WEBVTT 00:02.310 --> 00:04.670 Professor John Rogers: In Book Four of 00:04.666 --> 00:07.216 Paradise Lost, Milton had sketched the origins 00:07.219 --> 00:08.249 of human freedom. 00:08.250 --> 00:09.920 You remember this. 00:09.920 --> 00:13.640 Eve's first memory, or her reflection on her 00:13.635 --> 00:18.215 reflection in the pool, had established the importance 00:18.215 --> 00:22.795 of freedom and also the importance of independence for 00:22.795 --> 00:27.885 not only her relation with Adam but essentially all of human 00:27.894 --> 00:30.904 relations. Milton's concern in Book Four 00:30.900 --> 00:34.000 was to establish something like the viability of a freedom that 00:34.000 --> 00:35.560 was able, in some way, 00:35.557 --> 00:39.707 to coexist with what we discussed as the hierarchical 00:39.705 --> 00:41.775 set of power relations. 00:41.780 --> 00:45.600 This coexistence of freedom, on the one hand, 00:45.601 --> 00:48.551 and social hierarchy, on the other, 00:48.554 --> 00:53.074 is something that this poem continues to assert. 00:53.070 --> 00:55.280 I would also add that it's something that this poem 00:55.284 --> 00:56.484 continues to worry about. 00:56.480 --> 01:01.080 It's an extraordinarily problematic but crucial element 01:01.076 --> 01:03.286 of Paradise Lost. 01:03.289 --> 01:09.049 Now, I want to review a couple of moments in Book Four. 01:09.049 --> 01:13.119 Think back to what Eve had told Adam after she had been 01:13.120 --> 01:16.890 compelled by him, and also by the warning voice, 01:16.890 --> 01:19.700 after she had been compelled to channel all of her erotic 01:19.702 --> 01:21.462 energies away from the beautiful, 01:21.459 --> 01:25.729 sympathetic, responsive watery image toward 01:25.728 --> 01:28.698 Adam. Eve had said, 01:28.697 --> 01:36.337 "thy gentle hand / seiz'd mine, I yielded." 01:36.340 --> 01:41.120 Theirs is a continual dance of seizing and yielding. 01:41.120 --> 01:46.330 You have his assertion of power and her gracious resignation, 01:46.330 --> 01:49.630 although it's a gentle use of power, 01:49.629 --> 01:53.139 on the one hand, and it's an independent and 01:53.138 --> 01:56.318 consensual resignation, on the other. 01:56.319 --> 01:59.779 Through this dance Milton, I think, was trying to 01:59.782 --> 02:03.972 establish a model of human interaction really distinct from 02:03.967 --> 02:06.587 simple coercion, or completely distinct from 02:06.588 --> 02:09.638 simple coercion. It's distinct from the simple 02:09.635 --> 02:14.085 exercise of brute force that, I think, we often associate 02:14.086 --> 02:18.136 with life in a hierarchically organized society. 02:18.139 --> 02:22.789 Human interaction in this poem is founded on the principle of 02:22.785 --> 02:25.685 consent. In the Miltonic commonwealth of 02:25.686 --> 02:29.796 Eden -- and we think of it as a commonwealth -- no one can be 02:29.803 --> 02:33.303 forced to act. Eve has to choose to act. 02:33.300 --> 02:34.890 She has to consent to act. 02:34.889 --> 02:39.909 She yields, which is for Milton not actually a resignation. 