The Last Epic--Comprehensive
cultural text; map of the universe; heroic figures; central legends and values--
Faerie Queene, Star Wars
Fourfold levels
Relation
to Iliad, Aeneid, Divine Comedy and Bible
The great classic of English
Literature in eyes of future writers
Blake, Wordsworth
End
of the Renaissance--mythic era--central influence of classics and the bible; books--turning
to experience; the Baconian world; realism and lowered rhetorical register. Ambivalent
rejection of idea of making perfect society [More] and encouraging man to aspire
to godhood through knowledge and action
Relation of Paradise Lost to
Milton's experience in Civil Wars--obedience, monarchy and rebellion. Seeming
liberation from tyranny. God is certainly not the monarchy, but I think Satan
is Cromwell and the Parliamentary army from the perspective of 1660--see: "The
Prophet Disarmed: Milton and the Quakers"
Structure
Arguments--helpful summaries
Unhelpful--no quotation marks
but check paragraph markers and speaker tags
Blank verse--like Shakespeare
Unrhymed for grandeur, momentum and cadence [fall]
Use of variations
and sound patterns
Caesura/
enjambment/substitution
Read Proem
and 44--"Him the almighty power..."
Two
parts--Books 1-8 is military and grand;--centers on the battle in heaven in books
5 and 6
Proem 1-26--address to muse; figure of narrator
l.
27-49--back story to fall of Satan
l. 49 story begins
Books 1-2:
Hell--Devils kicked out after rebellion and strategize to get revenge; after long
parliamentary meeting with heroic warrior speeches, elect Satan to go out of Heaven
and search out new world God is creating to replace devils
Book 3: Heaven--God
and Jesus looking at Satan's voyage and planning the response--Theological view
of history from eternity; Man will fall with free will; the son will sacrifice
himself to take the punishment
Book 4--We see Adam and Eve in blissful
bedtime preparations in Eden, through Satan's jealous Iagolike eyes watching Othello
and Desdemona and figuring out how to mess them up. Satan hears the command not
to eat the apple they've been given. They go to sleep and disguised as frog, Satan
goes to eve and whispers poison dream into her unsuspecting ear
Books
5 and 6--Raphael comes to Eden to warn A. about the threat; Eve serves dinner.
Raphael relates the whole epic story of the war in heaven
Book 7--Raphael
continues the long internal narrative by telling Adam the story of the creation
of the world before he was created by God
Book 8 --Adam tells Raphael
what he remembers of his own creation, his dialogue with God about needing a human
partner, the creation of Eve from out of his rib and his first encounter with
her and the power of his feelings for her.
Book 9-12 is human
and domestic--from Cosmic, heroic, aristocratic, chivalric, and romantic to realistic
human scale
Book 1
Satan's first speech--heroic virtues
Courage
and Eloquence--Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus
Leadership qualities--Moses,
Jesus
Defeated rebels
Beelzebub's speech--doubt; the
follower--issue of leadership--Roderigo, the murmuring Israelites
Satan
second speech: what's origin of evil? --Revenge against a slight
Rising
out of the lake is action--relation to speech?
Third speech--better to
reign in hell: what do you think of this? How relate to Aereopagitica or Puritans
going to America?
Beelzebub, flattering sidekick also speaks truth; the
poer of speech, especially in war or conflict situation.
His bringing
them to life with a taunt--316
Pharaoh's army comparisons
The
Epic catalog--demons as pagan canaanite and classical deities--idols--Biblical
fascination with them and Renaissance fascination with paganism
Their
awakening and encouragment by his courage--522--his conflicted and complex emotions--cf.
600-612
Military music and spectacle
Classical and biblical epic--description
of Israelite army in Nmbers, Joshua, Samuel
Next speech 622--excuses
and encouragement
Developing civilization in Hell
Mammon
the gold miner, building program, imperial pride 678
Mucliber the architect;
Pandaemonium--high capitol