WEBVTT 00:02.560 --> 00:05.630 Professor John Rogers: It's not until Book 00:05.625 --> 00:09.215 Three of Paradise Lost that the poet explicitly reveals 00:09.220 --> 00:10.920 to us, to his readers, 00:10.924 --> 00:14.944 the fact of the physical handicap that might reasonably 00:14.937 --> 00:19.617 be thought to render impossible his composition of the poem. 00:19.620 --> 00:24.310 It's not until Book Three, until after Milton presents his 00:24.310 --> 00:29.330 heroic portrait of Satan and his heroic portrait of the fallen 00:29.329 --> 00:34.019 angels when he establishes the fact of his blindness. 00:34.020 --> 00:38.180 So I'm going to be devoting this lecture to Milton's 00:38.175 --> 00:43.305 representation of his blindness and especially to the invocation 00:43.308 --> 00:46.728 of light with which Book Three begins, 00:46.730 --> 00:50.760 because I'm absolutely convinced that a feeling for the 00:50.758 --> 00:54.788 phenomenon of Milton's blindness is crucial to any real 00:54.787 --> 00:59.657 understanding of this poem, certainly, but also of this 00:59.660 --> 01:02.050 poet. One of the questions that I 01:02.048 --> 01:05.818 want here to pursue is the question of why Milton -- with 01:05.821 --> 01:09.961 the exception of an oblique, and it's really a very oblique, 01:09.956 --> 01:13.516 reference in the opening invocation -- why Milton waits 01:13.521 --> 01:17.621 until now, until the third book of his 01:17.616 --> 01:23.126 epic, to divulge his blindness to his reader. 01:23.129 --> 01:28.519 Milton began to lose his eyesight around 1646. 01:28.519 --> 01:33.029 This is when he's in his late thirties and he was entirely 01:33.034 --> 01:37.154 blind by February of 1652, and that was at the age of 01:37.152 --> 01:39.432 forty-four. According to one of the 01:39.427 --> 01:42.307 earliest biographers -- and really usefully and wonderfully, 01:42.310 --> 01:46.830 Merritt Hughes includes in the back of the Hughes edition most 01:46.833 --> 01:49.803 of the earliest biographies of Milton. 01:49.800 --> 01:51.990 They make for fascinating reading. 01:51.989 --> 01:55.199 These are sketches of the poet written very shortly after 01:55.196 --> 01:57.756 Milton's death. According to one of these 01:57.759 --> 02:01.449 biographers, Milton subjected himself to a range of medical 02:01.448 --> 02:06.888 procedures in order to cure, or at least to forestall, 02:06.887 --> 02:13.127 the darkness that was about to set over him. 02:13.129 --> 02:16.569 He imbibed a lot of potent medicines -- obviously they were 02:16.565 --> 02:20.115 ineffective -- and he endured the indignity of that procedure 02:20.119 --> 02:23.729 that was most commonly deployed in the seventeenth century for 02:23.732 --> 02:26.282 the treatment of any serious disease, 02:26.280 --> 02:29.380 and that was the process of bloodletting. 02:29.379 --> 02:35.739 We have to imagine that, as was the case for other men 02:35.740 --> 02:41.740 and women who underwent some onset of blindness, 02:41.740 --> 02:46.150 small incisions would be made in the skin around Milton's eyes 02:46.146 --> 02:50.696 and a quantity of blood would be drained at regular intervals in 02:50.697 --> 02:54.307 order to empty the body of the harmful toxins, 02:54.310 --> 02:58.220 or its "ill humors," that were believed to produce this 02:58.216 --> 03:01.396 terrible malady.The medical community, 03:01.400 --> 03:05.040 of course, was not able to forestall the failure of 03:05.036 --> 03:07.506 Milton's eyes and so, as I said, 03:07.510 --> 03:11.470 Milton was blind by 1652. 03:11.469 --> 03:14.039 Milton would never see his fourth child, 03:14.040 --> 03:17.470 a daughter born three months after the onset of total 03:17.467 --> 03:20.677 blindness. He would never again see the 03:20.681 --> 03:23.051 face of his wife, Mary Powell, 03:23.054 --> 03:27.314 when she died three days after the child's birth; 03:27.310 --> 03:30.780 nor could he witness the death of his only son, 03:30.784 --> 03:34.414 John Jr., which occurred six weeks after that. 03:34.410 --> 03:37.130 And finally, Milton would never see the face 03:37.134 --> 03:40.494 of Katherine Woodcock, the woman he married four years 03:40.492 --> 03:43.662 later and who soon herself died in childbirth, 03:43.660 --> 03:49.950 nor would he ever see the face of Elizabeth Minshull whom he 03:49.946 --> 03:55.266 married nine years after that.Why did Milton go 03:55.274 --> 03:59.054 blind? Reasonable conjecture leads us 03:59.047 --> 04:03.647 to think that it was either glaucoma or cataracts, 04:03.650 --> 04:07.560 but of course our business here has nothing to do with the real 04:07.564 --> 04:10.974 causes of Milton's blindness but with Milton's literary 04:10.973 --> 04:13.653 figuration, his representation of the 04:13.650 --> 04:15.380 causes of his blindness. 04:15.379 --> 04:19.769 I am convinced that one of the most powerful determinants in 04:19.772 --> 04:23.942 Milton's late writings is Milton's drive to ascertain and 04:23.941 --> 04:28.111 then also to justify the cause of his loss of sight. 04:28.110 --> 04:32.770 I think you have throughout the late writings really a 04:32.770 --> 04:37.520 proliferation of explanations and justifications of his 04:37.518 --> 04:41.318 blindness, and they really fill Milton's 04:41.319 --> 04:46.719 writing throughout the entire period from 1650 to his death in 04:46.723 --> 04:51.773 1674.First let us consider how Milton's contemporaries 04:51.773 --> 04:54.523 interpreted his blindness. 04:54.519 --> 04:57.969 Milton's world fell into total darkness a little less than a 04:57.973 --> 05:01.193 year after he finished his great and really quite daring 05:01.193 --> 05:04.283 political treatise, the First Defense of the 05:04.284 --> 05:07.454 English People, which was published in 1651. 05:07.449 --> 05:11.569 This was the last of Milton's regicide treatises. 05:11.569 --> 05:15.899 It was written in Latin because the new commonwealth government 05:15.902 --> 05:20.312 had commissioned John Milton to justify the unprecedented act of 05:20.305 --> 05:23.515 regicide to the entire European community, 05:23.519 --> 05:26.089 which is why Milton didn't write it in English. 05:26.089 --> 05:29.769 Milton was responsible for explaining to all of Europe why 05:29.766 --> 05:33.766 the English people had beheaded their king and why they had set 05:33.765 --> 05:36.985 up a new government on what Milton considered to be 05:36.990 --> 05:39.700 idealistic non-monarchic principles. 05:39.699 --> 05:44.169 Now most of Milton's readers on the continent were appalled by 05:44.168 --> 05:48.488 England's action and appalled especially by Milton's defense 05:48.491 --> 05:51.501 of England. It was widely thought -- not 05:51.503 --> 05:55.403 only on the continent but also by a lot of Milton's fellow 05:55.399 --> 05:59.159 Englishmen -- it was widely thought that God himself had 05:59.158 --> 06:03.668 blinded Milton specifically for his writing against the king. 06:03.670 --> 06:07.070 Milton was the subject of a number of sermons that were 06:07.071 --> 06:11.041 delivered from the pulpits by conservative Anglican churches, 06:11.040 --> 06:15.010 and the sermons pointed to Milton as an example. 