Abstract
The centuries-old critical debate about Paradise Lost has traditionally placed John Milton’s poetic impulses in opposition to his theological principles. This chapter shows how understanding Milton’s piety, which includes aesthetic and affective components, can lead to a more productive analysis of the poem. Milton prepares the reader’s sensibilities through his treatment of Satan, whose attractiveness and gradual degeneration elucidate the poem’s interweaving of moral and aesthetic concerns. By attending to Satan’s own changing aesthetic perspectives, the poet develops the productive potential—and the dangers—of a serious aesthetic engagement with the infernal.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
De Doctrina Christiana is a two-volume Latin work of systematic theology, discovered in manuscript in 1823. Despite some authorship disputes, most current scholarship accepts that Milton is significantly responsible for its content, whether or not “he wrote every word” (Stanley Fish, How Milton Works [2001] 17). See the introduction to De Doctrina in the Complete Prose Works of John Milton, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al. (Yale University Press, 1953–1982) volume 6, page 109, as well as Milton and the Manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana (2007) by Gordon Campbell et al. Nonetheless, Michael Lieb (2006) rightly cautions that we should “allow the God of the theological treatise and the God of the poetry…to enjoy distinct identities without being hemmed in or manacled by a determination to view them as one and the same” (128).
- 2.
Other seminal works in this tradition include C.S. Lewis’s A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942), Dennis Burden’s The Logical Epic: A Study of the Argument of Paradise Lost (1967), and Dennis Richard Danielson’s Milton’s Good God (1982). Russell Hillier’s Milton’s Messiah (2011) is a more recent example.
- 3.
Although Fish uses Perry Miller’s The New England Mind (1954) to support this anti-aesthetic argument (Surprised 6-7n1), Miller actually asserts the centrality of aesthetics to seventeenth-century Puritan piety (see below).
- 4.
Many Romantic poets were of this mind; in particular, Percy Shelley considered “Milton’s devil as a moral being…far superior to his God” (A Defense of Poetry [1821], T. Miller 149). Scholarly precursors of Empson include Elmer Edgar Stoll’s “Give the Devil His Due” (1944) and A. J. A. Waldock’s Paradise Lost and Its Critics (1947). Since the 1990s, a wave of scholarship has questioned the coherence of Milton’s theodicy. John Rumrich’s Milton Unbound (1996) sees Milton criticism as laboring under an oppressive “orthodoxy” (1) inaugurated by Fish, in which “no one could seriously think that Milton would really question the ways of God to men” (xii). See also Neil Forsyth’s The Satanic Epic (2003), Peter Herman’s Destabilizing Milton (2005), Joseph Wittreich’s Why Milton Matters (2006), Michael Bryson’s The Tyranny of Heaven (2004) and The Atheist Milton (2012), as well as The New Milton Criticism (2012), edited by Herman and Elizabeth Sauer.
- 5.
Even now, critics wishing to avoid the debate must still take account of it; see, for example, Satan’s Poetry (2012) by Danielle A. St. Hilaire (esp. 2) and Samuel Fallon’s “Milton’s Strange God: Theology and Narrative Form in Paradise Lost” (2012; esp. 47, 51–52).
- 6.
Paradise Lost is cited by book and line number, from Alastair Fowler’s edition (Longman, 1998).
- 7.
Feisal G. Mohamed’s chapter on Samson Agonistes in Milton and the Post-Secular Present: Ethics, Politics, Terrorism (2011) also suggests the importance of “Providential slaughter” to Milton (103).
- 8.
Citations of Milton’s prose refer to the Complete Prose Works of John Milton, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al. (Yale, 1953–1982), hereafter CPW, cited by volume and page number. References to De Doctrina Christiana also include book and chapter numbers, and the original Latin text is cited by volume and page number from The Works of John Milton, edited by James Holly Hanford and Waldo Hilary Dunn (Columbia, 1931–1938), hereafter WJM.
- 9.
According to The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (1704), by Milton’s near contemporary John Dennis (1658–1734), “the Design of the Christian Religion is the very same with that of Poetry…to delight and reform Mankind, by exciting the Passions in such a manner, as to reconcile them to Reason” (1.365). Michael Lieb’s Theological Milton (2006) asserts the link between poetry and theology in Paradise Lost and claims that the language of De Doctrina Christiana can productively be considered poetic (1–4). Barbara Lewalski’s 2011 article “How Poetry Moves Readers” argues that “Milton’s theodicy persuades less by theological argument than by poetic vision” (767). Fallon (2012) observes that “Narrative, for Milton, offers itself as a uniquely powerful way to tackle some of the most difficult metaphysical challenges posed by God, as a viable and perhaps preferable alternative to the methodical systematic theology of De Doctrina” (35).