02:39.910 --> 02:43.730 It's a positive, deliberate action, 02:43.731 --> 02:49.691 and she has the right of consent because she possesses 02:49.688 --> 02:55.978 for Milton an inalienable capacity for free will and free 02:55.982 --> 02:59.742 choice.So, this account of Eve's first 02:59.735 --> 03:02.515 exercise of free will, the one that I've just given 03:02.523 --> 03:06.043 you -- her yielding to Adam when he seizes her hand -- that's at 03:06.036 --> 03:08.726 least, I think, the official one that 03:08.726 --> 03:12.736 the poem urges us to accept, according to what I'm thinking 03:12.741 --> 03:15.511 of as the poem's official philosophy, 03:15.509 --> 03:19.369 because it seems to be a guarantee, in some way, 03:19.366 --> 03:23.956 subtended by the narrator and authoritative forces in the 03:23.961 --> 03:26.741 poem. According to this philosophy, 03:26.741 --> 03:30.901 Eve yields to Adam freely and willingly because she comes to 03:30.896 --> 03:33.216 recognize his superior nature. 03:33.220 --> 03:38.150 The poem presses on us a philosophy whereby Eve's freedom 03:38.151 --> 03:43.701 is entirely compatible with what we're asked to take as the fact 03:43.699 --> 03:46.429 of her inferiority to Adam. 03:46.430 --> 03:49.710 Satan himself explains perfectly this philosophy, 03:49.712 --> 03:53.412 and I think ironically it's Satan who gives us the best 03:53.405 --> 03:57.645 formulation of this coexistence of freedom and hierarchy in the 03:57.645 --> 04:02.085 poem: that freedom and hierarchy are absolutely compatible. 04:02.090 --> 04:06.700 Satan will tell Abdiel in Book Five: 04:06.700 --> 04:11.920 [F]or Orders and Degrees Jar not with liberty, 04:11.924 --> 04:15.404 but well consist. 04:15.400 --> 04:17.200 Who can in reason then or right assume 04:17.199 --> 04:19.629 Monarchy over such as live by right 04:19.629 --> 04:22.709 His equals, if in power and splendor less, 04:22.710 --> 04:28.080 In freedom equal? But Milton's poetry -- well, 04:28.075 --> 04:30.165 think how odd it is, [laughs] 04:30.170 --> 04:33.460 first of all, that it's Satan who's giving us 04:33.463 --> 04:36.763 something like the only carefully articulated 04:36.756 --> 04:41.486 authoritative position on this, to say the least, 04:41.491 --> 04:43.941 controversial matter. 04:43.940 --> 04:47.780 Milton's poetry is invariably more sophisticated than what we 04:47.784 --> 04:51.564 can think of as the official dogma or the authoritative line 04:51.564 --> 04:54.334 of the poem. Perhaps that fact is revealed 04:54.327 --> 04:57.917 or exposed to us by the fact that it's Satan who's giving us, 04:57.923 --> 05:00.563 in this instance, the authoritative line. 05:00.560 --> 05:05.570 It's important to keep this distinction in mind because this 05:05.565 --> 05:08.275 poem simply cannot be reduced. 05:08.279 --> 05:11.399 Sometimes it tries to be reduced, but it cannot be 05:11.400 --> 05:14.970 reduced, to those ringing declarations of what sound like 05:14.965 --> 05:18.715 the official positions of the poem.Think how complicated 05:18.722 --> 05:22.812 it is with Eve. Eve's account of that beautiful 05:22.813 --> 05:28.053 pool-side reverie was so filled with pathos and longing that 05:28.052 --> 05:31.342 it's impossible, I think, not to feel at least a 05:31.340 --> 05:34.440 little bit of disappointment when she consents finally to her 05:34.438 --> 05:37.148 union with Adam. It's almost -- I don't know -- 05:37.152 --> 05:39.812 this kind of a sense in which she's sold out. 05:39.810 --> 05:44.050 Of course, we're happy that she has a mate who's another person 05:44.052 --> 05:46.792 and not merely a smooth, watery image. 05:46.790 --> 05:48.650 Nonetheless, there's a sense of 05:48.645 --> 05:52.165 disappointment that attends that choice that she makes. 