06:15.009 --> 06:18.369 Milton was an example: "Look what happens to those who 06:18.366 --> 06:21.276 lift their hand against God's anointed king. 06:21.280 --> 06:23.950 Look what happened to Milton. 06:23.949 --> 06:28.489 He was punished with blindness for writing his defense of the 06:28.485 --> 06:32.785 regicide."It's in response to just this type of common 06:32.794 --> 06:36.884 accusation that Milton writes that lovely sonnet to his 06:36.877 --> 06:39.827 friend, Mr. Cyriack Skinner. 06:39.829 --> 06:42.529 This is on page 170 in the Hughes. 06:42.529 --> 06:44.689 This is the sonnet in which Milton insists, 06:44.694 --> 06:47.484 just as he will in the Second Defense of the English 06:47.477 --> 06:50.157 People, that his blindness has nothing 06:50.157 --> 06:52.507 whatsoever to do with an act of God. 06:52.509 --> 06:56.469 In the poem to Cyriack Skinner, Milton's been totally blind for 06:56.467 --> 07:00.677 about three years now, and he begins the sonnet to his 07:00.676 --> 07:04.816 friend like this: "Cyriack, this three years' day 07:04.821 --> 07:08.901 these eyes, though clear / to outward view 07:08.900 --> 07:13.780 of blemish or of spot, / bereft of light thir seeing 07:13.779 --> 07:16.889 have forgot." Milton writes repeatedly 07:16.892 --> 07:20.122 throughout this period that despite his blindness, 07:20.124 --> 07:24.084 his eyes appear -- and this is incredibly important to him -- 07:24.081 --> 07:27.841 they appear to outward view to be perfectly healthy. 07:27.839 --> 07:31.609 He continually clears himself of any wrongdoing by insisting 07:31.607 --> 07:35.057 that his eyes are clear of blemish or of spot -- or any 07:35.055 --> 07:37.975 sign, that is, I have to assume, 07:37.983 --> 07:41.063 of sin or of corruption or blame. 07:41.060 --> 07:43.630 So far from being robbed of light by God, 07:43.632 --> 07:47.362 his eyes have simply -- and isn't this a lovely metaphor -- 07:47.361 --> 07:50.321 his eyes have simply forgotten how to see. 07:50.319 --> 07:53.849 You'll remember how important, how redemptive actually, 07:53.850 --> 07:57.580 the idea of forgetting had become to Milton in Paradise 07:57.577 --> 08:00.477 Lost.Now, Milton goes even further in the 08:00.480 --> 08:02.010 sonnet in exculpating himself. 08:02.010 --> 08:03.360 Look at line ten. 08:03.360 --> 08:08.170 This is where he claims that he is supported by his conscience, 08:08.168 --> 08:12.668 his knowledge that he willingly sacrificed his eyes for the 08:12.667 --> 08:15.767 patriotic goal of political liberty. 08:15.769 --> 08:22.399 Milton is talking of his eyes here: " lost them overplied / in 08:22.395 --> 08:25.865 liberty's defense, my noble task, 08:25.870 --> 08:31.410 / Of which all Europe talks from side to side." 08:31.410 --> 08:35.610 He ruined his eyesight with the tireless labor that he devoted 08:35.611 --> 08:39.331 to writing that first defense of the English people. 08:39.330 --> 08:43.090 Milton sacrificed his eyes for the freedom of his countrymen, 08:43.094 --> 08:45.984 the noble task for which he was compensated. 08:45.980 --> 08:49.150 He was compensated with the talk of all of Europe, 08:49.150 --> 08:50.510 he was a celebrity. 08:50.509 --> 08:54.799 According to this formulation, Milton has knowingly and 08:54.797 --> 08:59.087 willingly bought fame as a political liberator with the 08:59.085 --> 09:01.745 noble, sacrificial payment of his 09:01.748 --> 09:04.908 eyes.Now, this is the claim that Milton's 09:04.909 --> 09:09.289 making publicly in these poems in this period and in the prose 09:09.292 --> 09:11.992 treatises. It's a claim for the nobility 09:11.985 --> 09:14.765 of the tragic condition that he finds himself in, 09:14.769 --> 09:18.239 and so in all of Milton's public poetry and prose Milton 09:18.242 --> 09:21.022 asserts his blindness as a point of pride. 09:21.019 --> 09:24.299 He even goes so far in the Second Defense of the English 09:24.303 --> 09:27.643 People to claim that his blindness is actually a sign of 09:27.644 --> 09:29.914 God's election; God has chosen him, 09:29.909 --> 09:32.289 and it's an incredibly beautiful image, 09:32.288 --> 09:36.168 the image of Milton's eyes being covered by heavenly wings, 09:36.169 --> 09:39.829 by angel wings, almost as a favor. 09:39.830 --> 09:43.330 He's continually asserting publicly that his blindness is a 09:43.327 --> 09:46.757 sign of strength.But we have a more private and a more 09:46.763 --> 09:50.083 personal consideration of his blindness in a letter that 09:50.080 --> 09:52.380 Milton wrote to his friend, Dr. 09:52.383 --> 09:55.523 Leonard Philaras, the Athenian, 09:55.516 --> 09:58.646 and this was in the packet. 09:58.649 --> 10:02.419 In the more private venue of the personal letter, 10:02.419 --> 10:06.109 Milton seems in some ways to lower his guard, 10:06.110 --> 10:10.610 and he makes a powerful and moving plea for a cure because 10:10.608 --> 10:12.738 he's writing to a doctor. 10:12.740 --> 10:15.910 Look in the packet. 10:15.909 --> 10:17.589 This is around page sixty in the packet. 10:17.590 --> 10:20.760 The original page number is 722, I believe. 10:20.759 --> 10:23.699 Milton's articulating here for the doctor the history of his 10:23.695 --> 10:25.935 loss of sight and the nature of his condition: 10:25.935 --> 10:29.065 "It is ten years, I think, more or less, 10:29.070 --> 10:34.390 since I noticed my sight becoming weak and growing dim, 10:34.389 --> 10:38.689 and at the same time my spleen and all my viscera are burdened 10:38.693 --> 10:40.813 and shaken with flatulence." 10:40.809 --> 10:43.969 After this account of intestinal discomfort, 10:43.972 --> 10:48.532 Milton then describes the mist that began to appear in his left 10:48.531 --> 10:51.541 eye; Milton's left eye was the first 10:51.536 --> 10:55.156 one to fail. Then a few sentences down he 10:55.159 --> 10:58.979 describes the failure of the right eye: 10:58.980 --> 11:02.640 The other eye also failing slowly and gradually 11:02.641 --> 11:06.661 over a period of almost three years, some months before my 11:06.655 --> 11:09.115 sight was completely destroyed. 11:09.120 --> 11:13.470 Everything which I distinguished when I myself was 11:13.465 --> 11:16.835 still seemed to swim, now to the right, 11:16.836 --> 11:20.846 now to the left. Certain permanent vapors seemed 11:20.846 --> 11:25.316 to have settled upon my entire forehead and temples which press 11:25.320 --> 11:29.720 and oppress my eyes with a sort of sleepy heaviness especially 11:29.722 --> 11:34.652 from mealtime to evening. In this letter to the doctor, 11:34.654 --> 11:39.564 Milton associates the onset of his blindness with the onset of 11:39.564 --> 11:43.664 a gastrointestinal complaint, and in doing this he's 11:43.663 --> 11:47.753 following the common wisdom about the causes of blindness, 11:47.750 --> 11:52.330 which was usually attributed in the scientific community of the 11:52.327 --> 11:55.647 seventeenth century to a digestive problem. 