And another bit of that picture describes the trees, line

249, "Others whose fruit, burnished with golden winds."

Gold and jewels appear together agsin in the fifth book when tables are set for the "Angels;* and "rubied Hectar flows."

In Pearl, in Diamond; and massie Gold, Fruit of delicious

Vines, the growth of Heav’n .8 8 In the ninth book where the tempter is describing the "tree", we find that it was

Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed Ruddy and gold.E9

85Paradlse Lost. Ill, 641-42.

2 6 Ibia., 17, 148-51.

2 7 Ibid., IV, 236-38.

2 8 Ibid.. V, 633-34.

2 9 Ibld.. IX, 577-78. 64

Surely tra could not find a more tempting description of an apple!

Closely allied to the brilliance of gold is everything that shines, everything that gleams with reflected light, and everything that burns. Satan looking down on this World as he stands on the lower stair of the steps to Heaven, sees It:

As when a scout Through dark and desert ways with peril gone All night; at last by break of cheerful dawn Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill, Whleh to his eye discovers unaware - The goodly prospect of some foreign land First seen, or some renownd metropolis With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned. Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams.3°

In lines 713 and 714 of the fifth book, the stars which appear to "the Eternal Eye" are described as "the golden lamps that burn nightly before him." In the first book we have the idea

of fire, coupled with the azure of the heavens as the "supe- riour Fiend" walks

Over the burning Marie, not like those steps On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.31

Sunlight, fire, and gold are found together in the sixth book

beginning with the hundredth line:

The Apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat. Idol of majesty divine, enclosed With flaming Cherubim, and golden shields.

3°?araaise Lost. Ill, 543-51.

31Ibld.. I, 296-98. The story of creation in the seventh hook tells us

Of fish that with their fins and shining scales Glide under the green Y/ave.SS

In the third hook we have glowing iron, gold, and jewels*

all in one dazzling picture, *' but all alike informed With radiant light, as glowing Iron with fire# If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear; If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite, Bttisy or topaz, to the twelve that shone In Aaronfs breast-plate.~

Of lightning, we have a brief but forceful picture in the

first book, *and the Thunder, Winged with red Lightning”.

That which glitters figures again in the third book in the

description of the ”golden Harps”, "that glittering by their side like Quivers hung.*35

We have a few examples of jewels used alone to help

make up a picture. In the third book, line 519, we read

that *a bright sea flowed of Jasper, or of liquid pearl.*

In line 405 of the seventh book, we see the "groves of Coral*

and two lines further on the "pearly shells*. The last lines

of Book II draw a picture of

the empyreal Heaven, extended wide In circuit, undetermind square or round.

^ Paradise Lost. VII, 401-402.

^ I b i d ., III, 593-598.

^ X h i d .. I.' 174. ^ Ibid.. III. 566-567. 6 6

With opal towers. and battlements adorned Of living sapphire.

And in line 562 of the third book we have the ^pavement that like a sea of jasper shone,”

Milton has also shown that he knows the art of using that which contrasts strongly with light and with brightness, clouds and darkness. In the seventh book we read ”of incense clouds Fuming from golden censers,”0® and in the first part of

Book VI we have a picture of clouds and smoke as the "sign of - wrath awaked.”

So spake the Sovran Voice; and clouds began fo darken all thejaill, and smoke to roll In dusky wreaths.0 '

All through the great epic, then, such pictures stand out in bold relief, telling us emphatically that Milton was a poet of light, that he understood the relation of light to the sublime, that he loved all colors but that he was especially delighted with the color and light of gems.

Whether of light or of landscapes, the innumerable scenes of beauty Milton gives us remain in our minds perhaps more te­ naciously than any other elements. There is in the poem a constant richness which only a devotee of* beauty with highly developed sensory powers and an imagination of correlative strength could provide. Milton1s purely aesthetic Joy in the visible and audible world is perhaps the most powerful factor in his artistry, for through the transforming lens of beauty pass all the tremendous action and meaning of paradise Lost.

^Paradise Lost. VII, 599.

5 7 Ibid.« VI, 56-58. Gonelustoa

If y#g are right in assuming that since he spent many years of his life in planning Paradise Lost, it Is therefore

Hilton*8 chief work, then, of a truth, v/e ought to be

justified in assuming that from a detailed study of that work, we can learn much of the nature of Milton, the poet*

We cannot account for his genius, of course— -no genius ever has been accounted for— we can only say that the genius of

Milton like the genius of others is of God. Hilaire Belloc puts it thus:

How towering verse comes to be written by mortals none have explained nor can, save by inspiration; which is as much as to say that something divine is revealed in the poetic speech, not through thepoot’s will but through some superior will using the poet for its pur­ pose. It is the afflatus of God.

However, it was the mind of Milton which the superior will used as its instrument in producing Paradise Lost. We have been seeking to find something of the workings of that mind by a study of the imagery appearing in the poem.

Hilton*s images, the figures by which he seeks to illuminate his story or his more abstract thought, fall chiefly into

three classes; those from the field of knowledge, those

from the field of beauty and those which reveal the poet’s

observation of man and his background. Nature. In addition

^Belloc, p. 31. 67 68 there are many figures not falling within these classes.