05:52.170 --> 05:56.140 Initially for Eve, I am at least convinced there 05:56.138 --> 05:59.768 seemed to be nothing like freedom at all. 05:59.769 --> 06:02.939 She remembers having gazed at that pleasing image in the 06:02.937 --> 06:06.277 reflective pool and she recalls being pulled away from that 06:06.278 --> 06:09.848 smiling and sympathetic image by that mysterious voice that had 06:09.850 --> 06:11.290 guided her to Adam. 06:11.290 --> 06:15.610 I think this is one of the most moving lines in the entire poem 06:15.614 --> 06:19.244 when Eve recalls the feeling of helplessness that she 06:19.240 --> 06:22.170 experienced when she heard that voice. 06:22.170 --> 06:25.190 This is how she explains it later to Adam: 06:25.187 --> 06:28.057 "what could I do, / but follow straight, 06:28.057 --> 06:32.617 invisibly thus led?"In other words, "What could I do?" 06:32.620 --> 06:35.940 Not a bad question: what could she do? 06:35.940 --> 06:40.550 The subordination of woman to man in heterosexual union in 06:40.551 --> 06:44.921 Paradise Lost seemed entirely compulsory at that 06:44.920 --> 06:47.410 moment, and Eve, it seemed, 06:47.407 --> 06:52.617 on some level had to be coerced to unite herself with this less 06:52.620 --> 06:55.560 pleasing Adam. For a moment at least, 06:55.561 --> 06:59.061 Milton seemed to be on the brink of something like a 06:59.063 --> 07:02.363 powerful critique of the so-called naturalness of 07:02.360 --> 07:06.350 normative sexual behavior; because there's at least some 07:06.346 --> 07:09.666 suggestion here that Eve's attraction to Adam was not 07:09.673 --> 07:11.213 freely chosen at all. 07:11.209 --> 07:14.459 It was chosen for her, it was assigned to her.All 07:14.461 --> 07:17.961 of this is a way of saying that Milton is doing something 07:17.963 --> 07:21.343 extraordinary complicated in Paradise Lost. 07:21.339 --> 07:25.509 He justaposes -- he does this consistently -- the rhetoric of 07:25.509 --> 07:27.799 rational consent, on the one hand, 07:27.798 --> 07:31.368 with the competing rhetoric of coercion: maybe that word's a 07:31.370 --> 07:34.020 little strong, but a competing rhetoric of 07:34.017 --> 07:37.067 something like a gentle compulsion, if that oxymoron 07:37.071 --> 07:40.041 makes any sense. There's a way in which this 07:40.042 --> 07:43.032 entire scene, which is intended to assert the 07:43.028 --> 07:46.578 politics of rational consent, provides at the very same 07:46.584 --> 07:49.854 moment something like a critique of the politics of rational 07:49.850 --> 07:52.900 consent. We know that Eve's freely 07:52.902 --> 07:58.472 willed act of yielding followed in time Adam's exertion of 07:58.470 --> 08:01.610 force. However gentle Adam is, 08:01.612 --> 08:07.122 "thy gentle hand / seiz'd mine," he's still seized Eve, 08:07.120 --> 08:09.050 and Milton's, I think, remarkably 08:09.052 --> 08:12.742 honest.So this is why I'm always pushing you to agree with 08:12.737 --> 08:13.747 me, [laughs] 08:13.748 --> 08:17.938 or compelling you to agree with me, that Milton deserves a 08:17.938 --> 08:20.068 little bit of credit here. 08:20.069 --> 08:23.309 Milton's amazingly honest in his account of Eve's first 08:23.306 --> 08:26.476 exercise of her free will, and I think we can think of 08:26.482 --> 08:28.342 this as her first free act. 08:28.339 --> 08:33.669 Of course, it is an unduly circumscribed act of freedom. 08:33.669 --> 08:37.839 Milton's poetry in a lot of ways is constantly questioning 08:37.835 --> 08:42.215 the legitimacy of a doctrine of free will in a world that has 08:42.220 --> 08:46.970 been arranged and conjugated like the one that Eden has been. 08:46.970 --> 08:51.090 It's along a principle of hierarchy.So Book Four had 08:51.087 --> 08:55.647 explored in extraordinary detail the complexities of hierarchy 08:55.653 --> 09:00.373 and freedom with respect to the relation between the sexes. 