11:55.649 --> 11:59.359 For Milton, his most oppressive pain burdened his forehead and 11:59.363 --> 12:02.533 his eyes in the hours following the noontime meal, 12:02.529 --> 12:06.489 and the pain in his head corresponded to a pain in his 12:06.488 --> 12:11.048 gut, which occurred presumably in the same hours following the 12:11.045 --> 12:15.325 noontime meal, as his entire frame was shaken 12:15.332 --> 12:17.982 with a violent flatulence. 12:17.980 --> 12:22.420 This is the theory of how this kind of digestive ailment caused 12:22.424 --> 12:26.724 blindness: the digestive vapors that Milton or anyone who was 12:26.724 --> 12:30.524 going blind was not able to expel successfully through 12:30.523 --> 12:34.903 normal digestion and the normal process of the passing of wind 12:34.896 --> 12:38.906 -- these vapors were trapped in our poet's body. 12:38.909 --> 12:43.079 They began gradually to rise up to his head over a period of 12:43.083 --> 12:47.543 many months or even years where they settled into the sockets of 12:47.540 --> 12:51.230 his eyes. Eventually they clouded over 12:51.234 --> 12:57.084 his eyes and cut off all access to light from the outside. 12:57.080 --> 13:01.180 Another way of putting this: the affliction that would alter 13:01.179 --> 13:05.139 forever the last quarter of Milton's life had its ultimate 13:05.139 --> 13:07.779 cause in the process of digestion. 13:07.779 --> 13:12.429 Milton's greatest misery was quite simply the consequence -- 13:12.431 --> 13:17.401 and he may have believed this -- the consequence of something he 13:17.398 --> 13:20.518 ate.Now, you probably have no doubt 13:20.521 --> 13:24.531 guessed why I'm emphasizing this particular figuration of 13:24.529 --> 13:28.469 Milton's blindness as an irrevocable change that follows 13:28.467 --> 13:30.397 the ingestion of food. 13:30.399 --> 13:34.959 The story of Milton's blindness as he represents it brings us so 13:34.957 --> 13:38.137 perilously close to the story of the Fall, 13:38.139 --> 13:41.749 which is, of course, another narrative that imagines 13:41.752 --> 13:45.862 the inalterable and terrible effects of something eaten. 13:45.860 --> 13:50.520 One critic, William Kerrigan, in his brilliant analysis in 13:50.517 --> 13:55.497 the book The Sacred Complex has called Paradise Lost 13:55.501 --> 13:58.281 the story of an evil meal. 13:58.279 --> 14:04.469 It's important in the poem that Adam and Eve fall at noon. 14:04.470 --> 14:07.000 The forbidden fruit is their noontime meal, 14:07.000 --> 14:10.310 and it's possible that Kerrigan is right in aligning the 14:10.313 --> 14:13.813 dynamics of the loss of paradise with the logic that Milton 14:13.807 --> 14:16.817 employs in describing the loss of his sight. 14:16.820 --> 14:20.950 When Adam falls in Book Nine of Paradise Lost -- and 14:20.948 --> 14:25.078 these are the lines that are behind me on the board here -- 14:25.076 --> 14:29.346 we have a description of the almost physiological response of 14:29.347 --> 14:32.547 the earth to the sinful transgression of Adam: 14:32.550 --> 14:35.540 "Earth trembl'd from her entrails, 14:35.539 --> 14:40.089 as again / in pangs, and Nature gave a second 14:40.089 --> 14:42.319 groan." It's as if Milton has 14:42.322 --> 14:45.862 transposed on to the entire earth the digestive pains that 14:45.859 --> 14:48.899 were the consequence of his own noontime meal, 14:48.899 --> 14:52.689 as if the flatulent earth were responding sympathetically 14:52.691 --> 14:55.741 somehow to the violent shaking of Milton's own 14:55.738 --> 14:59.128 entrails.Now, we're left at the point that 14:59.133 --> 15:02.383 we're so often left: what's the point of all of 15:02.376 --> 15:04.386 this? What's at stake, 15:04.393 --> 15:09.123 or what might be at stake, in this connection between 15:09.116 --> 15:13.926 Milton's own postprandial groaning and moaning and the 15:13.929 --> 15:18.379 even more poignant post-lapsarian groaning of Adam 15:18.380 --> 15:21.650 and Eve and the entire earth? 15:21.649 --> 15:24.319 Now the connection between these two phenomena, 15:24.322 --> 15:27.462 I believe (if there is one), involves transgression. 15:27.460 --> 15:31.310 The physical deterioration that visits human beings after the 15:31.310 --> 15:34.200 Fall comes as a direct consequence, of course, 15:34.198 --> 15:36.828 of their transgression of divine law. 15:36.830 --> 15:40.530 It's possible that we have buried in this narrative of 15:40.526 --> 15:43.586 Milton's own physical deterioration a related 15:43.594 --> 15:47.504 narrative of a kind of transgression and punishment. 15:47.500 --> 15:51.420 I assume that it has already become clear to you that this 15:51.421 --> 15:55.411 will be one of those [laughs] lectures that I'm giving over 15:55.412 --> 15:59.612 entirely to perfectly shameless biographical speculation. 15:59.610 --> 16:01.680 It's one of the great joys, and I take it to be one of the 16:01.679 --> 16:04.059 great privileges, of being able to lecture on 16:04.059 --> 16:07.499 Milton in this format rather than in a seminar format, 16:07.500 --> 16:10.770 because of course if this were a seminar you could (and you 16:10.774 --> 16:13.094 would be right to) ask me for my proof. 16:13.090 --> 16:16.030 How do I know what Milton was thinking? 16:16.029 --> 16:19.759 And of course I have no proof [laughter] 16:19.755 --> 16:22.425 but I know what I believe. 16:22.429 --> 16:26.739 I'm willing here and now to share with you these things that 16:26.744 --> 16:29.674 I believe actually quite passionately. 16:29.669 --> 16:33.189 My own belief is that on some level Milton may not have 16:33.185 --> 16:36.955 convinced himself when he wrote in the second defense -- or 16:36.961 --> 16:40.741 Milton may not have convinced himself when he wrote in that 16:40.736 --> 16:43.536 sonnet to Mr. Cyriack Skinner -- that he had 16:43.536 --> 16:47.376 willingly sacrificed his eyes for the good of his country or 16:47.376 --> 16:50.756 that God had permitted his blindness as a sign of his 16:50.762 --> 16:54.472 special election, covering his eyes with angel 16:54.474 --> 16:56.774 wings. It's possible that what you 16:56.772 --> 17:01.142 have in a letter like the letter to Leonard Philaras is something 17:01.140 --> 17:03.870 like a submerged expression of guilt. 17:03.870 --> 17:05.390 Maybe Milton's enemies were right; 17:05.390 --> 17:10.460 maybe Milton was to blame with his transgressive challenges to 17:10.461 --> 17:13.621 every conceivable form of authority. 17:13.619 --> 17:17.139 Maybe Milton was to blame for his blindness, 17:17.139 --> 17:22.209 the affliction that God visited upon him for his crimes.Now 17:22.213 --> 17:25.453 this, of course, is just one way to 17:25.450 --> 17:30.450 understand the extraordinary attention that Milton gives to 17:30.450 --> 17:35.710 his blindness in the invocation to Book Three of his epic. 17:35.710 --> 17:39.650 Turn to page 257 in the Hughes. 