WEBVTT 00:02.130 --> 00:06.010 Professor John Rogers: It's not until the fourth 00:06.005 --> 00:09.145 book of Paradise Lost that finally we see 00:09.145 --> 00:12.885 represented before us the paradise whose imminent loss is 00:12.886 --> 00:15.956 heralded so grandly in the poem's title. 00:15.960 --> 00:17.580 Milton's task here is a difficult one. 00:17.580 --> 00:20.850 His task is to represent unfallen Eden, 00:20.850 --> 00:25.330 Eden before the Fall, to represent this unfallen Eden 00:25.325 --> 00:30.225 to a fallen audience of the 1660s from his own perspective 00:30.230 --> 00:34.620 as a fallen man himself and as a fallen poet. 00:34.620 --> 00:40.580 Milton is self-conscious about this predicament and continually 00:40.575 --> 00:46.235 confronting the challenge posed by this essentially artistic 00:46.243 --> 00:49.213 predicament. But the predicament, 00:49.213 --> 00:51.793 although it is this, is not simply an 00:51.793 --> 00:55.643 epistemological quandary, a problem about knowledge -- 00:55.639 --> 00:59.119 how can fallen man know anything about unfallen man? 00:59.120 --> 01:03.010 There's more riding on this question than merely this 01:03.007 --> 01:07.487 question of how we can possibly know what it was like in this 01:07.493 --> 01:10.263 unknowable state before the Fall. 01:10.260 --> 01:14.780 It's more important than simply that because everything is 01:14.775 --> 01:18.965 riding on Milton's success of his representation of an 01:18.974 --> 01:21.544 unfallen Eden. I think the theodicy, 01:21.543 --> 01:24.813 the success of Milton's attempt to justify the ways of God to 01:24.808 --> 01:27.798 men, is hanging to some degree on 01:27.804 --> 01:32.664 the success of his representation of unfallen-ness, 01:32.659 --> 01:36.359 and this is why: because only if we can truly 01:36.355 --> 01:41.645 see paradise as unfallen can we really believe that Adam and Eve 01:41.647 --> 01:46.517 were in fact perfectly capable of exercising their unfallen 01:46.518 --> 01:51.048 wills freely when confronted with the temptation of the 01:51.054 --> 01:54.284 fruit. Even so much as a hint of 01:54.282 --> 01:59.372 fallen-ness in a representation of Eden threatens to indict God 01:59.373 --> 02:02.743 and threatens to impugn God's justice. 02:02.739 --> 02:07.399 Because God can be said to have caused the Fall if he can be 02:07.402 --> 02:11.752 seen to have insinuated into paradise even the slightest 02:11.749 --> 02:15.809 propensity to fallen-ness, the question is an important 02:15.808 --> 02:18.988 one. So to justify fully the ways of 02:18.988 --> 02:23.068 God, this fallen poet has to represent to us, 02:23.073 --> 02:27.533 the fallen audience, an Eden that is unmistakably 02:27.530 --> 02:32.860 unfallen. It's a huge challenge. 02:32.860 --> 02:36.920 Though unfallen Eden can't be like anything we know, 02:36.916 --> 02:41.766 it has to be utterly other from everything that we're familiar 02:41.767 --> 02:44.907 with because, of course, everything that 02:44.905 --> 02:48.475 we're familiar with is fallen.One of the dominant 02:48.476 --> 02:52.116 rhetorical strategies of the first two books has to be 02:52.115 --> 02:54.995 inverted to some degree in Book Four. 02:55.000 --> 02:57.540 We have spent some time talking about the similes, 02:57.540 --> 03:00.600 especially the similes at the beginning of Milton's poem, 03:00.599 --> 03:05.199 and the simile used initially in Paradise Lost at some 03:05.199 --> 03:09.949 important junctures in Book Four especially is transformed into 03:09.953 --> 03:13.023 what we can think of as a dissimile. 03:13.020 --> 03:15.970 I'm not actually sure that that's a real rhetorical term; 03:15.970 --> 03:16.860 I didn't make it up. 03:16.860 --> 03:21.410 In any case, we'll use it for lack of a 03:21.412 --> 03:23.762 better word. So a simile, 03:23.755 --> 03:26.355 a positive simile, involves the -- you know what 03:26.362 --> 03:29.612 this is like. It involves a construction that 03:29.612 --> 03:34.112 "X is like Y," and a dissimile would propose the opposite, 03:34.110 --> 03:38.460 that "X is unlike Y."I'm going to ask you to turn to the 03:38.464 --> 03:42.454 most famous of these dissimiles in Paradise Lost. 03:42.449 --> 03:45.119 This is at line 268 of Book Four. 03:45.120 --> 03:49.160 It's page 283 and 284 in the Hughes. 03:49.160 --> 03:52.110 Milton is forced to describee -- what else can he 03:52.106 --> 03:53.826 do? He's forced to describe 03:53.831 --> 03:57.411 paradise in terms of all the things that Eden is not so he 03:57.405 --> 03:59.895 tells us: Not that fair fieldOf 03:59.896 --> 04:01.786 Enna… …[N]or that 04:01.790 --> 04:03.660 sweet Grove Of Daphne by Orontes… 04:03.664 --> 04:04.714 … [N]or that Nyseian 04:04.707 --> 04:07.407 Isle… I'm skipping here obviously -- 04:07.405 --> 04:09.975 and so forth. It's quite a catalog of things 04:09.984 --> 04:11.234 that Eden is not like. 04:11.229 --> 04:16.169 The rhetorical mode is necessarily one of negation 04:16.166 --> 04:21.906 because of the epistemological and artistic problem of the 04:21.908 --> 04:27.448 fallen representation of unfallen-ness.Look a little 04:27.448 --> 04:30.368 further up at line 233. 04:30.370 --> 04:32.770 This is, I think, where the problem of a fallen 04:32.765 --> 04:35.935 representation of an unfallen state actually really comes to a 04:35.941 --> 04:39.371 head. Milton's describing here the 04:39.373 --> 04:42.763 four rivers of Eden, line 233: 04:42.759 --> 04:45.599 And now divided into four main Streams, 04:45.600 --> 04:48.770 Run divers, wand'ring many a famous Realm 04:48.769 --> 04:51.689 And Country whereof here needs no account, 04:51.690 --> 04:55.580 But rather to tell how, if Art could tell, 04:55.579 --> 04:58.939 How from that Sapphire Fount the crisped Brooks, 04:58.940 --> 05:02.270 Rolling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold, 05:02.269 --> 05:05.629 With mazy error under pendant shades 05:05.629 --> 05:09.319 Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed 05:09.319 --> 05:13.909 Flow'rs worthy of Paradise which not nice Art 05:13.910 --> 05:17.130 In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon 05:17.129 --> 05:22.929 Pour'd forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plain… 05:22.930 --> 05:28.060 The flowers of paradise are poured forth in Eden not by a 05:28.055 --> 05:33.175 nice or a fastidious gardener, by fastidious artifice. 05:33.180 --> 05:35.070 There's nothing fussy about this garden. 05:35.069 --> 05:38.579 Its bounteous Nature herself who has poured forth all this 05:38.578 --> 05:41.858 profuseness. Eden is free of any artifice, 05:41.861 --> 05:46.871 but this lack of art in Eden, of course, only accentuates the 05:46.871 --> 05:51.131 problem that the poet has no choice but to face. 05:51.129 --> 05:54.899 The poet is under a pressure to describe with what is, 05:54.896 --> 05:58.446 of course, his poetic art that which is essentially 05:58.450 --> 06:00.830 indescribable. Milton lets us know the 06:00.827 --> 06:03.597 problem, "if Art could tell," and that phrase "if Art could 06:03.596 --> 06:06.716 tell" clearly implies that art, even Milton's art, 06:06.723 --> 06:11.403 can't tell us what Eden was like, that Milton's art can't 06:11.401 --> 06:16.041 represent an unfallen, non-artificial world with the 06:16.041 --> 06:20.001 instruments and the tools of fallen artificial 06:20.002 --> 06:24.492 language.The impossibility that he's facing, 06:24.490 --> 06:28.320 I think, is nowhere so apparent as it is here in this 06:28.319 --> 06:32.519 description of "the crisped Brooks" of paradise "rolling / 06:32.517 --> 06:35.607 with mazy error under pendant shades." 