09:00.370 --> 09:04.610 Book Five is also interested in this uneasy but important 09:04.613 --> 09:07.723 relation between hierarchy and freedom. 09:07.720 --> 09:11.660 It's almost as if Book Four hadn't sufficiently put to rest 09:11.660 --> 09:15.940 the logical problem that on some level is constantly eating away 09:15.941 --> 09:17.981 at the center of the poem. 09:17.980 --> 09:22.410 Book Five takes up this problem once again, but it takes it up 09:22.411 --> 09:26.001 -- as we, of course, should have been led to expect 09:26.001 --> 09:29.321 -- from an entirely different perspective.So, 09:29.320 --> 09:32.370 as I just said, in Book Four the hierarchical 09:32.368 --> 09:36.588 principle of superiority and of excellence was the superiority 09:36.594 --> 09:38.624 of man to woman. In Book Five, 09:38.621 --> 09:41.241 the central hierarchical access is a little different, 09:41.235 --> 09:42.315 or a lot different. 09:42.320 --> 09:47.160 It involves the superiority of angels over human beings, 09:47.157 --> 09:52.077 and this new hierarchical opposition -- it's performing a 09:52.082 --> 09:55.032 lot of work. One of the things that it's 09:55.033 --> 09:58.243 certainly doing is forcing us to rethink the hierarchical 09:58.235 --> 10:01.375 opposition that Milton had established in Book Four, 10:01.379 --> 10:07.009 and that's because hierarchy is no longer gendered in Book Five. 10:07.009 --> 10:10.079 Milton's not concerned here with sex. 10:10.080 --> 10:14.600 He's concerned rather with degrees of materiality among all 10:14.602 --> 10:16.242 of God's creatures. 10:16.240 --> 10:20.270 Angels are less material, less corporeally burdened 10:20.266 --> 10:23.646 creatures than Adam and Eve, and therefore, 10:23.648 --> 10:26.868 within this system they're superior. 10:26.870 --> 10:31.110 In this larger vision of a kind of cosmic principle of hierarchy 10:31.110 --> 10:34.100 in which lighter, more ethereal things are 10:34.103 --> 10:37.253 superior to heavier, denser, grosser material 10:37.245 --> 10:39.585 things, we can see a way in which the 10:39.590 --> 10:42.570 gender distinction simply drops out of the equation, 10:42.570 --> 10:46.620 because Milton gives us no reason to think that Adam and 10:46.620 --> 10:50.230 Eve are anything but equal in the degrees of their 10:50.228 --> 10:53.718 corporeality. Sexual inequality simply seems 10:53.716 --> 10:58.406 insignificant here from this new perspective in Book Five.So 10:58.411 --> 11:02.961 Raphael descends into Eden -- the Archangel Raphael -- in Book 11:02.958 --> 11:07.278 Five in order to warn Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden 11:07.281 --> 11:09.051 fruit. In doing so, 11:09.047 --> 11:12.627 he provides an elaborate account of -- and I've already 11:12.634 --> 11:15.984 discussed this, but I have to discuss it again 11:15.984 --> 11:19.584 because for me it's so outrageous and so daring and 11:19.576 --> 11:23.236 such an absolutely lovable religious heterodoxy, 11:23.240 --> 11:27.940 maybe it's even a heresy -- the heterodoxy of monism. 11:27.940 --> 11:30.440 I'll remind you briefly of what monism is. 11:30.440 --> 11:34.290 It's the philosophy whereby there can be no such thing as a 11:34.291 --> 11:38.011 firm and absolute distinction between body and spirit. 