17:39.650 --> 17:43.970 Milton continues in Paradise Lost -- this is 17:43.966 --> 17:49.076 written well over a decade after the onset of blindness -- Milton 17:49.083 --> 17:53.963 continues to defend himself from the imputation of blame. 17:53.960 --> 17:57.530 The muse Milton invokes here is not the traditional muse of the 17:57.527 --> 18:00.687 classic epic or even the heavenly muse that Milton seems 18:00.692 --> 18:03.342 to have fashioned in the first invocation. 18:03.339 --> 18:08.669 It's now exactly that power from which Milton has been 18:08.671 --> 18:13.101 excluded by virtue of his blindness -- light: 18:13.097 --> 18:17.627 "Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born, 18:17.633 --> 18:21.853 / Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam / May I express thee 18:21.854 --> 18:25.454 unblam'd?"Let me just stop right there. 18:25.450 --> 18:27.590 "May I express thee unblam'd?" 18:27.589 --> 18:31.729 Milton is exposing a fear at the very beginning here of some 18:31.726 --> 18:33.896 imputation of blame or guilt. 18:33.900 --> 18:37.420 He's not even sure how to address this inspiring light. 18:37.420 --> 18:41.300 The first seven lines of this invocation are not just the most 18:41.303 --> 18:43.983 --and they are, but they are not simply the 18:43.977 --> 18:46.967 most impenetrable lines in the entire poem. 18:46.970 --> 18:50.200 They are among the most difficult lines of poetry ever 18:50.200 --> 18:52.500 written. It's always worth asking why a 18:52.495 --> 18:55.415 passage of poetry is so impossible to wrap your brain 18:55.418 --> 18:57.908 around. What's at stake here in this 18:57.912 --> 18:59.972 difficulty? Why this struggle, 18:59.971 --> 19:03.941 and why must Milton struggle with such awkward metaphysical 19:03.939 --> 19:07.909 categories in order simply to address properly the power of 19:07.907 --> 19:11.597 light?I think it's understandable that Milton would 19:11.601 --> 19:14.541 call the power of light "offspring of Heav'n 19:14.543 --> 19:17.493 first-born." According to Genesis, 19:17.491 --> 19:21.521 light is the first thing that is created at the moment of 19:21.520 --> 19:24.970 God's fiat lux: "let there be light," that 19:24.974 --> 19:26.634 great commandment. 19:26.630 --> 19:29.910 But the problem really arises in line two when Milton 19:29.906 --> 19:33.426 conjectures that the beam of light he's addressing wasn't 19:33.434 --> 19:37.064 born or wasn't begotten at all, it wasn't created; 19:37.059 --> 19:40.989 that it might actually be co-eternal with the eternal 19:40.993 --> 19:43.153 Father himself. This, I think, 19:43.154 --> 19:45.534 is a much more dangerous possibility. 19:45.529 --> 19:49.389 Milton asks to be enlightened by a light that might be as old 19:49.390 --> 19:52.990 as the Father. This runs utterly counter to 19:52.985 --> 19:56.005 the creation account in Genesis. 19:56.009 --> 19:59.369 Could this light be one of the Father's rivals? 19:59.369 --> 20:03.009 There's a fear here that the ambition of this bid for 20:03.014 --> 20:07.224 paternal light is presumptuous, perhaps it's even satanic. 20:07.220 --> 20:09.910 Satan of course in the next book, Book Four, 20:09.908 --> 20:12.468 will have his invocation to light.Now, 20:12.471 --> 20:15.911 the light Milton addresses has been around forever. 20:15.910 --> 20:18.600 Look at line eight of this opening invocation. 20:18.600 --> 20:23.600 This is on the next page: [B]efore the 20:23.603 --> 20:26.833 sun,Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voiceOf 20:26.827 --> 20:29.177 God, as with a Mantle, 20:29.177 --> 20:34.957 didst investThe rising world of waters dark and 20:34.962 --> 20:40.982 deep,Won from the void and formless infinite. 20:40.980 --> 20:44.660 Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,Escap't the 20:44.663 --> 20:47.613 Stygian pool, though long detain'dIn that 20:47.610 --> 20:50.810 obscure sojourn, while in my flightThrough 20:50.814 --> 20:54.164 utter and through middle darkness borneWith other 20:54.156 --> 20:57.496 notes than to th' Orphean LyreI sung of Chaos and 20:57.498 --> 21:01.168 eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse 21:01.168 --> 21:05.668 to venture downThe dark descent, and up to reascend, 21:05.670 --> 21:08.440 Though hard and rare… 21:08.440 --> 21:12.470 Milton's giving us a picture of himself as proud. 21:12.470 --> 21:15.760 Clearly, he's proud that he's returned from the descent into 21:15.757 --> 21:19.097 hell that he seems to have made during the composition of the 21:19.101 --> 21:20.941 first two books of his epics. 21:20.940 --> 21:24.060 He himself has escaped the Stygian pool, 21:24.055 --> 21:27.245 and such a re-ascent is hard and rare; 21:27.250 --> 21:31.170 but we've just had represented before this at the very end of 21:31.165 --> 21:33.445 Book Two, just lines before this, 21:33.450 --> 21:37.580 Satan's own escape from the Stygian pool and Satan's own 21:37.577 --> 21:41.327 detainment in his obscure sojourn through chaos. 21:41.329 --> 21:44.219 There's a remarkable identification that Milton is 21:44.215 --> 21:47.505 bringing himself very close to: an identification between 21:47.513 --> 21:48.753 Milton and Satan. 21:48.750 --> 21:53.470 There lingers in this relation the idea that Milton has brought 21:53.470 --> 21:57.700 upon himself some guilt, some blame perhaps, 21:57.699 --> 22:03.619 for having sung of hell and having sung of chaos at 22:03.618 --> 22:07.418 all.Milton, of course, can't make this 22:07.420 --> 22:09.930 connection explicit, but there lurks the 22:09.926 --> 22:12.806 possibility, and I grant you that it's an 22:12.812 --> 22:16.452 irrational possibility, that Milton has done something 22:16.452 --> 22:20.712 wrong -- I don't know how else to read these lines -- by flying 22:20.710 --> 22:25.040 through utter and through middle darkness during his composition 22:25.036 --> 22:28.466 of the first two books of Paradise Lost. 22:28.470 --> 22:33.530 I know this doesn't make sense: it's almost as if 22:33.531 --> 22:39.371 Milton's flight through darkness had been responsible for the 22:39.371 --> 22:41.821 literal, visual darkness that is the 22:41.817 --> 22:44.467 condition of his blindness, which he is describing now to 22:44.467 --> 22:45.647 us for the first time. 22:45.650 --> 22:48.990 It's this possibility, I think, the idea that Milton 22:48.992 --> 22:52.532 has brought his blindness on himself over the course of 22:52.532 --> 22:55.222 [laughs] the composition of the poem, 22:55.220 --> 22:59.270 which of course isn't the case -- it's this possibility that, 22:59.273 --> 23:03.463 I think, accounts for the delay in Milton's mention of his loss 23:03.461 --> 23:06.131 of sight, the delay until this moment in 23:06.125 --> 23:08.335 the poem. It's as if the guilt for his 23:08.342 --> 23:11.942 blindness in some impossible way lay in the composition of this 23:11.936 --> 23:14.856 very poem, as if the transgression that 23:14.857 --> 23:18.877 called down the wrath of the heavenly Father had been 23:18.882 --> 23:22.832 Milton's glorious and heroic treatment of Satan; 23:22.829 --> 23:26.799 as if it were Milton's ambitious attempt to supply the 23:26.796 --> 23:30.086 angelic prehistory to the Book of Genesis, 23:30.089 --> 23:33.189 to the creation account that we get in the Book of Genesis, 23:33.193 --> 23:35.283 that had brought this wrath upon him. 23:35.279 --> 23:40.009 Milton preempted, he prevented, 23:40.014 --> 23:48.384 Genesis.He continues his address to the light: 23:48.380 --> 23:52.380 [T]hee I revisit safe,And feel thy sovran 23:52.380 --> 23:55.910 vital Lamp; but thouRevisit'st not 23:55.906 --> 24:00.876 these eyes, that roll in vainTo find thy piercing 24:00.880 --> 24:04.560 ray, and find no dawn;So thick a 24:04.562 --> 24:10.012 drop serene hath quench'd their Orbs,Or dim suffusion 24:10.005 --> 24:13.185 veil'd. Like so many [laughs] 24:13.186 --> 24:16.826 of the lines in this invocation, these lines are 24:16.827 --> 24:21.007 violently crammed with an almost unbearable pathos. 