- 10.
In Paradise Lost itself, Raphael repeatedly supports this view (see 5.571–576 and 7.112–117). In contrast to Raphael’s relatively sanguine account, Bryson’s analysis of De Doctrina’s theory of accommodation in The Atheist Milton (2012) highlights the difficulties involved in using limited human representations to understand God (89–91). See also Shoulson’s (2001) chapter on “The Poetics of Accommodation” (93–134), which argues that Paradise Lost “interrogates divine passibility in a way that would have been out of place in the poet’s theological treatise” (102).
- 11.
Perry Miller (1954) uses the term “piety” to refer to “the inner core of Puritan sensibility apart from the dialectic and the doctrine” but notes that “In Puritan life the two were never so separated; they were indeed inseparable, for systematic theology, now become wearisome to the majority of men, provided Puritans with completely satisfying symbols; it dramatized the needs of the soul exactly as does some great poem or work of art” (6). In applying this formulation to Milton’s piety, I do not seek to pigeonhole Milton as a Puritan; for the problems with such a claim, see Catherine Gimelli Martin’s Milton Among the Puritans (2010).
- 12.
Perry Miller’s comparison of evil to “shadows in a picture” paraphrases the passage in Augustine’s City of God (11.23) that I discuss in Chapter 2. Even Fish, who ordinarily downplays the importance of the aesthetic, acknowledges Milton’s connection with this Augustinian view in How Milton Works (2001; 11–12).
- 13.
Milton’s work engages deeply with Augustinian thought. The title of his De Doctrina Christiana echoes Augustine’s, and as John Savoie’s “Justifying the Ways of God and Man: Theodicy in Augustine and Milton” (2006) notes, “In his prose Milton refers to Augustine dozens of times by name, quotation, and allusion, along with innumerable echoes” (140). See also C.S. Lewis’s A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942), Peter Fiore’s Milton and Augustine: Patterns of Augustinian Thought in Paradise Lost (1981), and Thomas Ramey Watson’s Perversions, Originals, and Redemptions in Paradise Lost (2007). Nonetheless, Danielson and Bryson, otherwise opposed on Milton’s theology, both caution against forcing it into an overly Augustinian framework (see Danielson 177 and Bryson, Atheist 3). My argument is restricted to particular Augustinian ideas that have not always been central to these scholarly debates: the importance of appreciating the beauty of the universe, the way evil functions as part of that beauty, and the treatment of evil as a species of perversity.
- 14.
Dryden (1697; 276) and John Dennis (1704; 1.334) called Satan the hero of the poem but without moral approval. Satan elicited more fervent admiration in the Romantic period: apart from Blake and Shelley, the critic William Hazlitt (1818) praises Satan for showing a “decided superiority of character” (T. Miller 141). E. E. Stoll (1944) considers Satan in book 2 “a figure still more intrepid and sublime than the Son” in book 3 (116). Waldock (1947) and Empson (1961) treat Satan very sympathetically even while acknowledging his eventual “degradation” (Empson 71, Waldock 64). G. Rostrevor Hamilton’s Hero or Fool? A Study of Milton’s Satan (1969) admires Satan’s “greatness” and “real inward splendour of person” and suggests that “the association of evil with elements of heroic virtue” makes him “a tragic and a formidable figure” (13, 17). Forsyth (2003) echoes the “Romantic admiration” for Satan, citing his “overwhelming power” and “attractiveness”; he also compares Satan to a “tragic hero” and considers him productively “subversive” (4, 6). Bryson (2004) feels that “Milton’s Satan, until the temporary transformation into a serpent in book 10, retains grandeur of form and purpose that even defeat in Heaven and the fall into Hell does not entirely remove from him” (Tyranny 182-3n1).
- 15.
For Shelley’s and Empson’s critiques of Milton’s God, see Chapter 6. William Kerrigan’s The Sacred Complex (1983) argues that the poetry of Paradise Lost suggests God’s capacity for evil: “If we give our instantaneous response to the dark God time to achieve a conclusion, we will inevitably find ourselves thinking with Blake and other heresiarchs that…this God, Milton’s God, is the source of evil as well as good. What the discursive argument of the poem denies, the symbol tacitly concedes” (99). Michael Bryson’s The Tyranny of Heaven (2004) goes further, suggesting that the character of God in Paradise Lost is essentially the opposite of Milton’s actual conception of God (11–12).