06:35.610 --> 06:38.670 Now of course, "error" is one of the 06:38.671 --> 06:41.661 most resonant words in the entire poem. 06:41.660 --> 06:45.530 Error is the moral category, or we can think of it as the 06:45.533 --> 06:49.063 theological category, most often applied to the Fall 06:49.062 --> 06:51.762 and to Adam and Eve's eventual sin. 06:51.759 --> 06:56.979 We might very well wonder why it is that error has crept into 06:56.979 --> 06:58.979 Eden before the Fall. 06:58.980 --> 07:04.870 Its presence here on some level could be seen to doom the garden 07:04.873 --> 07:07.673 in advance, could be seen as some kind of 07:07.666 --> 07:10.436 evidence of a degree of fallen-ness in this unfallen 07:10.439 --> 07:13.229 Eden.But Milton, of course, is using the word 07:13.225 --> 07:14.755 "error" in a special sense. 07:14.759 --> 07:19.699 He's doing what he does so often: he employs a word solely 07:19.704 --> 07:25.084 to evoke its etymological root sense, which in this case simply 07:25.081 --> 07:26.991 means "wandering." 07:26.990 --> 07:30.420 The brook here is quite simply not flowing straight. 07:30.420 --> 07:33.310 It's moving, it's divagating, 07:33.311 --> 07:37.341 and it's moving in a curvaceous form. 07:37.339 --> 07:41.649 Milton is working consciously to exclude the moral 07:41.651 --> 07:46.581 significance that this word "error" had acquired later in 07:46.578 --> 07:49.128 its etymological history. 07:49.129 --> 07:53.269 He's attempting to block out the meaning of this word that 07:53.273 --> 07:56.403 had crept in, as it were, after the Fall. 07:56.399 --> 07:59.819 There's actually a wonderful book that looks brilliantly at 07:59.822 --> 08:01.182 just this phenomenon. 08:01.180 --> 08:06.050 It's called Milton's Grand Style by the great critic 08:06.050 --> 08:09.710 Christopher Ricks, and in that book Ricks argues 08:09.706 --> 08:13.456 for the self-consciousness behind Milton's employment of 08:13.456 --> 08:17.746 the original etymological sense of some of the most loaded words 08:17.751 --> 08:21.571 in the poem. So Milton will remind us of the 08:21.573 --> 08:25.443 Fall with his use of such a word as "error," 08:25.439 --> 08:29.079 but at the same time, of course, he's attempting to 08:29.076 --> 08:33.216 create in us -- and it's a remarkable move -- to create in 08:33.222 --> 08:37.732 us a memory for a time in which a word like "error" had not yet 08:37.732 --> 08:42.462 been infected by its morally pejorative modern connotation. 08:42.460 --> 08:46.680 He's reminding us of a time in which there was no such thing as 08:46.677 --> 08:48.777 moral error, not that we can be reminded 08:48.781 --> 08:50.911 because, of course, we can't remember -- we weren't 08:50.913 --> 08:53.713 around; but it's as if a memory is 08:53.710 --> 08:58.360 being instilled in us by means of Milton's poetry. 08:58.360 --> 09:03.700 He condenses into a single word what is essentially the entire 09:03.702 --> 09:08.172 poetic problem besetting the description of unfallen 09:08.168 --> 09:11.848 Eden.Milton, too, manages with a word like 09:11.848 --> 09:15.568 this to remind us that we're only seeing the garden after 09:15.571 --> 09:18.761 Satan has overleaped its boundaries and has begun 09:18.763 --> 09:22.133 sneaking around. We're given no description, 09:22.131 --> 09:26.511 you'll note -- we're given no description of Eden until after 09:26.511 --> 09:30.821 the point in the story in which Satan has already entered or 09:30.819 --> 09:33.739 crossed the boundaries of paradise. 09:33.740 --> 09:36.240 Look at line 285. 09:36.240 --> 09:40.050 This is page 285 in the Hughes. Milton locates 09:40.053 --> 09:44.163 that geographical spot on the globe believed to have been 09:44.159 --> 09:46.979 Eden, but he does that only to remind 09:46.983 --> 09:51.173 us that everything that we are seeing is precisely what Satan 09:51.172 --> 09:55.432 is seeing: "where the Fiend / Saw undelighted all delight, 09:55.429 --> 10:01.149 all kind / Of Creatures new to sight and strange." 10:01.149 --> 10:05.049 Satan's presence is important here because he reminds us that 10:05.049 --> 10:08.499 we, too, were in a position of seeing "undelighted all 10:08.495 --> 10:11.665 delight." We share his pained alienation 10:11.672 --> 10:15.562 from the innocence of the garden.Nowhere is the 10:15.560 --> 10:20.380 problem of representation more urgent and more troubled than in 10:20.381 --> 10:24.581 the first view that we are given of Adam and Eve. 10:24.580 --> 10:27.960 There is an extraordinary pressure on Milton as he 10:27.962 --> 10:31.762 describes the condition of the unfallen Adam and Eve, 10:31.759 --> 10:34.199 and that pressure would unquestionably, 10:34.200 --> 10:37.860 I think, have been felt by the poem's original readers. 10:37.860 --> 10:41.680 Milton's description of Adam and Eve -- and in this respect 10:41.682 --> 10:45.642 it is like what I take to be nearly every seventeenth-century 10:45.636 --> 10:49.526 description of Adam and Eve -- it is necessarily a political 10:49.525 --> 10:52.765 statement. It's the account of the first 10:52.769 --> 10:56.469 society, and as an account of the first society, 10:56.470 --> 11:00.250 Milton's Eden has to establish something like the ideal against 11:00.250 --> 11:03.370 which all current, all fallen, societies have to 11:03.372 --> 11:06.262 be judged.So in the seventeenth century a 11:06.258 --> 11:10.258 description of man and the state of nature before the onset of 11:10.260 --> 11:14.330 any kind of civil government was an essential component of just 11:14.327 --> 11:16.817 about any political philosophy. 11:16.820 --> 11:20.490 You couldn't forward a political vision without 11:20.492 --> 11:25.202 forwarding at the same time an image of a society before the 11:25.203 --> 11:27.123 onset of government. 11:27.120 --> 11:29.740 The most important political philosopher of 11:29.736 --> 11:33.286 mid-seventeenth-century England is Milton's slightly older 11:33.286 --> 11:35.276 contemporary, Thomas Hobbes. 11:35.279 --> 11:39.439 He had founded his vision of politics, which was a decidedly 11:39.435 --> 11:41.895 authoritarian vision of politics, 11:41.899 --> 11:47.089 on just such an account of a nearly unrecoverable, 11:47.085 --> 11:49.515 un-rememberable past. 11:49.519 --> 11:53.549 In Hobbes' Leviathan, Hobbes conjures an image of 11:53.554 --> 11:57.264 the original man in the state of nature that serves as the 11:57.263 --> 12:01.103 foundation for his political wisdom for his truly outrageous 12:01.103 --> 12:04.943 thesis that the only viable political institution is that of 12:04.942 --> 12:06.962 an absolutist monarchy. 12:06.960 --> 12:13.060 I say it's outrageous perhaps because it's so incredibly 12:13.058 --> 12:16.198 compelling. It's very hard not to be 12:16.202 --> 12:20.322 converted to a terrifying form of authoritarianism when you 12:20.315 --> 12:23.995 read Hobbes' ironclad prose.In the famous chapter 12:24.003 --> 12:28.263 thirteen of the first book of Leviathan -- this was in 12:28.258 --> 12:32.578 the packet -- Hobbes describes the riotous mayhem constitutive 12:32.584 --> 12:36.844 of life before the onset of political institutions, 12:36.840 --> 12:39.860 and so interestingly and importantly here Hobbes is 12:39.856 --> 12:42.266 forwarding a kind of secular argument. 12:42.269 --> 12:45.319 This isn't theological, and so he doesn't return us to 12:45.316 --> 12:47.496 the Genesis account of Adam and Eve. 12:47.500 --> 12:50.430 His state of nature, he tells us, 12:50.427 --> 12:55.457 is just like the one inhabited -- it's America -- by the 12:55.458 --> 12:59.708 savages of the Americas; but the purpose of the 12:59.709 --> 13:03.389 Hobbesian account is directly analogous, I think, 13:03.394 --> 13:06.624 to Milton's purpose in describing Eden. 13:06.620 --> 13:11.350 For Hobbes, men in the state of nature are all equal. 