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Paradise Lost, Books XI and XII
Some General Observations |
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In
Book X the consequences of the Fall begin to be
felt: in Heaven, in Hell, and on Earth--in
nature and within our first parents as well as
between them.
1. A terrible rupture has opened (unity and
integrity are lost) between
God and humankind
Heaven and earth
Nature and itself
Nature and humankind
Man and woman (the curse of masculine rule--and
of misogyny)
Man and himself
Woman and herself
As soon as there are two men, the rupture will
open between man and man as well (XI, 429-452).
Notice, though, that Eve's act of Christ-like
kenosis (X, 909-965) begins the healing of the
last three ruptures--and thus of the first two
as well. Then Adam, now "more attentive" thanks
to Eve, begins to address the fourth rupture as
well as the first and second. By the end of Book
X--by prevenient grace, as we see at the
beginning of Book IX--they are once again
functioning as a couple, as help-meets to one
another, and as solaces for one another's
defects (a far cry indeed from their condition
at the end of Book IX).
2. The curses pronounced upon man and woman, and
upon both as a couple (reflecting their rupture
with the earth, with each other, and with
themselves):
a curse upon the generativity of the fruitful
earth and upon their labor.
a curse upon their own generativity--not only to
give birth in pain, but to give birth to evil
seeds as well as to the good Seed (Cain and
Nimrod as well as Messiah); to bring forth good
only through evil (c.f. Areopagitica, p. 1006,
lower left column).
But the curse upon the serpent is also a
blessing upon Adams and Eve and their progeny:
the promise of humankind's redemption through,
and in, the fallen history they are about to
begin to live and create.
3. Books XI and XII give that history to Adam
and Eve as apocalyptic vision--as
prophecy--given to Adam by vision and discourse,
to Eve by dream.
(According to Milton's Cambridge professor
Joseph Mede, these were the three ways by which
human beings could be educated about the
future.)
In these books Adam, Eve, and the reader see
acted out in history (theirs and ours) the
purposes of Providence set forth in the divine
colloquy of Book III.
But here we move from kairos to chronos--and see
how human history will be made up of a dialectic
between the two--until (1) time ends, (2) God
the Son lays by his regal sceptre, and (3) God
again shall be all in all (III.339-41;
XII.545-551).
These books are also the concluding books of an
education--the education of the first man and
woman (and by extension the reader) of all that
is necessary for salvation.
These books parallel Aeneas's education in
Aeneid Book VI, when he visits the underworld
and is shown the future history of the Rome he
as been called to found. But here, as elsewhere,
Milton explodes the previous scope of epic; the
Aeneid here (in his summary of history) receives
one line (XI, 405)--in a global context
including many places "yet unspoil'd," such as
the place Geryon's sons will call El Dorado (ll.
409-11).
The huge scope here leaves little room for
elaboration (in contrast to Books IV through
VIII).
Here the drama moves inward to Adam's (and
history's) rather Hegelian (!) growth and
progress:
Wrong responses
Over-reactions
Then, something like a tentative balance at the
end.
Dennis Burden ( The Logical Epic) says that Adam
at the end is "reassured but not complacent"--a
good way to describe Eve as well.
Adam is no longer perfect. He must "repair the
ruins" of his intellect and will by education,
just like the rest of us.
And that education has a moral end (as does the
poem): to help him live so as to regain eternal
life.
To this end, Adam sees the earlier events; hears
them as they become more remote.
Structural Devices and Themes
1. Barbara Lewalski says that human history, as
seen in XI-XII, is characterized by the three
root sins as seen in the Fall and as codified in
1 John 2.16: "the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eye, and the pride of life."
(1) intemperance
the lust of the flesh (Dante's she-wolf--the
flesh)
two kinds: irascible and concupiscent (Cain and
the sons of Seth)
(2) vainglory
the lust of the eyes (Dante's lion--the world)
Enoch's violent age
(3) ambition
the pride of life (Dante's leopard--the devil)
Nimrod and the Tower of Babel
Each sin includes the former and ends in death
by one of the three "apocalyptic companions":
disease, war, or famine.
The point for Adam: he must see his own sin
extended through time into ripeness.
And he must move from inappropriate ambition for
knowledge (c.f. Book VIII) to a reliance upon
God's word by faith (and "faith comes by
hearing").
Thus he gradually becomes unable to see and must
hear related what is outside his own
dispensation. As Jesus says to Thomas (John 20):
"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
have believed."
2. The promised "fruit" of the Fall (see I, 1-5)
will be
mortal
evil
ultimately good
And it turns out to be human history (at least
the Plan B version--contrast to Plan A, V,
491-505).