24:21.010 --> 24:26.010 24:26.009 --> 24:30.779 "Thee I revisit safe" -- but thou revisit'st not these eyes: 24:30.775 --> 24:35.535 it's impossible to read these lines and not feel that Milton 24:35.540 --> 24:39.660 is in some way accusing the deity of injustice. 24:39.660 --> 24:43.000 It's as if Milton were challenging the holy light to 24:42.999 --> 24:45.819 revisit Milton, just as Milton is revisiting 24:45.815 --> 24:48.835 the holy light. He structures this challenge -- 24:48.839 --> 24:51.479 it's the logic of a quid pro quo here. 24:51.480 --> 24:56.060 He's seeking compensation for his loss but the compensation 24:56.057 --> 25:00.157 that he's looking for isn't forthcoming.At least, 25:00.161 --> 25:02.451 it's not forthcoming yet. 25:02.450 --> 25:06.510 Line thirty-two: "nor sometimes do I forget / 25:06.506 --> 25:12.126 those other two equall'd with me in Fate, / so were I equalled 25:12.129 --> 25:16.909 with them in renown…" Here he lists the famous blind 25:16.905 --> 25:20.065 bards, the blind prophets of the Western tradition, 25:20.069 --> 25:23.939 asking the muse of light to repay him for his fate, 25:23.940 --> 25:27.270 the fate of blindness, with fame and renown: 25:27.268 --> 25:31.368 the renown or fame enjoyed by blind Thamyris and blind 25:31.371 --> 25:36.481 Maeonides -- Maeonides is Homer -- and Tiresias and Phineus. 25:36.480 --> 25:40.140 Milton knows perfectly well that each of these figures had 25:40.141 --> 25:43.611 been blinded as some sort of punishment for a crime, 25:43.609 --> 25:46.209 at least according to most of the legends surrounding them. 25:46.210 --> 25:49.860 Each of these seers was thought to have been blinded for 25:49.857 --> 25:53.237 aspiring to an intimate knowledge of the godhead. 25:53.240 --> 25:57.810 Even as Milton is asking God to elevate him to the status of 25:57.810 --> 26:00.600 their equal and an equal to Homer, 26:00.599 --> 26:03.679 sharing an equal renown and an equal fame, he's implicitly 26:03.681 --> 26:06.061 acknowledging that terrifying possibility, 26:06.059 --> 26:09.809 and it really is terrifying, that his blindness, 26:09.812 --> 26:12.692 like theirs, is the result of his own 26:12.686 --> 26:16.196 transgression: his punishment for trespassing 26:16.199 --> 26:20.829 on divinity.But this acknowledgment -- if it is, 26:20.829 --> 26:23.109 and I think it is -- this acknowledgment of guilt only 26:23.105 --> 26:26.845 takes place between the lines, below the surface of the 26:26.846 --> 26:30.286 invocation. For the most part Milton is 26:30.286 --> 26:35.716 struggling to clear himself from any imputation of sin or crime. 26:35.720 --> 26:42.080 From lines forty to fifty, the strategy of this invocation 26:42.075 --> 26:46.865 shifts again, and Milton catalogs the losses 26:46.869 --> 26:52.889 that he has endured through the loss of his sight. 26:52.890 --> 27:00.470 When before had a poet represented himself in such 27:00.467 --> 27:03.867 heartbreaking lines? 27:03.869 --> 27:07.669 Thus with the YearSeasons return, 27:07.672 --> 27:12.922 but not to me returnsDay, or the sweet approach of Ev'n 27:12.923 --> 27:16.923 or Morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, 27:16.920 --> 27:22.340 or Summer's Rose,Or flocks, or herds, or human face 27:22.338 --> 27:26.778 divine;But cloud instead, and ever-during 27:26.784 --> 27:30.574 darkSurrounds me, from the cheerful ways of 27:30.569 --> 27:34.939 menCut off… A few poets have been willing 27:34.941 --> 27:37.141 even [laughs] -- well, after Milton, 27:37.139 --> 27:40.969 to subject themselves to this kind of absolutely pathos-filled 27:40.970 --> 27:42.540 self-representation. 27:42.539 --> 27:48.329 For exposing himself in all of his vulnerability Milton has 27:48.326 --> 27:52.676 everything to lose here, and for exposing himself in all 27:52.678 --> 27:55.968 of his vulnerability Milton asks for something in return. 27:55.970 --> 28:01.700 He asks to be recompensed for these extraordinary losses. 28:01.700 --> 28:03.850 I am [laughs] absolutely convinced that 28:03.846 --> 28:07.006 there's a way in which this request is not irrational. 28:07.010 --> 28:08.590 It's completely reasonable. 28:08.589 --> 28:11.259 Because he has bathed himself in a pathos, 28:11.259 --> 28:14.039 I think, that's almost too painful even to read, 28:14.039 --> 28:16.229 we as readers are willing [laughs] 28:16.230 --> 28:18.420 to grant him anything he wants. 28:18.420 --> 28:21.660 There's a kind of naked emotional logic governing our 28:21.657 --> 28:24.517 experience of these lines.Let's look at the 28:24.521 --> 28:27.511 moment at which Milton asks for the payback. 28:27.509 --> 28:32.779 This is line fifty-one: I have lost all these things, 28:32.776 --> 28:36.726 in other words, "so much the rather thou 28:36.725 --> 28:42.355 Celestial Light / shine inward, and the mind through all her 28:42.358 --> 28:45.788 powers / irradiate, there plant eyes…" 28:45.789 --> 28:49.279 Milton is demanding for his pains the inspiration of the 28:49.283 --> 28:51.843 heavenly muse. God owes him this, 28:51.837 --> 28:56.537 and so Milton is remarkably undoing the logic of sin and 28:56.537 --> 29:01.577 punishment that he had inherited in his understanding of his 29:01.578 --> 29:04.228 blindness, and he's restricting it as 29:04.229 --> 29:05.809 something entirely different. 29:05.809 --> 29:11.039 He's turning it into a logic of loss and compensation. 29:11.040 --> 29:12.620 Milton has sacrificed his sight. 29:12.619 --> 29:17.179 He has lost almost everything, and so much the rather lets God 29:17.176 --> 29:21.056 repay him for that loss, what is once again his noble 29:21.060 --> 29:24.660 self-sacrifice. You have Milton reworking here 29:24.659 --> 29:26.329 the rhetoric of guilt. 29:26.329 --> 29:29.899 His blindness becomes important not because it's a sign of 29:29.899 --> 29:33.029 punishment or of blame or of spot or of blemish, 29:33.029 --> 29:37.369 but it's a guarantee of the inspirational success of the 29:37.367 --> 29:41.197 poem. This is like a promissory note, 29:41.196 --> 29:45.946 his blindness is, for his poetic reward -- the 29:45.952 --> 29:52.082 fact that this poem will have been inspired by the heavenly 29:52.083 --> 29:54.683 muse.Oh, this is wonderful. 