13:11.350 --> 13:14.230 The state of nature is an egalitarian one, 13:14.231 --> 13:18.451 and Hobbes does everything he can do -- it's egalitarian even 13:18.449 --> 13:21.609 with respect to sex -- everything he can do to 13:21.612 --> 13:25.902 demonstrate the dangers of this natural egalitarianism. 13:25.899 --> 13:30.339 Because, Hobbes tells us, all men and women were created 13:30.335 --> 13:34.525 equal, there's no authority to keep them in place. 13:34.529 --> 13:38.589 There's no authority to keep them from what would naturally 13:38.590 --> 13:41.250 just be a perpetual state of strife. 13:41.250 --> 13:44.460 Hobbes explains in chapter thirteen: 13:44.460 --> 13:48.230 [W]ithout a common power [and by "common power" he means 13:48.226 --> 13:52.236 a king, a prince, a tyrant -- it doesn't matter, 13:52.244 --> 13:56.514 someone], man is in the state of war… 13:56.509 --> 14:01.139 and such a war as is of every man against every man. 14:01.139 --> 14:04.249 [And he continues.] …And the life of [the 14:04.252 --> 14:06.572 natural] man [and this is surely the 14:06.570 --> 14:09.950 most famous and the most glorious sentence in all of 14:09.947 --> 14:12.267 Hobbes' remarkable Leviathan] 14:12.265 --> 14:15.685 is solitary, poor, nasty, 14:15.690 --> 14:21.780 brutish, and short. For Hobbes, the egalitarianism 14:21.777 --> 14:24.387 established in nature is obviously unsatisfactory; 14:24.390 --> 14:26.100 it has to be corrected. 14:26.100 --> 14:29.680 We have to construct some kind of governmental structure, 14:29.684 --> 14:33.594 a polity, whereby we submit ourselves to an absolute ruler, 14:33.590 --> 14:36.770 a monarch or a tyrant -- it doesn't matter. 14:36.769 --> 14:40.609 Hobbes' Leviathan must have been deeply troubling to 14:40.614 --> 14:44.464 Milton who devoted so much of his career to the critique of 14:44.459 --> 14:47.909 just the kind of absolutist government that Hobbes is 14:47.906 --> 14:50.756 championing. I think there are a lot of 14:50.755 --> 14:54.185 signs in Paradise Lost that Milton is countering 14:54.194 --> 14:57.494 his great contemporary, Thomas Hobbes.Now one of 14:57.489 --> 15:01.179 the advantages of writing about Eden was that his description of 15:01.177 --> 15:03.257 paradise, as I've suggested, 15:03.259 --> 15:07.169 was something like an implicit model for a political 15:07.167 --> 15:10.077 philosophy, certainly, in Milton's hands. 15:10.080 --> 15:14.810 Hobbes had used his description of the state of men in the state 15:14.813 --> 15:18.123 of nature to forward his authoritarianism, 15:18.120 --> 15:21.390 and so Milton has to use his description of the first couple 15:21.393 --> 15:24.533 to forward his cause, which is essentially that of 15:24.526 --> 15:28.236 republicanism or some kind of non-monarchic government. 15:28.240 --> 15:33.770 Adam and Eve have to be able to form a successful society alone, 15:33.774 --> 15:36.854 a successful polity on their own, 15:36.850 --> 15:39.500 without the dictatorial intervention of any sovereign 15:39.501 --> 15:42.031 power. This is crucial for what Milton 15:42.030 --> 15:45.860 needs to be able to argue politically.So what exactly 15:45.860 --> 15:47.570 are Milton's politics? 15:47.570 --> 15:51.110 It's been a while since we visited this topic. 15:51.110 --> 15:54.810 We haven't really discussed Milton's politics since we 15:54.814 --> 15:57.684 looked at the 1644 Areopagitica, 15:57.679 --> 16:00.059 and a lot, I'm sad to say, 16:00.058 --> 16:01.858 has changed since then. 16:01.860 --> 16:04.770 In Areopagitica we saw Milton affirm what was 16:04.766 --> 16:07.896 essentially the general equality of all human beings. 16:07.899 --> 16:11.989 This was an implicit argument that all individuals have been 16:11.987 --> 16:15.797 endowed by God with reason and that they are all equally 16:15.798 --> 16:19.468 capable of choosing and reasoning for themselves; 16:19.470 --> 16:23.270 but in the 1650s Milton had grown considerably less 16:23.266 --> 16:28.046 optimistic in his sense of the equality of all men and women. 16:28.049 --> 16:31.529 The average individual in England for Milton at this point 16:31.527 --> 16:34.637 didn't in fact seem to be endowed with quite as much 16:34.638 --> 16:36.528 [laughs] reason and capacity for 16:36.529 --> 16:40.189 rational choice as Milton felt that he was capable of, 16:40.190 --> 16:43.670 or as Milton felt that he and his fellow Puritan 16:43.665 --> 16:46.175 revolutionaries were capable of. 16:46.179 --> 16:51.649 So many of Milton's backsliding countrymen wanted their king 16:51.651 --> 16:56.661 back, a devastating cultural fact for Milton.And so 16:56.659 --> 17:01.759 Milton began to develop a new political philosophy. 17:01.759 --> 17:04.839 It was something like an aristocratic philosophy of 17:04.836 --> 17:07.356 political society that places superior, 17:07.359 --> 17:10.739 more rational, more spiritually minded beings, 17:10.736 --> 17:14.706 people like John Milton, at the top of the society and 17:14.713 --> 17:18.093 they are necessarily above less rational, 17:18.089 --> 17:21.759 less excellent, less spiritually minded beings 17:21.759 --> 17:24.939 who are obviously in a lower stratum. 17:24.940 --> 17:29.720 Milton's later political philosophy sketches something 17:29.716 --> 17:35.296 like almost a natural hierarchy in which the rational elite are 17:35.304 --> 17:40.804 in a position to guide and to offer some sort of authoritative 17:40.802 --> 17:45.942 wisdom to the less rational members of the society. 17:45.940 --> 17:50.810 These less rational members ideally, willingly yield to the 17:50.805 --> 17:55.415 superior wisdom and the reason of the rational elite. 17:55.420 --> 17:59.170 It seems to be this later vision of a kind of naturally 17:59.168 --> 18:03.678 hierarchical society that forms the basis for the first polity, 18:03.680 --> 18:07.490 which is that of Adam and Eve in Milton's Eden. 18:07.490 --> 18:11.050 It goes without saying that the union of Adam and Eve in 18:11.045 --> 18:13.945 Milton's paradise is a patriarchal one and the 18:13.954 --> 18:17.834 hierarchical division between superior and inferior creatures 18:17.833 --> 18:21.783 has been marked almost entirely or exclusively along the lines 18:21.776 --> 18:25.046 of gender.Now Milton, as you know, 18:25.047 --> 18:30.167 has been reviled for his unrepentant patriarchalization 18:30.168 --> 18:32.348 of the first couple. 18:32.349 --> 18:36.389 Look at line 299, one of the most famous lines in 18:36.393 --> 18:39.723 the poem. This is the middle of page 285 18:39.720 --> 18:41.160 of the Hughes. 18:41.160 --> 18:45.660 Milton's talking about the purpose of Adam and Eve's 18:45.655 --> 18:50.065 creation: "hee for God only, shee for God in him..." 18:50.069 --> 18:57.889 This is without question a sexist vision of the first 18:57.887 --> 19:00.297 polity. We can say that, 19:00.304 --> 19:03.504 I think, without much hesitation, but it would be 19:03.496 --> 19:06.506 almost criminal, and I really believe this, 19:06.512 --> 19:09.412 to say that Milton's sexism is simplistic. 19:09.410 --> 19:12.490 It is so complex, in fact, that Milton has 19:12.489 --> 19:17.069 included in his poem a number of competing ways to think about 19:17.072 --> 19:18.802 this first society. 19:18.799 --> 19:22.769 We actually have passionately expressed before us in 19:22.771 --> 19:25.731 Paradise Lost the old Milton, 19:25.730 --> 19:27.900 the younger, much more liberal Milton -- 19:27.895 --> 19:31.275 that radical egalitarianism that he was able so forcefully and 19:31.281 --> 19:33.781 compellingly to voice in Areopagitica. 