- 16.
See above for the relevant critics. In Milton and the Literary Satan (1974), Frank Kastor productively traces a “trimorphic” tradition of literary representations of Satan as glorious rebel angel in Heaven (Lucifer), terrifying monarch in Hell (Satan), and contemptible quasi-comic tempter on Earth (The Devil) (see 15, 71). In these terms, one might say that most critics attribute Satan’s appeal to his Lucifer aspect.
- 17.
Fish (1967) calls this phrase “Satan’s finest moment,” but he also identifies it as a paraphrase from a description of bees in Virgil’s Georgics, and he therefore argues that the phrase “mocks” Satan (Surprised 8).
- 18.
Miltonists have understood Satan’s evolution in a variety of ways. Waldock (1947) argues that “The changes do not generate themselves from within: they are imposed from without. Satan, in short, does not degenerate: he is degraded” by an overly moralistic narrator (83). Fish (1967) counters that “between Books I and VI Satan does not change at all. His degradation is a critical myth.” Instead, “It is the reader who moves, or advances, until his cleansed eye can see what has always been there” (Surprised 345).
- 19.
See also John Steadman’s “The Idea of Satan as the Hero of Paradise Lost” (1976; 255) and Judith Kates, Tasso and Milton: The Problem of Christian Epic (1983; 71, 126–127). Milton’s invocation to Paradise Lost book 9 does contrast the “tedious havoc” of “battles feigned” with “the better fortitude/Of patience and heroic martyrdom” (9.30–32). However, the invocation also specifically identifies its “argument…more heroic” (9.13–14) as an account of divine punishment that emphasizes God’s role in unleashing Sin and Death (9.10–12).
- 20.
Satan’s speech here—like his overall depiction in the poem—clearly has political implications, but critics have disagreed about exactly how to read the poem politically, seeing Satan as an allegory for such diverse figures as Oliver Cromwell, Charles I, and Milton himself. See Sharon Achinstein’s Milton and the Revolutionary Reader (1994; 180–181).
- 21.
On the corrective voice of the epic narrator, see Waldock 77–81 and Fish’s response (Surprised 5–9). See also Forsyth, who surveys some of the extant scholarship as of 2003 (90–91).
- 22.
See also the first appearance of Adam and Eve, where the narrator describes their beauty and nobility in terms of what Satan “Saw” (4.286).
- 23.
The last two books specifically emphasize the weakness of Adam’s sight: Michael has to give him special eye drops in order to see the visions of book 11 (11.412–418), and even with this aid, Adam’s vision becomes exhausted at 12.8–10, prompting Michael to narrate the remainder of human history.
- 24.
Satan succumbs to sensuality over principle only later, when he sleeps with his daughter Sin. Similarly, Satan’s followers first correctly identify Sin as an ill omen, a “sign/Portentous,” even though their better judgment is eventually swayed by her “attractive graces” (2.760–762).
- 25.
William Poole’s (2005) analysis of this Augustinian problem in Paradise Lost concludes that “evil is so astonishing that its origin is equally bewildering, and is rendered so” (155; see also 149–150).
- 26.
The one exception to Death’s amorality actually makes him seem less evil, not more. In his first speech, he condemns Satan as the one “Who first broke peace in heaven and faith” (2.690). However, Death abandons any pretense of loyalty to God the moment Satan offers to feed him.
- 27.
For more on Burke’s sublime as a variety of the sinister, see the introduction and epilogue.
- 28.
For this distinction, see Louis Schwartz’s (1995) careful reading of the interplay between engagement and disgust with Sin (esp. 64–65).
- 29.
For a political reading of the eclipse imagery, see Achinstein (1994) 210–212.
- 30.
The exceptions are Marvell’s “On Paradise Lost” (1674) and Dryden’s six-line “Epigram” (1688), but neither treats any section of the poem in detail (T. Miller 28–29, 31).
- 31.
Eric Song’s analysis of the “materials dark and crude” speech in Dominion Undeserved: Milton and the Perils of Creation (2013) concurs that “Satan’s impure motives still lead to genuine insights, for the poem as a whole confirms the indispensable nature of the unbridled and dangerous potential of chaos” (35).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Slotkin, J.E. (2017). Satanic Sensibilities in Paradise Lost . In: Sinister Aesthetics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52797-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52797-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52796-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52797-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)