29:54.680 --> 29:59.360 Turn to the very last page of Hughes, of the Merritt Hughes 29:59.363 --> 30:02.273 edition. This is page 1044. 30:02.269 --> 30:05.599 This is one of the earliest biographies of Milton written in 30:05.601 --> 30:07.071 the seventeenth century. 30:07.069 --> 30:10.039 It's an anonymous one, and it gives us some remarkable 30:10.044 --> 30:11.844 details about this man's life. 30:11.839 --> 30:15.679 Some of them are so astonishing there's no way they could have 30:15.684 --> 30:19.164 been made up. The anonymous writer at the top 30:19.164 --> 30:23.824 of page 1044 is describing Milton's daily habits as he was 30:23.824 --> 30:28.244 composing Paradise Lost and the later poems. 30:28.240 --> 30:32.110 Milton, it seems, would dictate the most recent 30:32.110 --> 30:36.570 installment of Paradise Lost in the morning. 30:36.569 --> 30:39.539 So this is what we learn: "[H]e, waking early"-- and 30:39.539 --> 30:42.509 you'll see this wonderful admiration of the dear, 30:42.509 --> 30:45.769 Puritan Milton -- "waking early, as is the use of 30:45.772 --> 30:48.632 temperate men, had commonly a good stock of 30:48.627 --> 30:51.887 verses ready against his amanuensis came..." 30:51.890 --> 30:54.480 The amanuensis is the secretary, the young man who 30:54.475 --> 30:57.745 would come to Milton's house -- and there were a number of them 30:57.747 --> 30:59.697 -- who would take down dictation. 30:59.700 --> 31:06.020 Milton seems to have composed the poem at night in his sleep, 31:06.017 --> 31:10.437 which, the biographer continues: "which, 31:10.440 --> 31:13.920 if it happened to be later than ordinary, [Milton] 31:13.918 --> 31:17.678 would complain [if the amanuensis or the secretary got 31:17.680 --> 31:20.240 there too late Milton would complain] 31:20.236 --> 31:24.206 saying he wanted to be milked."This absolutely 31:24.211 --> 31:26.981 [laughs] stunning biographical detail is 31:26.980 --> 31:30.740 italicized here presumably because it's a quotation -- 31:30.742 --> 31:34.152 that's a form of noting a quotation; 31:34.150 --> 31:37.620 but the italics seem to me at least to indicate as well that 31:37.621 --> 31:40.511 this is an extraordinary privileged moment in this 31:40.505 --> 31:41.795 biographical text. 31:41.799 --> 31:47.039 It's a scandalous little tidbit if it's true. 31:47.039 --> 31:50.489 We have in here an extraordinary image of Milton's 31:50.486 --> 31:53.366 understanding of his own poetic output, 31:53.369 --> 31:56.139 and if this isn't true, what we do have here at the 31:56.142 --> 31:59.252 very least is an incredibly close and intimate reading of 31:59.248 --> 32:01.908 this very invocation that we're focusing on. 32:01.910 --> 32:05.990 Having filled himself up with a stock of verses the night 32:05.986 --> 32:10.346 before, Milton could imagine himself as a source of spiritual 32:10.354 --> 32:12.324 and poetic nourishment. 32:12.319 --> 32:16.619 Milton could imagine himself the distinctly feminine source 32:16.621 --> 32:20.221 of this nourishing poem, as if by a process of 32:20.221 --> 32:24.761 identification so complete Milton could imagine himself in 32:24.756 --> 32:29.046 the role of the maternal muse who feeds the poet as she 32:29.053 --> 32:33.513 inspires the thoughts that move harmonious numbers. 32:33.509 --> 32:36.979 It's not the muse only but the poet, too, who can be 32:36.977 --> 32:40.377 milked.Now, God the Father tells the Son -- 32:40.376 --> 32:44.456 this is in the dialog between the Father and the Son later in 32:44.455 --> 32:48.805 Book Three -- that at the end of time there won't be a Father and 32:48.806 --> 32:52.066 a Son because God shall be "All in All." 32:52.069 --> 32:55.959 A related form of a kind of absolute internalization and 32:55.961 --> 32:59.001 absolute identification is at work, I think, 32:59.004 --> 33:02.334 in this incredibly moving cry to be milked. 33:02.329 --> 33:05.529 The muse has so completely inspired the poet, 33:05.528 --> 33:08.798 so completely transferred her power to him, 33:08.799 --> 33:13.999 that it's almost impossible to tell who is who or who is 33:14.001 --> 33:17.611 feeding whom. When Milton in the invocation 33:17.606 --> 33:20.466 requests that the muse, the holy light, 33:20.471 --> 33:23.501 feed on thoughts, we have a moment of confusion 33:23.504 --> 33:26.344 that would only seem to guarantee that the transference 33:26.344 --> 33:28.294 of power has actually taken place. 33:28.289 --> 33:31.449 It doesn't matter whether these thoughts belong to the muse or 33:31.453 --> 33:34.373 to the poet. These thoughts are "All in 33:34.365 --> 33:38.985 All."You have other guarantees as well in Book Three 33:38.989 --> 33:43.359 of Milton's having filled up at the fount of heavenly 33:43.360 --> 33:48.630 inspiration, and these moments of guarantee 33:48.626 --> 33:52.966 [laughs] come in in extraordinarily 33:52.974 --> 33:55.664 unexpected places. 33:55.660 --> 33:59.610 Look at Book Three, line 576. 33:59.609 --> 34:02.139 In the Hughes Edition this is page 272. 34:02.140 --> 34:05.210 On his way from hell to earth, Satan stops at the sun, 34:05.212 --> 34:08.172 which is, of course, the source of earthly light, 34:08.170 --> 34:11.680 and Satan watches as the sun dispenses light to all of the 34:11.680 --> 34:13.220 little stars of heaven. 34:13.219 --> 34:15.359 This is how Milton's astronomy works: 34:15.360 --> 34:18.380 Where the great LuminaryAloof the vulgar 34:18.376 --> 34:22.036 Constellations thick [of course, the "great Luminary" is the 34:22.039 --> 34:25.179 sun],That from his Lordly eye keeps distance due, 34:25.179 --> 34:28.369 Dispenses Light from far… 34:28.369 --> 34:31.449 Now, this "great Luminary," the sun, dispenses light to the 34:31.448 --> 34:32.508 surrounding stars. 34:32.510 --> 34:36.120 With this image you have a clearly demarcated model of a 34:36.124 --> 34:38.494 particular kind of power relation. 34:38.489 --> 34:44.529 This is the powerful sun's unilateral inspiration of the 34:44.528 --> 34:48.808 stars.But look what happens next. 34:48.810 --> 34:50.710 This is the stars: … 34:50.709 --> 34:54.599 [T]hey as they moveThir Starry dance in numbers that 34:54.595 --> 34:57.275 computeDays, months, and years, 34:57.280 --> 35:01.380 towards his all-chearing LampTurn swift their various 35:01.384 --> 35:04.724 motions… The stars are filling up here 35:04.716 --> 35:07.726 with the light of the sun and they're behaving just as 35:07.725 --> 35:10.445 Milton's thoughts do when he's been inspired, 35:10.449 --> 35:12.639 when they have been inspired by holy light. 35:12.639 --> 35:16.509 They're filled with the capacity of a kind of free will, 35:16.512 --> 35:19.542 and they turn themselves in starry dance. 35:19.539 --> 35:23.119 Milton is very carefully reworking in this passage, 35:23.123 --> 35:27.193 this astronomical passage, the key words of the invocation 35:27.191 --> 35:30.451 that we've been looking at: "move"and "numbers." 