19:33.779 --> 19:36.429 That voice is audible in Paradise Lost, 19:36.430 --> 19:38.430 but we also, of course, have the later 19:38.431 --> 19:41.191 Milton, the believer in a hierarchical society. 19:41.190 --> 19:44.180 You can hear these contradictions at work in the 19:44.178 --> 19:46.848 poem's description of this first polity, 19:46.849 --> 19:51.169 the union of Adam and Eve.Look a little further up 19:51.169 --> 19:56.519 on page 285. This is line 288: 19:56.519 --> 19:59.919 Two of far nobler shape erect and tall, 19:59.920 --> 20:02.290 Godlike erect, with native Honor clad 20:02.289 --> 20:06.059 In naked Majesty seem'd Lords of all, 20:06.059 --> 20:08.869 And worthy seem'd, for in thir looks Divine 20:08.869 --> 20:11.459 The image of thir glorious Maker shone, 20:11.460 --> 20:15.520 Truth, Wisdome, Sanctitude severe and pure, 20:15.519 --> 20:19.189 Severe, but in true filial freedom plac't; 20:19.190 --> 20:24.010 Whence true autority in men. 20:24.009 --> 20:29.529 Now, it certainly strikes me to be the case that this first view 20:29.526 --> 20:34.076 that we get of Adam and Eve is an egalitarian one. 20:34.079 --> 20:38.359 In their naked majesty they are both described as "Lords of 20:38.363 --> 20:43.023 all," but their seeming equality is a source of no small anxiety 20:43.016 --> 20:45.906 to Milton; and so we are told almost 20:45.911 --> 20:48.741 immediately he can't take it anymore. 20:48.740 --> 20:53.700 We're told: "though both / Not equal, as thir sex not equal 20:53.695 --> 20:56.255 seem'd." Well, of course up to this 20:56.261 --> 20:58.501 point their sex did "equal seem." 20:58.500 --> 21:02.400 It's here that Milton places an enormous amount of weight on 21:02.395 --> 21:06.225 this word "seem'd," one of the most important words in Book 21:06.225 --> 21:12.305 Four. "Seem'd" not equal to whom? 21:12.309 --> 21:16.259 The idea of seeming is always with respect to a 21:16.255 --> 21:20.345 perceiver, someone to whom something seems to be this or 21:20.349 --> 21:22.989 that. It's with this word "seem'd" 21:22.993 --> 21:26.593 that we're reintroduced to the subject of the fallen 21:26.588 --> 21:30.818 perspective on an unfallen scene and reminded that we are not 21:30.817 --> 21:35.047 granted anything like a purview of Eden until after Satan has 21:35.047 --> 21:36.877 entered the garden. 21:36.880 --> 21:39.380 This description of Eden in Book Four has, 21:39.378 --> 21:42.118 in fact, merely been tracing Satan's steps, 21:42.119 --> 21:44.929 and this description of Adam and Eve merely emerges now 21:44.933 --> 21:48.113 because this is the scene that Satan happens now to be looking 21:48.111 --> 21:49.571 at.Look at line 285. 21:49.569 --> 21:52.669 I have already referred to these lines: "where the Fiend / 21:52.667 --> 21:55.707 Saw undelighted all delight, all kind of living Creatures 21:55.709 --> 21:57.339 new to sight and strange." 21:57.339 --> 22:01.959 Then you have a colon, and then after the colon falls 22:01.963 --> 22:05.523 this long description of Adam and Eve. 22:05.519 --> 22:08.789 It's possible, it's just possible to read the 22:08.787 --> 22:12.867 entire description of the sexually hierarchized Adam and 22:12.871 --> 22:17.031 Eve as an account in something like indirect discourse of 22:17.029 --> 22:19.479 Satan's fallen perspective. 22:19.480 --> 22:22.870 If their sex "not equal seem'd," it's possible that 22:22.874 --> 22:25.594 their sex "not equal seem'd" to Satan. 22:25.589 --> 22:28.749 It's Satan, of course -- we know this already to be the case 22:28.746 --> 22:31.526 -- who is more concerned than any of the other poem's 22:31.529 --> 22:33.829 characters with problems of inequality, 22:33.829 --> 22:38.079 so this is naturally going to be the predisposition, 22:38.075 --> 22:42.565 the set of concerns that he brings to his vision of any 22:42.570 --> 22:46.150 polity.It's a fascinating question, 22:46.150 --> 22:50.780 and there's actually a considerable debate raging -- if 22:50.777 --> 22:54.807 you can say that, a Miltonist rage -- there is a 22:54.805 --> 22:59.085 debate among Miltonists on just this question, 22:59.090 --> 23:00.420 and it's an interesting one. 23:00.420 --> 23:04.020 Milton's position at the head of the English literary canon is 23:04.019 --> 23:06.909 often associated, or has been since the late 23:06.906 --> 23:10.506 ‘70s -- or maybe, actually, since Virginia Woolf 23:10.506 --> 23:14.236 was writing in the ‘20s and ‘30s -- is often 23:14.243 --> 23:18.323 associated with his insistent positioning of Adam over Eve in 23:18.319 --> 23:19.949 Paradise Lost. 23:19.950 --> 23:24.920 Some participants in the debates about the validity of 23:24.918 --> 23:30.228 the Western literary canon have imagined the effects of sexism 23:30.234 --> 23:35.204 in our society and have imagined eradicating sexism in our 23:35.202 --> 23:40.172 society by eradicating from college reading lists a sexist 23:40.171 --> 23:42.351 poet like Milton. 23:42.349 --> 23:44.489 That argument is made, it's still forwarded today, 23:44.493 --> 23:45.983 and it's an argument that poses, 23:45.980 --> 23:49.340 as you can imagine, an understandable threat to 23:49.344 --> 23:52.274 people like me, admirers of this poet. 23:52.269 --> 23:55.819 You can imagine the number of Miltonists -- it was really 23:55.815 --> 23:59.605 quite remarkable -- who rallied around the textual suggestion 23:59.613 --> 24:02.403 that when Milton says, "hee for God only, 24:02.399 --> 24:05.689 shee for God in him," he doesn't really mean it.I 24:05.691 --> 24:09.051 think it was in the mid ‘80s that a critic first 24:12.408 --> 24:16.648 the description of Adam and Eve could be seen as merely an 24:16.651 --> 24:19.481 exfoliation of Satan's perspective. 24:19.480 --> 24:24.550 There was tremendous joy and excitement in the Milton 24:24.549 --> 24:28.839 community once that idea had been floated. 24:28.839 --> 24:31.629 It's as if the narrator is just reproducing for us the 24:31.626 --> 24:34.676 hierarchical imagination of Satan whose perspective on Adam 24:34.675 --> 24:37.615 and Eve is the one that we're getting at the moment. 24:37.619 --> 24:42.719 So we're able to say to ourselves rather comfortably and 24:42.720 --> 24:47.910 complacently that Milton isn't telling us that the social 24:47.914 --> 24:51.164 organization of Eden is sexist. 24:51.160 --> 24:57.120 Milton is telling us that Satan is sexist and that patriarchy is 24:57.117 --> 25:02.697 essentially satanic rather than Miltonic.I get depressed 25:02.696 --> 25:07.326 when I think of critical positions like this, 25:07.329 --> 25:11.169 whether you have the extreme position of Milton as the 25:11.169 --> 25:14.939 inventor and the prime perpetrator of misogyny on the 25:14.936 --> 25:19.276 one hand or the counter-vision of Milton as an early feminist 25:19.283 --> 25:22.193 on the other. The case is obviously more 25:22.193 --> 25:25.263 complicated than that, and it's more interesting than 25:25.259 --> 25:28.559 that because it's not at all clear -- just in the passage 25:28.560 --> 25:31.690 that we're looking at -- it's not clear whose voice is 25:31.685 --> 25:35.335 actually authorizing these lines that establish the patriarchal 25:35.341 --> 25:37.701 parameters of unfallen society. 25:37.700 --> 25:40.880 Without a doubt we have the narrator speaking here, 25:40.875 --> 25:44.105 and presumably he is representing something like the 25:44.114 --> 25:47.724 official line of the poem, but Milton does in fact go out 25:47.720 --> 25:51.010 of his way to situate the entire scene as an elaboration of 25:51.006 --> 25:52.306 Satan's perspective. 25:52.309 --> 25:55.719 Both of these things are true, and this passage, 25:55.719 --> 25:59.999 which has absolutely everything to do with what Milton calls 26:00.000 --> 26:03.120 establishing the true authority of men, 26:03.119 --> 26:05.359 refuses to establish its own authority. 