Abstract
Chaos is a deeply troubling presence in Paradise Lost. While the immense power of the opening books of the epic can be attributed in large measure to Milton’s portrayal of Satan, there can be no doubt that the other significant factor that contributes to this sense of a strong beginning is his depiction of chaos. Milton’s chaos is powerful because it is enigmatic. Chaos is a dynamic entity, simultaneously a place and a person. It is evil and terrifying in its indefinable shapelessness and immensity—“formless infinite” (3.12)—and in its destructive potential, while at the same time it is recognized as the residuary of good first matter. It is submissive to God but always suggests subversive tendencies. This essentially fluid identity holds immense imaginative power and opens up questions about many aspects of the epic narrative. Although chaos occupies only a brief segment of the second book of Paradise Lost, it makes an enormous impact. A recovery of the contextual data for Milton’s depiction of chaos helps us uncover nuances and suggestions embedded in this brief description. This, in turn, reveals Milton’s strategies for defining character in the epic.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
John Leonard, “Milton, Lucretius, and ‘the Void Profound of Unessential Night,’” in Living Texts: Interpreting Milton, ed. Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham (Selingrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2000), p. 199.
Edgar H. Duncan, “Robert Fludd,” in William B. Hunter, Jr., A Milton Encyclopedia (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1978), vol. 3, pp. 109–10.
Robert M. Adams, “A Little Look into Chaos,” in Illustrious Evidence: Approaches to English Literature of the Early Seventeenth Century, ed. Earl Miner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 76.
A. S. P. Woodhouse, “Notes on Milton’s Views on the Creation: The Initial Phase,” Philological Quarterly 28 (1949), 229.
Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham (eds.), Living Texts: Interpreting Milton (Selingrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2000), p. 220.
See also John Rumrich, Milton Unbound (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
John Rumrich, “Milton’s God and the Matter of Chaos,” PMLA 110 (1995), 1043.
Juliet Lucy Cummins, “Milton’s Gods and the Matter of Creation,” Milton Studies XL (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), p. 96.
Regina M. Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: Biblical Creation in Paradise Lost (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 11.
A. B. Chambers, “Chaos in Paradise Lost,” Journal of the History of Ideas vol. xxiv (1963): 55–84.
Michael Lieb, “Further Thoughts on Satan’s Journey through Chaos,” Milton Quarterly 12 (Ohio, 1978), pp. 126–33.
Denis Saurat, Milton: Man and Thinker, 2nd ed. (London: J. M. Dent, 1944), section 3, chapter 1.
See Joscelyn Godwin, Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), p. 24.
Shirley Sharon-Zisser, “Silence and Darkness in Paradise Lost,” in Milton Studies ed. by James D. Simmonds, vol. 25 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), pp. 191–211.
Alastair Fowler (ed.), Milton, Paradise Lost (Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 2nd ed., 1998), points out in his gloss on the lines that the Latin aborior means to set or disappear as applied to heavenly bodies.
Mary F. Norton, “‘The Rising World of Waters Dark and Deep’: Chaos Theory and Paradise Lost,” Milton Studies XXXII (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), pp. 91–110.
Helene Cixous, “Sorties,” reprinted in David Lodge (ed.), Modern Criticism and Theory (London and New York: Longman, 1988), pp. 287–93.
Thomas Digges, A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes in A Prognostication Everlasting pub. by Leonard Digges, corrected and augmented by Thomas Digges, 1576 (Amsterdam and Norwood, N.J.: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd. & Walter J. Johnson, Inc., 1975).
Copyright information
© 2012 Malabika Sarkar
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sarkar, M. (2012). “Unoriginal Night” and Milton’s Chaos. In: Cosmos and Character in Paradise Lost. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137007001_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137007001_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43519-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-00700-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)