35:30.449 --> 35:34.709 He projects his image of the inspired composition of the poem 35:34.711 --> 35:38.121 onto the enormous screen of the entire cosmos. 35:38.119 --> 35:41.749 And, just as in the invocation, the actual mover, 35:41.753 --> 35:46.223 the agent behind the action of inspiration, is uncertain. 35:46.219 --> 35:51.499 They "turn swift their various motions" or are turned by his 35:51.498 --> 35:55.828 magnetic beam. We don't know who's turning 35:55.834 --> 35:58.654 what. It's "All in All."It's at 35:58.651 --> 36:02.991 this moment of uncertain agency that Milton really [laughs] 36:02.994 --> 36:05.694 gives us something truly amazing, 36:05.690 --> 36:08.060 and I ask your indulgence here. 36:08.059 --> 36:10.639 You will know that it's indisputable, 36:10.637 --> 36:14.857 the point that I'm about to make, but I think it's shocking: 36:14.862 --> 36:19.302 the sun warms the universe just as the holy light will warm the 36:19.302 --> 36:21.642 poet. That much, I think, is clear; 36:21.639 --> 36:25.179 but Milton's figuration of this process, this process of 36:25.178 --> 36:28.968 infusion, is truly one of the most surprising moments in the 36:28.974 --> 36:30.394 poem for my money. 36:30.389 --> 36:35.399 This process of infusion replicates on the grand scale -- 36:35.403 --> 36:40.613 okay. Well, let me read it first: 36:40.610 --> 36:43.250 [That] beam, that gently warmsThe 36:43.250 --> 36:47.210 Universe, and to each inward partWith gentle penetration, 36:47.210 --> 36:52.380 though unseen,Shoots invisible virtue even to the 36:52.381 --> 36:56.611 deep… This process of infusion 36:56.612 --> 37:02.592 replicates on the grand scale of the entire cosmos the rhythms of 37:02.594 --> 37:07.084 the intimate human act of coital ejaculation. 37:07.079 --> 37:09.549 You simply can't deny that that's what's happening here. 37:09.550 --> 37:14.310 Milton may give us a cosmic image of the process of 37:14.313 --> 37:19.843 inspiration but this is a process by which the universe, 37:19.840 --> 37:23.730 and by association the poet himself, has been feminized and 37:23.731 --> 37:27.821 transformed mysteriously into something like the maternal muse 37:27.824 --> 37:29.854 herself. Milton tells us at the 37:29.845 --> 37:33.325 beginning of the invocation that the light to which he prays was 37:33.327 --> 37:34.817 present at the creation. 37:34.820 --> 37:38.630 Maybe that light was the same as that identifiable with the 37:38.626 --> 37:41.576 heavenly spirit in Book One who "dove-like, 37:41.579 --> 37:45.619 satst brooding on the vast Abyss / and mad'st it 37:45.617 --> 37:48.847 pregnant..." And maybe Milton here in Book 37:48.845 --> 37:52.755 Three is imagining himself the glorious recipient of this 37:52.756 --> 37:55.616 remarkable act of divine impregnation. 37:55.619 --> 38:00.319 He's no longer the vulnerable male poet whose poetic potency, 38:00.319 --> 38:03.689 just like his sight, can be cut off at whim, 38:03.687 --> 38:07.287 "from the cheerful ways of men / cut off". 38:07.290 --> 38:11.650 He's a body impregnated by God. 38:11.650 --> 38:14.450 The universe is a body impregnated by God and perhaps 38:14.452 --> 38:17.042 even indistinguishable at some point from God. 38:17.039 --> 38:21.139 He's a figure impervious to punishment or pain.The 38:21.135 --> 38:25.925 psychic processes and strategies that I've been describing here 38:25.926 --> 38:29.786 are clearly operating at the level of fantasy. 38:29.790 --> 38:31.700 This is wish fulfillment. 38:31.700 --> 38:33.550 It's certainly not logic. 38:33.550 --> 38:37.380 There's no moment in Paradise Lost at which 38:37.379 --> 38:42.069 the poet will actually present a logical statement concerning 38:42.068 --> 38:46.208 this wish to be absolutely infused with divinity, 38:46.210 --> 38:50.430 to be so divine that he would be invulnerable to punishment or 38:50.427 --> 38:54.577 to be so divine that he would be invulnerable to the physical 38:54.575 --> 38:56.575 humiliation of blindness. 38:56.579 --> 38:59.849 You don't have anything like an explicit statement to that 38:59.854 --> 39:03.244 effect in Paradise Lost, but there is elsewhere in 39:03.235 --> 39:05.785 Milton and I want to draw you to this now. 39:05.789 --> 39:09.639 There is such an articulation in another poem. 39:09.639 --> 39:12.329 This is what many scholars believe was the last poem that 39:12.330 --> 39:14.060 Milton wrote, Samson Agonistes, 39:14.059 --> 39:17.999 and so I'm going to ask you to turn to page 553 in the 39:18.000 --> 39:21.730 Hughes to this passage in Samson Agonistes. Even 39:21.732 --> 39:25.402 though we don't read the Samson Agonistes until 39:25.396 --> 39:29.566 the end of the semester, I want to look at this small 39:29.571 --> 39:33.921 section of it now since it engages the problem of blindness 39:33.924 --> 39:38.284 with as much pathos and with as much force as anything that 39:38.277 --> 39:41.727 Milton ever wrote.So Samson you know. 39:41.730 --> 39:45.630 Samson is the biblical hero whose strength was bound up in 39:45.627 --> 39:48.017 his hair. Samson was blinded by the 39:48.016 --> 39:51.876 Philistines after his hair had been shorn by his treacherous 39:51.877 --> 39:55.527 wife, Delilah. Milton calls her "Dah-lee-lah." 39:55.530 --> 39:57.600 Look at the Hughes. 39:57.599 --> 40:00.619 This is line eighty of Samson. 40:00.619 --> 40:04.929 Milton has his hero, Samson, bewailing the fact of 40:04.934 --> 40:06.974 his blindness: "O dark, 40:06.969 --> 40:11.829 dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, / irrecoverably dark, 40:11.830 --> 40:16.690 total eclipse without all hope of day!"At this point it's 40:16.691 --> 40:22.161 wonderful: Samson begins to echo Milton from the invocation that 40:22.159 --> 40:26.129 we've been looking at, the invocation to Book Three of 40:26.127 --> 40:27.017 Paradise Lost. 40:27.020 --> 40:29.930 Here's Samson: O first created Beam, 40:29.934 --> 40:33.274 and thou great Word,"Let there be light, 40:33.269 --> 40:37.849 and light was over all";Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime 40:37.845 --> 40:42.805 decree?The Sun to me is darkAnd silent as the Moon, 40:42.809 --> 40:46.989 When she deserts the night,Hid in her vacant 40:46.987 --> 40:51.657 interlunar cave.Since light [try to follow this logic] 40:51.656 --> 40:55.836 so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, 40:55.840 --> 41:00.040 if it be trueThat light is in the Soul,She [the soul] 41:00.039 --> 41:03.999 all in every part… Samson's feeling his way here 41:03.997 --> 41:06.987 toward Milton's theory of monism, the idea that the soul 41:06.988 --> 41:09.978 is diffused throughout every part of the human body. 41:09.980 --> 41:14.480 Since the light of the soul is diffused throughout every part 41:14.476 --> 41:16.946 of the body, why, Samson asks: 41:16.949 --> 41:21.649 Why was the sightTo such a tender ball as th' eye 41:21.652 --> 41:25.952 confin'd?So obvious and so easy to be quench't, 41:25.949 --> 41:31.329 And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd,That she 41:31.331 --> 41:35.391 might look at will through every pore? 41:35.389 --> 41:37.349 These [laughs] are extraordinary lines. 