26:05.359 --> 26:11.639 It refuses to announce itself as the product either of the 26:11.643 --> 26:14.953 poem's narrator or of Satan. 26:14.950 --> 26:19.080 It's a moment of textual instability, and I think it 26:19.076 --> 26:23.926 reflects the larger political instability that is threatening 26:23.931 --> 26:27.901 Eden and threatening the relation between Adam and 26:27.896 --> 26:32.506 Eve.It's worth asking ourselves: what is it about Adam 26:32.508 --> 26:36.148 and Eve that makes them seem unequal? 26:36.150 --> 26:40.350 Look at line 297: "for contemplation hee and 26:40.353 --> 26:44.463 valor form'd, / For softness shee and sweet 26:44.459 --> 26:46.609 attractive Grace." 26:46.610 --> 26:48.280 Now how do we know this? 26:48.279 --> 26:50.369 We know it by their physical differences. 26:50.369 --> 26:53.979 We know it by the appearance of their anatomies and, 26:53.979 --> 26:59.419 more precisely than that, we know that they are different 26:59.422 --> 27:05.692 and unequal by means of our perception of their hair: 27:05.690 --> 27:08.190 His fair large Front and Eye sublime declar'd 27:08.190 --> 27:10.950 Absolute rule; and Hyacinthine Locks 27:10.950 --> 27:14.820 Round from his parted forelock manly hung 27:14.819 --> 27:20.109 Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad. 27:20.109 --> 27:22.779 Milton [laughs] did wear his hair long but he 27:22.782 --> 27:25.582 wants us to know [laughs] -- that's part of the 27:25.577 --> 27:28.367 historical record, and he was very pleased with 27:28.371 --> 27:30.741 that; but he always wants us to know 27:30.741 --> 27:32.161 that it wasn't too long. 27:32.160 --> 27:38.190 It's the same with Adam who wears his hair unusually long 27:38.188 --> 27:42.638 but not indecorously long: Round from his parted 27:42.637 --> 27:45.347 forelock manly hung Clust'ring, but not beneath his 27:45.350 --> 27:49.410 shoulders broad: Shee as a vail down to the 27:49.413 --> 27:52.733 slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses 27:52.727 --> 27:54.067 wore Disshevell'd, 27:54.066 --> 27:59.106 but in wanton ringlets wav'd As the Vine curles her 27:59.106 --> 28:04.936 tendrils, which impli'd Subjection… 28:04.940 --> 28:09.390 Now, I'll bet that we can all agree that a description of 28:09.385 --> 28:13.985 their hair is not what we were expecting at this moment. 28:13.990 --> 28:19.040 Supporters of patriarchy or of the superiority of men have 28:19.044 --> 28:22.684 always enlisted anatomical differences, 28:22.680 --> 28:27.120 the anatomical differences between the sexes, 28:27.122 --> 28:31.872 as proof of man's rightful ability to subject or 28:31.868 --> 28:34.088 subordinate woman. 28:34.089 --> 28:37.359 In fact, central to the patriarchal prejudice, 28:37.357 --> 28:40.907 as you can imagine, was what often seems to be the 28:40.914 --> 28:44.404 strength differential between men and women. 28:44.400 --> 28:47.900 If Milton had imagined a cosmos that privileged physical 28:47.900 --> 28:51.660 strength, then I think we would have no choice but glumly to 28:51.655 --> 28:55.215 accept the fact that Adam is indeed superior to Eve. 28:55.220 --> 28:57.850 You could imagine how an argument like this could have 28:57.848 --> 29:00.128 played out in the pages of Paradise Lost. 29:00.130 --> 29:03.470 Milton could easily have argued that human excellence 29:03.472 --> 29:07.172 could be determined by the sheer number of shrubs that Adam and 29:07.173 --> 29:09.803 Eve were able to prune on any given day. 29:09.799 --> 29:13.629 In such a world Adam would be able to prove his superiority, 29:13.631 --> 29:17.141 but physical strength -- and this is important -- means 29:17.137 --> 29:19.927 absolutely nothing in Paradise Lost. 29:19.930 --> 29:22.870 In fact, if anything Milton is always 29:22.871 --> 29:27.211 denigrating the importance of physical strength.Okay. 29:27.210 --> 29:30.720 Given that, [laughs] we still have to ask the 29:30.716 --> 29:35.496 question: why try to argue for the inequality of the sexes on 29:35.498 --> 29:37.808 the basis of hair length? 29:37.809 --> 29:40.709 I presume that none of you have had children, 29:40.713 --> 29:44.743 but you probably still know nonetheless that men and women, 29:44.740 --> 29:48.980 or boys and girls, are not born with distinct or 29:48.981 --> 29:51.871 distinguishable heads of hair. 29:51.869 --> 29:54.909 At least until male pattern baldness sets in, 29:54.912 --> 29:57.892 the hair of men and women aren't distinct or 29:57.886 --> 30:00.396 distinguishable. If anything, 30:00.398 --> 30:05.098 male pattern baldness simply gives women an edge. 30:05.099 --> 30:08.779 If Milton wanted to use hair as a natural sign of sexual 30:08.783 --> 30:12.473 difference, I would think he should be discussing facial 30:12.467 --> 30:15.317 hair. Adam's superiority presumably 30:15.324 --> 30:18.594 could be evinced by his commanding beard. 30:18.589 --> 30:22.159 We could imagine Milton doing that, something that Eve lacks 30:22.164 --> 30:25.484 by virtue of her anatomy, but the hair on the head -- 30:25.477 --> 30:29.267 this doesn't make any sense -- the hair on the head is in fact 30:29.267 --> 30:31.317 one of the few anatomical [laughs] 30:31.317 --> 30:34.297 features that is absolutely gender neutral. 30:34.299 --> 30:39.249 Our hair is gendered by virtue of the barber, 30:39.245 --> 30:44.745 not by virtue of the Creator.This brings us to 30:44.753 --> 30:50.013 this fact which we all know, and which is what every 30:50.006 --> 30:53.246 obstetrician knows: the obvious distinguishing 30:53.246 --> 30:56.266 anatomical characteristic is genitalia. 30:56.269 --> 31:00.809 Milton actually does mention Adam and Eve's mysterious parts, 31:00.806 --> 31:05.036 but he mentions them only to dismiss their difference. 31:05.039 --> 31:08.829 He may be gesturing toward something like -- you'll tell me 31:08.833 --> 31:12.693 if this is crazy -- something like a genital difference when 31:12.692 --> 31:15.832 he describes Adam's hair: His locks "manly hung / 31:15.832 --> 31:19.942 Clust'ring." I don't think that holds. 31:19.940 --> 31:25.370 The sexual signifier that "hangs manly" off of Adam's body 31:25.366 --> 31:29.646 and that signifier which has traditionally, 31:29.650 --> 31:33.730 of course, been invoked as a sign of sexual superiority is 31:33.727 --> 31:36.357 Adam's penis; but Milton alludes to this 31:36.357 --> 31:39.647 genital signifier of difference, their mysterious parts, 31:39.652 --> 31:40.972 only to dismiss it. 31:40.970 --> 31:45.040 He chooses instead for the distinguishing characteristic of 31:45.037 --> 31:48.957 the sexes a phenomenon that's rooted not in nature but in 31:48.964 --> 31:51.844 culture: hair length.Like Hobbes, 31:51.839 --> 31:54.959 Milton is under a tremendous cultural pressure when he 31:54.963 --> 31:57.383 describes the earliest state of nature. 31:57.380 --> 32:01.220 The description of nature has to bear the weight of all of the 32:01.220 --> 32:05.060 social and all of the political claims that the poem makes, 32:05.059 --> 32:08.299 and the set of social conditions that Milton has to 32:08.303 --> 32:12.263 justify and make seem natural is a particularly tricky one. 32:12.259 --> 32:15.959 Both Eve and Adam have to be seen as absolutely free, 32:15.956 --> 32:20.286 each of them has to be capable of exercising reason and making 32:20.292 --> 32:22.782 reasonable, rational decisions. 32:22.779 --> 32:26.379 In this sense Adam and Eve enjoy something like the 32:26.384 --> 32:30.054 absolutely egalitarian world, the structure of the political 32:30.045 --> 32:32.845 world that we had seen in a treatise like Areopagitica, 32:32.849 --> 32:35.729 Milton at his most exuberantly liberal. 