The imagery which stands forth in the pages of Paradise Lost has revealed to us a mind filled with information, im­ pressions, ideas. It is as if Milton, like Walt Whitman, went ’’roaming in thought over the universe” and as he roamed, he stored away what he saw and learned in such a way that he was able to call if -forth), afterwards just as he willed. We have heard Belloc say that beauty was with Milton

”an appetite, an object, and a guide” and now, after study­ ing the imagery of the great epic, we are fully prepared to agree with that statement. We have seen the several phases of Milton*s love for beauty— how, after the Civil War, pageantry in all of its forms had a special appeal for him; how he enjoyed the beauties of Nature, not subjectively as a great many poets do, but objectively, as most artists do.

The landscape was to Milton a series of beautiful pictures, pictures revealing light, color, splendor, the charm of living things. We have seen that he was a lover of music and that he could call forth in his lines the music in the natural sounds he knew— the winds, the waters, the rumbling thunder. In short, we have seen that Milton everywhere re- garded a thing of beauty as a joy forever.

Since Paradise Lost is primarily religious in purpose, we have been able to see also something of that religion which held sway over Milton’s mind and life. Though 6 9 generally considered a Puritan# it has been made clear to us that he was not primarily a Puritan— he loved beauty and the finer things of life far too much for that. And yet, Milton had identified himself with the Puritan movement and we have seen that it was the element of strife therein which appealed especially to Milton. Strife he would have— not in person but on paper. His great epic abounds in the imagery of war# of battles, of various struggles. We find too that in his interpretation of the Old Testament, he was Puritanic# for he was inclined to interpret that document quite literally. He also believed In the doctrine of God1s "chosen” and believed that he himself was one of the "chosen".

Of the figures presented in this thesis those from the field of general human knowledge bulk largest, two-hundred and thirty-four, of which seventy-four have been suggested to the author through his knowledge of the Bible, seventy- eight draw their pictures from some old myth, classical or oriental, and seventy-two contain imagery frm the wide fields of history.

Next in importance, numerically at least, are the figures that indicate a love of beauty, one-hundred and seventy-two, of which for color alone there are seventy-seven passages, twenty that resolve into musical geographical names and seventy-five that are miscellaneous figures of speech other than similes or metaphors. 70

finally there is the last group including man and his background. Nature, one-hundred and seven many of which could easily be classified as images of beauty, also images that reveal a knowledge, that of astronomy.

To those of us who are living today, Hilton*s vast store­ house of knowledge seems almost incredible, for we tend to study everything superficially, with reference to breadth and scope rather than to depth and content.

The final results of this detailed study of Milton*s great epic resolve themselves, for the one who has made the study at least, into three satisfying achievements. First, a far better understanding of the pageantry of Milton* s mind has resulted. In picture after picture, events apparently moved in continual parade through the mind it this great master, furnishing1all the elements necessary for great pageantry issuing from Milton*s mind as he commands them. It*a almost as if the poet were sitting back and permitting the whole great pageant of Paradise Lost to unroll before his mind’s eye. . ' - - -

Second, we have gained an appreciation of the poet’s great mental capacity. % can see that his knowledge was not superficial nor was it something which he had "studied up" just for the occasion for which he wanted it, it was rather the web and woof of his very being. And \rhen learning is so extensive and so true that it in reality becomes a part of a person and helps to make him what he is, then, in truth. ■ ■ ; ; '■ 71 ■ •

. ■ ■ - ^ . ' ; . ■ ■ . ' . . ’ : are we ready to aclmowleclge that learning.

Third, and last, we have gained an appreciation of the workings of a great Imagination as an imagination* The minds of all of us are of necessity filled with images hut, with most of us, those images are too trivial to permit of the creation of azything of lasting worth. Like a traveller who is constantly living some scene or incident of his travels,

Milton calls up, for the elucidation or adornment of his thought, one after the other, figures from his vast store-* house of pictures * And, though we know that no great poem is created without tremendous effort, it is an essential of the greatness of a poem, that it appear to have been created without effort. It seems that is just what happens in

Paradise Lost. As we read, we feel that it lias sprung from the sind of its-master as Minerva sprang from the brain of

Jove, full-grown and complete. With Belloc, then, we sum it up in these words;

Throughout all those thousands upon thousands of lines you feel the fashioner at work, you are dealing with something made and with its maker3 you are in com­ munion with an achieved creative effort of the human mind.2

2Hilaire Belloc, p. 250. BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARNOLD, MATTHEW. «John Milton.R The Library of Literary Criticism. Mew York: Peter Smith. 19B5, Vol. II.

BAGEHOT, WALTERi "Essay on Milton.« Harvard Classics. Hew Yorkt P. B’. Collier & Son, '

^BELLOC, HILAIRE. Milton. Philadelphia: -J. B. Lippincott Company, 1955. BURKE, EDMUND, "On.the Sublime and Beautiful." Harvard Classics. Hew York: P. F. Collier k Son, 1909*

MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTOH. E ssay on John Milton. Hew York: American Book Company, 1894.

MASSON, DAVID. The Poetical Works of John Hilton. New York: Macmillah and Cbmpeny, 1895, Vol. II.

MASSON, DAVID. • The Life of John Milton in Connection with the History of His Time. London: Macmillan anti Company “7 "VoIsT— ; RALEIGH, WALTER. Milton. Hew York and London: G. ?. Putnam Sons, 1900.

SAMPSON, ALDEK. StWies in Milton and An Essay on Poetry. Hew York: Moffat, Yard and'Company, 191S.

-SAURAT. DENIS. Milton— Man and Thinker. Hew York: Tl^ Dial Press, 1925. ry 5 eT pII. -3^

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