41:37.349 --> 41:39.889 These are among my most favorite lines in all of Milton. 41:39.889 --> 41:44.199 Samson is questioning the wisdom and the justice of God's 41:44.198 --> 41:46.658 admittedly -- who can deny it? 41:46.659 --> 41:51.149 -- God's extremely peculiar configuration of the human body. 41:51.150 --> 41:54.920 You read this and you realize that Samson is really on to 41:54.924 --> 41:58.324 something here. Why didn't, we ask with Samson, 41:58.323 --> 42:02.393 God implant the sense of sight in human beings just as he 42:02.394 --> 42:05.524 implanted the sense of touch or feeling? 42:05.519 --> 42:09.619 Why isn't sight like touch, diffused through all parts of 42:09.623 --> 42:14.023 the body "that she might look at will through every pore?" 42:14.019 --> 42:17.179 Milton's pushing here toward a fantasy of physical 42:17.177 --> 42:19.947 invulnerability, imagining an alternative -- 42:19.947 --> 42:23.557 this is science fiction -- an alternative model of bodily 42:23.555 --> 42:27.285 configuration that would render impossible the all-too-easy 42:27.292 --> 42:30.712 quenching of the tender eyeballs.In the context of 42:30.707 --> 42:34.247 Samson Agonistes, in this particular speech 42:34.245 --> 42:37.785 of Samson's, we have to write it off as a kind of morally suspect 42:37.790 --> 42:39.760 complaint. This is the faithless 42:39.760 --> 42:42.500 questioning of the justice of God's creation. 42:42.500 --> 42:45.150 Milton doesn't permit himself in Paradise Lost, 42:45.154 --> 42:49.434 at least not explicitly, to impugn the wisdom behind 42:49.429 --> 42:54.629 God's creation of the all-too-vulnerable human body, 42:54.630 --> 42:59.060 but he does fashion for us there a fantasy in Paradise 42:59.059 --> 43:01.899 Lost. It's a lot like Samson's 43:01.901 --> 43:06.501 fantasy of a body exempt from harm, free from disability, 43:06.502 --> 43:09.622 and that is, of course, the body of the 43:09.624 --> 43:12.524 angels. And so the last passage that 43:12.522 --> 43:16.552 I'm going to ask you to look at is on page 331 of the Hughes 43:16.551 --> 43:19.011 edition. This is Book Six, 43:19.010 --> 43:25.170 line 344, and the narrator here is the Archangel Raphael. 43:25.170 --> 43:29.010 Raphael's explaining to Adam why the angels in the war in 43:29.014 --> 43:32.314 heaven can't be permanently wounded or harmed. 43:32.309 --> 43:35.509 Now we already know that angels -- we've already learned this -- 43:35.505 --> 43:38.695 that angels when they please can "either sex assume" or both, 43:38.699 --> 43:41.279 but Raphael gives us even more information about these 43:41.281 --> 43:42.841 perfectly fantastical figures. 43:42.840 --> 43:46.270 Their bodies have been constructed along precisely 43:46.269 --> 43:49.069 those lines that Samson was proposing. 43:49.070 --> 43:52.310 Their vital functions are diffused through every 43:52.314 --> 43:55.424 part.So look at the bottom of the page. 43:55.420 --> 43:56.980 This is line 344. 43:56.980 --> 44:01.220 [F]or Spirits that live throughoutVital in every 44:01.222 --> 44:04.202 part, not as frail manIn Entrails, 44:04.199 --> 44:06.329 Heart or Head, Liver or Reins, 44:06.333 --> 44:10.973 [these angels]Cannot but by annihilating die;Nor in thir 44:10.967 --> 44:14.127 liquid texture mortal woundReceive, 44:14.130 --> 44:20.600 no more can then the fluid Air:All Heart they live, 44:20.596 --> 44:24.066 all Head, all Eye, all Ear, 44:24.070 --> 44:28.410 All Intellect, all Sense… 44:28.409 --> 44:33.049 The body of each and every angel has been created "All in 44:33.050 --> 44:35.490 All." No sensory power or important 44:35.494 --> 44:39.554 function has been confined to a tender ball or a delicate orb or 44:39.545 --> 44:40.955 a particular organ. 44:40.960 --> 44:44.250 These angels are all eye. 44:44.250 --> 44:47.680 They have the power of sight diffused throughout their entire 44:47.680 --> 44:51.230 bodies, and we can only imagine that they can -- just as Samson 44:51.226 --> 44:54.596 had fantasized -- that they can see through every pore; 44:54.599 --> 44:57.959 and so the Miltonic angel enjoys the state of absolute 44:57.956 --> 45:01.686 sight and absolute inspiration and absolute oneness with God 45:01.693 --> 45:05.373 that Milton is bidding for on some level in his complex and 45:05.366 --> 45:09.036 ambitious invocation to light in Book Three.Now, 45:09.039 --> 45:12.599 Milton isn't finished articulating for us the 45:12.603 --> 45:16.413 impossible process of his poetic inspiration, 45:16.409 --> 45:21.709 the miracle by which the blind poet is compensated for his 45:21.714 --> 45:26.744 blindness with the vision of things invisible to mortal 45:26.739 --> 45:29.179 sight. Especially as we will see in 45:29.181 --> 45:31.291 the invocation, or the quasi-invocation, 45:31.286 --> 45:33.496 to Book Seven of Paradise Lost, 45:33.500 --> 45:37.720 the poem will continue to voice doubts that this process of 45:37.720 --> 45:40.340 inspiration has actually occurred; 45:40.340 --> 45:46.910 but you have in the figure of the Miltonic angel a literalized 45:46.907 --> 45:51.967 image, an embodiment, of Milton's most ambitious 45:51.968 --> 45:54.658 fantasy for his poem. 45:54.659 --> 45:57.749 It's an unrealistic fantasy for himself, of course, 45:57.748 --> 46:00.708 but it is an ambitious fantasy and a genuine one, 46:00.713 --> 46:02.323 I think, for his poem. 46:02.320 --> 46:05.620 We know that the body of the poet, of course, 46:05.616 --> 46:09.506 would never undergo its much desired, much fantasized 46:09.513 --> 46:12.813 metamorphosis into the body of an angel. 46:12.809 --> 46:16.879 Milton's would never become a body perfected, 46:16.882 --> 46:21.512 rendered impervious to humiliation and darkness, 46:21.510 --> 46:26.460 but the body of the angel may in the end be an entirely 46:26.460 --> 46:32.420 appropriate image for Milton's fantasy of the body of the poem. 46:32.420 --> 46:39.000 It's this perhaps peculiar idea that I'll leave you with today: 46:38.996 --> 46:44.936 we'll grant that Milton is right, that he was inspired by 46:44.936 --> 46:47.796 God to write this poem. 46:47.800 --> 46:50.300 If he is right, then the body of this epic 46:50.303 --> 46:52.993 really is very much like the angelic body. 46:52.989 --> 46:55.469 It is infused, and we have to believe it's 46:55.473 --> 46:58.383 infused in every part, with the spirit of God. 46:58.380 --> 47:02.940 It's nothing less than all heart, all intellect, 47:02.943 --> 47:07.803 and -- and this is an extraordinarily resonant word 47:07.797 --> 47:11.387 for Milton -- all sense.Okay. 47:11.390 --> 47:12.890 That's the end of this lecture. 47:12.889 --> 47:16.949 Let me remind you that when you read Book Three for next time, 47:16.948 --> 47:20.608 you will also look at the passages from The Christian 47:20.607 --> 47:23.997 Doctrine that are assigned on the syllabus.