32:35.730 --> 32:39.230 But while Adam and Eve enjoy all of the rights of an 32:39.231 --> 32:41.981 egalitarian society, as they do, I think, 32:41.977 --> 32:45.137 in Paradise Lost, they are not therefore 32:45.136 --> 32:48.336 equal. Adam appears to be superior to 32:48.342 --> 32:52.792 Eve, and Milton will only tell us that he appears such. 32:52.789 --> 32:57.569 The narrator cannot make this claim in anything like a more 32:57.569 --> 33:01.769 declarative sense.On the basis of at least their 33:01.771 --> 33:05.761 appearances, the social formation in Eden is 33:05.758 --> 33:10.318 strictly hierarchical, and on some extraordinary level 33:10.321 --> 33:14.111 this poem is trying to have it both ways. 33:14.109 --> 33:17.579 So much of the energy of the account of paradise derives from 33:17.583 --> 33:21.003 Milton's contradictory account of the political structure of 33:20.998 --> 33:22.968 Eden. He applies to the Edenic 33:22.968 --> 33:26.528 society of Adam and Eve what I take to be two irreconcilable 33:26.529 --> 33:28.339 modes of social governance. 33:28.339 --> 33:31.969 Eden is once egalitarian, its inhabitants are -- in 33:31.968 --> 33:35.958 "naked Majesty" they're "Lords of all," both of them. 33:35.960 --> 33:39.370 Adam and Eve are entirely free and self-determining, 33:39.367 --> 33:42.767 but at the same time Eden is structured as a kind of 33:42.774 --> 33:46.854 aristocracy where the male class is deemed categorically, 33:46.849 --> 33:50.479 genetically superior to the female class. 33:50.480 --> 33:53.830 It goes without saying that this situation is untenable. 33:53.829 --> 33:57.149 The contradictory social formation of paradise is 33:57.148 --> 34:00.608 inherently unstable, and I'm convinced that nothing 34:00.605 --> 34:04.475 is more important in our understanding of the dynamics of 34:04.477 --> 34:08.347 the Fall than these principles: the principle that Eve is 34:08.348 --> 34:11.458 absolutely free and equally rational, 34:11.460 --> 34:14.600 equally capable of rational and virtuous choices, 34:14.604 --> 34:18.084 but also the conflicting principle that Eve is to some 34:18.077 --> 34:21.677 extent subject to Adam's authority.The contradictory 34:21.680 --> 34:25.550 political impulses in the poem are brilliantly worked out in 34:25.546 --> 34:28.556 the first description of Adam and Eve. 34:28.560 --> 34:30.700 Look at line 307. 34:30.700 --> 34:32.550 This is unbelievable. 34:32.550 --> 34:35.560 Look at what Milton is able to establish by way of a 34:35.558 --> 34:37.208 description of Eve's hair. 34:37.210 --> 34:42.290 It's here in a representation of her hair that the nature of 34:42.287 --> 34:45.297 the Edenic polity is established. 34:45.300 --> 34:47.580 Eve's golden tresses: [W]av'd 34:47.579 --> 34:50.579 As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli'd 34:50.579 --> 34:54.809 Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, 34:54.809 --> 34:58.699 And by her yeilded, by him best receiv'd, 34:58.699 --> 35:04.169 Yielded with coy submission, modest pride [and isn't this a 35:04.171 --> 35:08.621 beautiful line?] And sweet reluctant amorous 35:08.623 --> 35:12.243 delay. The conflicting politics of 35:12.242 --> 35:17.342 Eden are best captured by means of the rhetorical strategy of 35:17.338 --> 35:20.988 oxymoron, or the contradiction in terms. 35:20.989 --> 35:24.609 Milton packs this description of the first couple's -- this is 35:24.607 --> 35:27.867 essentially a kind of erotic play that's being described 35:27.869 --> 35:30.989 before us, and it's packed with oxymoronic 35:30.987 --> 35:34.847 descriptions. Milton's trying to communicate 35:34.849 --> 35:39.379 the incredibly delicate political balance of this 35:39.376 --> 35:41.636 hierarchical society. 35:41.639 --> 35:44.939 " This society may be hierarchical," Milton is telling 35:44.940 --> 35:47.120 us, "but it's not authoritarian." 35:47.119 --> 35:51.659 Eve may be subject to Adam, who holds authority over Eve, 35:51.664 --> 35:56.054 but because she's free, her subjection is required with 35:56.046 --> 35:59.866 a "gentle sway." No sooner has Adam exercised 35:59.872 --> 36:04.832 his authority by gently swaying Eve than she willingly yields to 36:04.829 --> 36:07.859 him, exercising her free capacity 36:07.863 --> 36:12.923 for consent and her capacity to choose to be swayed by her 36:12.919 --> 36:17.619 superior.Eve's hair seems to imply subjection, 36:17.619 --> 36:21.719 but Eve's hair also seems to imply freedom and a kind of 36:21.718 --> 36:23.728 resistance to subjection. 36:23.730 --> 36:27.670 Eve yields not with submission -- Milton would never permit 36:27.673 --> 36:29.173 himself to say that. 36:29.170 --> 36:32.700 Eve yields with a "coy submission." 36:32.699 --> 36:36.039 She holds something back even as she grants it, 36:36.037 --> 36:40.387 and we have detailed before us the endless give-and-take that 36:40.390 --> 36:43.800 this delicate political structure requires. 36:43.800 --> 36:46.080 For Milton, this give-and-take is not only the basis of a 36:46.082 --> 36:49.442 society. It's the basis as well for 36:49.442 --> 36:53.192 eros, or sexual pleasure. 36:53.190 --> 36:58.380 With that extraordinary phrase, "sweet reluctant amorous 36:58.383 --> 37:03.863 delay," Milton's able to pack into three adjectives and one 37:03.859 --> 37:09.519 noun the pleasure derivable by both parties in Eve's exercise 37:09.524 --> 37:14.624 of resistance.But Eve's coyness isn't just sexy for 37:14.623 --> 37:17.363 Milton. It's also politically 37:17.356 --> 37:21.236 meaningful, and from a political perspective her capacity for a 37:21.242 --> 37:24.632 kind of reluctance and resistance serves as a guarantee 37:24.627 --> 37:27.947 for her capacity for a kind of rational consent. 37:27.949 --> 37:31.569 It's also theologically resonant. 37:31.570 --> 37:35.310 From a theological perspective, Eve's willingness to resist, 37:35.306 --> 37:38.346 to delay, constitutes a guarantee of her divinely 37:38.346 --> 37:39.736 granted free will. 37:39.739 --> 37:43.299 Eve cannot be forced to do anything. 37:43.300 --> 37:48.350 It's as if in this little dance that they perform in the 37:48.348 --> 37:53.418 quotidian life of unfallen Eden, Eve is practicing in a small 37:53.423 --> 37:57.403 way for that crucial moment at the temptation in which her 37:57.400 --> 38:01.870 ability to resist and delay will mean the difference between life 38:01.865 --> 38:05.475 and death.Now, we as readers find it difficult 38:05.484 --> 38:08.804 I think -- we should, at least, find it difficult -- 38:08.798 --> 38:12.698 to found a theory of hierarchy on something so fragile and so 38:12.696 --> 38:16.726 easily alterable -- you can tell I just had a haircut yesterday 38:16.725 --> 38:20.785 -- as hair length; but what's even more amazing 38:20.794 --> 38:26.214 than that is the fact that the nature of the gendered hierarchy 38:26.206 --> 38:30.476 of Adam and Eve isn't even evident to Adam and Eve 38:30.483 --> 38:33.613 themselves. This blows me away. 38:33.610 --> 38:36.380 Look at Eve's first memory in Paradise Lost. 38:36.380 --> 38:40.140 This is line 477, page 289 in the Hughes. 38:40.136 --> 38:45.006 Eve is far from being able to recognize Adam's superiority 38:45.011 --> 38:47.791 immediately. For Eve there's certainly 38:47.789 --> 38:51.389 nothing in the length of his hair that suggests that he might 38:51.389 --> 38:53.669 enjoy a kind of authority over her, 38:53.670 --> 38:56.090 and in fact, to Eve Adam seems to be a 38:56.086 --> 38:59.806 noticeably inferior creature when she compares him to that 38:59.808 --> 39:02.908 image of herself, that beautiful and responsive 39:02.908 --> 39:05.828 image of herself that she had found in the pool. 39:05.830 --> 39:07.930 This is line 477. 