Human history, in turn, is organized (not just
by Milton, but by many millennarian Protestants)
as a series of seven covenants--the first two of
which Adams sees, the last five of which he
hears related:
Adamic-- Obedience
Noahic-- Rainbow
Abrahamic-- Promise
Mosaic-- Law (Ten Commandments)
Davidic-- Nation
Messianic-- Church
Judgment-- New Creation (New Heaven and New
Earth)
Each period is typified by "one good man" (human
beings who respond like Abdiel among the rebel
angels):
Abel and Enoch
Noah
Abraham
Moses
David
Christ
Christ
Sources
The whole Bible--especially the passages on your
syllabus.
But the books are organized structurally by two
important New Testament epistles:
Romans 8
History seen as the birth-pangs of the world to
come.
Hebrews 11-12.1-4
The definition of faith
Salvation history
Types of Christ (the "one good man" or hero of
faith--c.f. Abdiel).
Adam (and Eve by dreaming) becomes the first
hero of faith, his spiritual sight growing
keener as his physical sight declines.
The final "eye-opener"--the gospel that
redefines epic (c.f. Proem Book IX): the epic
battle will be one of grace, not power. (See XI,
386-435).
(Remember that in Book III the Father has said
that Christ is Son of God not just by birth, but
even more by merit: "Found worthiest to be so by
being Good,/ Far more than Great or High;
because in [him]/ Love hath abounded more than
Glory abounds [III, 309-12].)
Notice that the characters in these two books
are precisely those mentioned in Hebrews' "great
cloud of witnesses."
Notice, too, that as Michael's narrative draws
closer and closer to the end, the accounts grow
briefer and more telescoped--as if
(1) to intensify the press of time (chronos)
toward the Millennium (kairos), and
(2) to underscore the point that the creation is
groaning ever more intensely in her birth-pangs
to give birth to the end of history.
(If you're interested, I have written two
articles on Milton's representation of the
Apocalypse: one in Coranto [1991], and one in
Milton Studies 36 [1998].)
Books XI and XII and Adam and Eve's Education
God has sent Michael to "reveal to Adam what
shall come in future days" and to "intermix
[God's] covenant in the woman's seed renewed"
(which Eve sees in her dream--perhaps in a
beautiful Annunciation scene like Fra Angelico's!--and
also knows, intuitively, "whither" Adam has gone
with the angel).
The purpose: to educate them for the task of
living in the fallen world (just as Raphael has
been sent to educate them for unfallen
obedience). Notice, however, how much of
Raphael's curriculum remains relevant even in
the new context! (XII, 552-587).
Adam's education is clearly more discursive
(history with all its wars, famines, and
tyrranies).
Eve's is more intuitive, more poetic--perhaps
more "simple, sensuous, and passionate" (Of
Education, 984, bottom left). It is neither
"subsequent or precedent"--and indeed seems to
include some of what Adam has learned, though it
focuses more "chiefly on what may concern her
faith to know" (XI, 599-600).
In any case, her parallel if not identical
education issues in the production of not just a
poem, but a sonnet (XI, 610-623). She is still "accomplish'd
Eve," the poet of the "subjected plain" as well
as the poet of Eden. (She, like Milton himself,
may well use sonnets for the rest of her life to
"compose her spirit"--as he repeatedly does--to
"meek submission" to God.)
They leave the garden as exactly as the Father
has commissioned Michael to send them:
"sorrowing, yet in peace" (XI, 117). They look
back and drop "natural tears." And, like never
before, they are solitary.
But the angel does not poke them in the back
with his sword (as in many Renaissance
paintings)-- but rather carries it before them
to blaze a way. They again walk hand in hand.
And t The angel does not poke them in the back
with his sword (as in many Renaissance
paintings) but advances before them to blaze a
way. hey have been promised a restoration of
Paradise--no longer in a particular, local place
(Eden will be destroyed in the flood) but rather
(1) in a new heaven and a new earth at the end
of history (XII, 537-551), and
(2) "a paradise within" them, "happier far."
Both kinds of Paradise (the historical and the
personal) are to be regained by the "end of
education": by "repair[ing] the ruins," by
"regaining to know God aright and out of that
knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be
like him, as [they] may the nearest by
possessing [their] souls of true virtue, with
being united to the heavenly grace of faith
makes up the highest perfection" (Of Education,
980, upper right):
This having learnt, thou hast attain'd the sum
Of wisdom . . .
. . . only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,
By name to come call'd Charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath
to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far. (XII,
575-76; 581-88)
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