39:07.930 --> 39:10.960 She tells Adam: Till I espi'd thee, 39:10.964 --> 39:15.104 fair indeed and tall, [she grants him that he's tall] 39:15.099 --> 39:18.779 Under a Platan, yet methought less fair, 39:18.780 --> 39:22.570 Less winning soft, less amiably mild, 39:22.570 --> 39:27.140 Then that smooth wat'ry image… 39:27.139 --> 39:30.699 It's like the dissimile of the fair fields of Enna. 39:30.699 --> 39:33.809 Adam can only be understood by what it is he lacks, 39:33.812 --> 39:36.992 and indeed it's a lack of anything like a natural or 39:36.987 --> 39:40.467 self-evident sexual hierarchy that constitutes one of the 39:40.473 --> 39:43.153 central problems in Paradise Lost. 39:43.150 --> 39:48.030 Hierarchy is not a natural fact in paradise. 39:48.030 --> 39:51.760 It's an arbitrarily imposed social institution. 39:51.760 --> 39:56.090 It's been imposed by God but it hasn't been built into the 39:56.085 --> 39:58.585 structure of the natural world. 39:58.590 --> 40:01.810 It's to Milton's great credit, and I really mean this -- I 40:01.810 --> 40:04.070 mean this with the utmost seriousness, 40:04.070 --> 40:08.660 that he labors to expose the artificial cultural origins of 40:08.663 --> 40:13.423 the sexual subjection that at the same time he is championing 40:13.415 --> 40:17.115 and celebrating. Eve has to be told that Adam is 40:17.121 --> 40:21.161 her superior and she has to undergo an elaborate process and 40:21.158 --> 40:23.348 a complicated process of cultural 40:23.347 --> 40:27.377 indoctrination.Nowhere in the description of Eden are we 40:27.384 --> 40:31.154 reminded more forcefully of our incapacity to understand 40:31.147 --> 40:35.117 unfallen nature than in Milton's description of Eve's hair: 40:35.116 --> 40:39.286 "her unadorned golden tresses wore / Disshevell'd, 40:39.290 --> 40:42.430 but in wanton ringlets wav'd." 40:42.429 --> 40:44.969 "Disshevell'd and wanton" -- of course, these seem like 40:44.970 --> 40:46.900 extraordinarily prejudicial adjectives. 40:46.900 --> 40:50.670 They cast a moral judgment -- it has seemed to readers, 40:50.670 --> 40:55.070 from the very beginning -- on her long before she has sinned. 40:55.070 --> 40:57.680 But once again Milton is playing with etymology, 40:57.683 --> 41:00.743 and I think this is Ricks' point: "Dishevell'd" is being 41:00.742 --> 41:03.192 used here in its original literal sense. 41:03.190 --> 41:08.570 It literally means "hair let down" -- she's not wearing a 41:08.573 --> 41:11.013 bun. The ringlets are "wanton" in 41:11.007 --> 41:13.327 that they are simply unrestrained. 41:13.329 --> 41:17.029 The fact that we are so eager as readers to supply a kind of 41:17.030 --> 41:20.480 loose or sexual meaning to these words implicates us, 41:20.480 --> 41:23.830 Milton perhaps seems to be saying, and it implicates, 41:23.829 --> 41:27.439 of course, Satan as well in the fallen perspective on the 41:27.437 --> 41:30.527 ultimately mysterious union of Adam and Eve. 41:30.530 --> 41:34.360 We are eyeing them askance and leering at them just as Satan 41:34.364 --> 41:36.554 is. It's Stanley Fish's argument, 41:36.546 --> 41:39.746 and it's not unconvincing, that Milton's purpose in 41:39.747 --> 41:42.817 employing these loaded adjectives is to force the 41:42.820 --> 41:45.830 reader to acknowledge her own fallen-ness, 41:45.829 --> 41:49.099 to remind us all of the inadequacy of our fallen 41:49.098 --> 41:53.268 perspective on this unfallen nature.We're wrong to import 41:53.271 --> 41:58.071 a kind of moral prejudice to the words "disheveled" and "wanton," 41:58.070 --> 42:00.560 but Milton will push it even further. 42:00.559 --> 42:05.669 Eve's hair is also waving and insinuating and in its waving, 42:05.674 --> 42:10.444 curly motions it resembles nothing so much as that other 42:10.442 --> 42:14.172 much less noble creature in the garden, 42:14.170 --> 42:17.950 and that's, of course, the serpent. 42:17.950 --> 42:20.870 Look at line 345. 42:20.869 --> 42:25.209 This is where Milton describes the elephant and the serpent. 42:25.210 --> 42:26.570 I don't have time to comment on it. 42:26.570 --> 42:30.840 I just want to say what an amazing adjective, 42:30.844 --> 42:33.374 the "unwieldy" elephant! 42:33.370 --> 42:36.000 [T]h' unwieldy Elephant To make them mirth us'd all his 42:36.001 --> 42:39.771 might, and wreath'd His Lithe Proboscis; 42:39.770 --> 42:42.410 close the Serpent sly Insinuating, 42:42.409 --> 42:46.379 wove with Gordian twine His breaded train... 42:46.380 --> 42:49.300 The breaded train of the serpent's waving motion 42:49.298 --> 42:53.208 resembles nothing so much as the waving braids of Eve's hair. 42:53.210 --> 42:56.210 Eve seems to be associated well in advance of the actual 42:56.212 --> 42:59.162 temptation with the sly insinuations of the serpent, 42:59.159 --> 43:02.929 an association that of course can only damage any sense that 43:02.925 --> 43:06.685 we have of her unfallen reason and her genuine free will; 43:06.690 --> 43:10.740 but Milton carefully includes in this description another 43:10.740 --> 43:14.360 example of a waving and insinuating motion in Eden, 43:14.356 --> 43:17.246 and that's the elephant's proboscis. 43:17.250 --> 43:22.110 He's prefaced his connection between Eve and Satan here with 43:22.112 --> 43:24.752 the inclusion of the elephant. 43:24.750 --> 43:29.400 He wants us to know with this image of the elephant's light 43:29.399 --> 43:34.049 proboscis that the motion of waving and weaving and weaving 43:34.048 --> 43:38.618 and insinuating are still in fact entirely innocent and it 43:38.616 --> 43:43.186 will only be Satan's subsequent actions that retroactively 43:43.185 --> 43:45.345 infect them for us. 43:45.349 --> 43:49.049 The problem being exposed once again is the problem of 43:49.049 --> 43:51.769 representation: how can you represent an 43:51.771 --> 43:55.541 unfallen state from a fallen perspective?Okay. 43:55.540 --> 44:00.420 Look at the handout; if you don't have a handout try 44:00.416 --> 44:03.516 to get one from the corners of the room. 44:03.519 --> 44:10.099 This representation of Adam and Eve was made in 1638. 44:10.099 --> 44:13.759 Rembrandt did this drawing shortly before Milton was 44:13.760 --> 44:16.990 beginning to think of Paradise Lost. 44:16.989 --> 44:20.099 In the Rembrandt representation we have -- I think this is a 44:20.097 --> 44:23.047 devastating critique of the seventeenth-century desire to 44:23.046 --> 44:26.416 represent an unfallen paradise, what we have Milton trying to 44:26.419 --> 44:27.579 do. Like Milton, 44:27.578 --> 44:30.348 Rembrandt exposes the impossibility, 44:30.345 --> 44:33.265 I think, of such a representation. 44:33.269 --> 44:37.369 If we read the Book of Genesis, we know that Eve was alone with 44:37.365 --> 44:39.935 the serpent, and so we're seeing Adam and 44:39.935 --> 44:43.395 Eve in this picture presumably after Eve has eaten the fruit 44:43.403 --> 44:46.523 but before Adam had eaten it.Now Adam may not have 44:46.518 --> 44:49.338 eaten the fruit but he certainly -- I mean, 44:49.340 --> 44:53.690 look at this -- he certainly looks as fallen as Eve. 44:53.690 --> 44:57.660 They are equally physically ugly, it seems to me, 44:57.663 --> 45:00.893 and that's indisputable: nasty, brutish, 45:00.891 --> 45:03.501 and short. It's as if they crawled out of 45:03.500 --> 45:06.110 the pages of the famous thirteenth chapter of the first 45:06.112 --> 45:07.662 book of Hobbes' Leviathan. 45:07.659 --> 45:11.609 Look at Eve's face with its broad, overhanging brow that 45:11.610 --> 45:14.490 looks [laughs] -- she suggests the unevolved 45:14.488 --> 45:18.438 state of an upper primate more than she does of the glorious 45:18.438 --> 45:21.048 and beautiful first human female. 45:21.050 --> 45:24.350 Look at Adam. The presumably unfallen Adam 45:24.346 --> 45:28.806 here is writhing in a twisted and guilty posture that gives 45:28.813 --> 45:32.513 him no moral superiority over Eve whatsoever. 45:32.510 --> 45:36.160 If anything, here Adam's hair seems more 45:36.157 --> 45:39.797 wanton and more disheveled than [laughs] 45:39.804 --> 45:43.414 Eve's. Rembrandt's Eden must be very 45:43.414 --> 45:45.434 humid. There's a kind of frizzy, 45:45.428 --> 45:48.768 split-end thing going on with both of them and especially with 45:48.766 --> 45:50.646 Eve, but at least it's falling 45:50.652 --> 45:53.662 rather neatly over her head, which can't be said of 45:53.657 --> 45:57.137 Adam.Of course, the primary clue that this 45:57.143 --> 46:01.643 representation of Eden is imposing upon unfallen Adam a 46:01.636 --> 46:06.546 sense of fallen-ness comes from Rembrandt's shading of their 46:06.545 --> 46:09.675 genitals. Actually, in the original you 46:09.680 --> 46:12.740 can make out their genitalia quite distinctly, 46:12.739 --> 46:15.049 but they're nonetheless shaded. 46:15.050 --> 46:17.010 This is important for Rembrandt. 46:17.010 --> 46:20.320 They are partially hidden by the dark and guilty shadow 46:20.317 --> 46:24.277 produced by the serpent; the serpent you may or may not 46:24.284 --> 46:28.724 have noticed is that scaly, hideous creature climbing the 46:28.717 --> 46:30.377 tree on the right. 46:30.380 --> 46:33.110 Milton had gone out of his way to insist that the genitals of 46:33.106 --> 46:34.966 Adam and Eve, their "mysterious parts," 46:34.969 --> 46:37.829 were not concealed, but then he goes on to censure 46:37.830 --> 46:40.870 us, his fallen readers, for the sense of guilty shame 46:40.866 --> 46:44.716 that we bring to any speculation about their mysterious parts; 46:44.719 --> 46:47.259 but Rembrandt -- it's as if Rembrandt's a step ahead of 46:47.257 --> 46:49.457 Milton. He's telling us that there can 46:49.463 --> 46:52.563 be no such thing as a just representation of unfallen 46:52.555 --> 46:55.095 nudity. Our darkened minds will 46:55.097 --> 47:00.177 continually shade that nudity with the inescapable shadows of 47:00.179 --> 47:05.519 guilt and shame that we have no choice but to bring to questions 47:05.515 --> 47:08.725 of sexuality. Rembrandt joins Milton in 47:08.729 --> 47:12.719 representing a scene that seems to lie somewhere -- both the 47:12.718 --> 47:16.838 Eden of Rembrandt and the Eden of Milton seem to lie somewhere 47:16.841 --> 47:21.031 between a fallen and an unfallen state.I think a lot of the 47:21.032 --> 47:24.952 energy of the Rembrandt drawing derives from his refusal to 47:24.953 --> 47:29.283 depict the moral superiority of one sex over the other. 47:29.280 --> 47:33.810 There's no clear demarcation here of a sexual hierarchy or a 47:33.807 --> 47:35.877 natural sexual hierarchy. 47:35.880 --> 47:39.370 This Adam doesn't seem any physically stronger than Eve. 47:39.369 --> 47:42.269 If he is to be seen as the greater sex, perhaps it's just 47:42.265 --> 47:44.945 because he's placed himself arbitrarily in a physical 47:44.954 --> 47:46.354 posture of superiority. 47:46.349 --> 47:49.479 He's placed one foot slightly on an elevated plane. 47:49.480 --> 47:52.440 He's trying to get a leg up. 47:52.440 --> 47:57.510 He's compensating perhaps for his lack of a self-evident 47:57.505 --> 47:59.435 authority over Eve. 47:59.440 --> 48:01.640 Tradition, of course, has always insisted, 48:01.644 --> 48:04.284 and this is the story that we inherit as children, 48:04.279 --> 48:06.859 that Eve seduced Adam into eating the fruit. 48:06.860 --> 48:12.820 Adam would never have fallen if Eve hadn't tricked him into 48:12.815 --> 48:18.765 eating the apple or implored him to join her in her sin; 48:18.769 --> 48:23.009 but Rembrandt here is refusing to attribute all of the guilt to 48:23.007 --> 48:27.177 Eve.Now, it's possible that Adam is here trying to protect 48:27.176 --> 48:30.726 Eve from the fruit with the gesture of his hand, 48:30.730 --> 48:34.740 but he also might be reaching for the fruit, 48:34.735 --> 48:38.005 grabbing it. It's possible that he's seizing 48:38.006 --> 48:41.936 the fruit just as Milton's Adam seizes Eve when he finds her by 48:41.938 --> 48:44.488 the pool. What I'm saying here is that 48:44.488 --> 48:48.258 the suggestion in both Milton and Rembrandt is that the Fall 48:48.258 --> 48:51.838 has less to do with Eve's seduction of Adam than the more 48:51.836 --> 48:57.686 foundational and the structural, problem of sexual inequality. 48:57.690 --> 49:03.700 The Fall starts to look more and more like the inevitable 49:03.702 --> 49:08.322 consequence of sexual hierarchy.Okay. 49:08.320 --> 49:13.550 I'm going to conclude after we take one final look at the 49:13.546 --> 49:19.146 Rembrandt, at the visual details that Rembrandt forces into a 49:19.146 --> 49:22.036 kind of analogous relation. 49:22.040 --> 49:23.810 In this he's like Milton. 49:23.809 --> 49:26.629 Like Milton, Rembrandt draws into an 49:26.629 --> 49:31.699 analogous relation the slithery length of that awful serpent and 49:31.704 --> 49:36.944 the innocent and playful winding of the elephant's proboscis. 49:36.940 --> 49:41.700 You can see the unwieldy elephant in the lower right-hand 49:41.699 --> 49:46.499 corner of the Rembrandt drawing, but the proboscis and the 49:46.504 --> 49:50.954 serpent's tail are not the only snaky things in Rembrandt's 49:50.947 --> 49:53.127 Eden. As I mentioned earlier, 49:53.127 --> 49:57.077 in the original drawings Adam's mysterious part is actually 49:57.081 --> 50:00.051 quite visible. It's nasty, it's brutish, 50:00.054 --> 50:03.764 it's short, but it's discernible, and it's important 50:03.755 --> 50:05.565 that it's discernible. 50:05.570 --> 50:08.940 Through this technique of visual juxtaposition, 50:08.942 --> 50:13.272 Rembrandt casts an evil and satanic shadow over this part of 50:13.267 --> 50:16.737 Adam's anatomy, that distinguishing feature of 50:16.741 --> 50:20.971 his sex which is the arbitrary signifier of his authority over 50:20.974 --> 50:24.844 Eve. So Adam's authority here in its 50:24.838 --> 50:31.488 most intimate manifestation may be as complicit as the serpent 50:31.486 --> 50:37.476 in the crime of the Fall.Satan sees all of this. 50:37.480 --> 50:40.890 He sees this weird and bizarrely unstable sexual 50:40.894 --> 50:44.604 hierarchy in Milton's Eden, and what does he say? 50:44.600 --> 50:52.880 Line 521 at page 290. 50:52.880 --> 50:58.100 Milton has Satan announce that he -- "Eureka! 50:58.100 --> 50:59.470 I know how I'm going to do it!" 50:59.469 --> 51:02.989 -- he's arrived at his scheme to destroy Adam and Eve. 51:02.989 --> 51:07.389 He says, just having witnessed all of this, "O fair foundation 51:07.390 --> 51:10.060 laid whereon to build / Thir ruin!" 51:10.059 --> 51:12.249 "I know how I'm going to be able to bring this place down!" 51:12.250 --> 51:17.430 Now, Milton isn't eager to join Satan in this claim of God's 51:17.431 --> 51:22.701 injustice, but he's willing to expose the inherently unstable 51:22.701 --> 51:26.391 foundation of Eden's sexual hierarchy. 51:26.389 --> 51:29.449 Milton lays the foundation ultimately, I think -- as we'll 51:29.445 --> 51:33.005 see when we read Book Nine, he lays the foundation for our 51:33.006 --> 51:36.276 understanding of some of the deepest causes of the 51:36.283 --> 51:39.023 Fall.Okay. Remember for next time a big 51:39.023 --> 51:40.913 chunk of reading: Books Five, Six, 51:40.912 --> 51:42.002 Seven and Eight.