11:38.009 --> 11:42.399 The world can't be divided into soul and matter as it could be 11:42.402 --> 11:46.362 divided with absolute clarity for Milton's contemporary, 11:46.361 --> 11:49.811 Descartes. The entire cosmos for Milton is 11:49.812 --> 11:54.382 made of one huge blob of matter, and this matter is nothing 11:54.382 --> 11:57.772 other, ultimately, than the body of God. 11:57.769 --> 12:05.249 This is what Raphael explains to Adam at line 469 of Book 12:05.245 --> 12:09.175 Five. This is page 313 in the Hughes 12:09.179 --> 12:12.749 edition. So this is Raphael to Adam: 12:12.750 --> 12:16.470 O Adam, one Almighty is [that's God], 12:16.466 --> 12:18.666 from whom All things proceed, 12:18.668 --> 12:22.178 and up to him return, If not deprav'd from good, 12:22.176 --> 12:25.066 created all Such to perfection, 12:25.072 --> 12:28.862 one first matter all, Indu'd with various forms, 12:28.863 --> 12:31.213 various degrees Of substance, 12:31.208 --> 12:35.478 and in things that live, of life. 12:35.480 --> 12:39.110 "One first matter all," all things derived from the "one 12:39.110 --> 12:41.900 first matter" which is, of course, God: 12:41.903 --> 12:46.103 this is the ex deo theory of creation (creatio 12:46.096 --> 12:48.736 ex deo), as opposed to the orthodox 12:48.740 --> 12:51.110 theory of creation, which is creatio ex 12:51.106 --> 12:54.566 nihilo -- the notion that God created the universe out of 12:54.569 --> 12:57.459 nothing. Milton has God creating the 12:57.459 --> 13:01.499 universe out of God himself, from the body of God. 13:01.500 --> 13:06.720 In this ex deo creation scenario, there's no qualitative 13:06.719 --> 13:12.109 difference between the substance comprising men and the substance 13:12.107 --> 13:13.957 comprising angels. 13:13.960 --> 13:15.790 The difference is simply one of degree. 13:15.789 --> 13:18.109 This has been brilliantly argued by the critic William 13:18.108 --> 13:21.018 Kerrigan. It's a difference of degree 13:21.023 --> 13:26.523 rather than a difference of kind: angels are simply lighter. 13:26.519 --> 13:30.129 The corporeal substance that makes up their bodies is more 13:30.134 --> 13:33.944 attenuated, it's more rarefied, than that in human beings. 13:33.940 --> 13:38.260 We are all more condensed, we are "grosser" creatures, 13:38.261 --> 13:41.931 to use one of Milton's favorite words here. 13:41.929 --> 13:47.329 Our grosser bodies are more compacted, they're of a denser 13:47.334 --> 13:52.364 consistency than the light and airy bodies of heavenly 13:52.359 --> 13:57.859 angels.Except for this differentiation by the degree of 13:57.858 --> 14:02.088 substantiality, human beings and angels are 14:02.087 --> 14:04.157 qualitatively identical. 14:04.159 --> 14:06.649 We're made of the same stuff, it's just a matter of how 14:06.654 --> 14:08.044 closely packed the stuff is. 14:08.039 --> 14:11.439 Milton even treats us to a scene of Adam and Eve -- because 14:11.441 --> 14:14.081 it's thinkable in such a monistic universe, 14:14.080 --> 14:17.910 although it's wild -- of Adam and Eve actually eating with the 14:17.913 --> 14:19.173 Archangel Raphael. 14:19.169 --> 14:23.689 I think this must have blown Milton's contemporaries away, 14:23.685 --> 14:28.115 because from any orthodox perspective this attribution of 14:28.121 --> 14:33.031 what Milton would call a "gross" activity like eating to one of 14:33.032 --> 14:36.792 God's heavenly minions, one of the angels, 14:36.786 --> 14:40.906 would have to be seen as -- if it's not blasphemous, 14:40.913 --> 14:43.263 it's certainly indecorous. 14:43.259 --> 14:45.659 But this is, of course, a poem that's 14:45.661 --> 14:48.531 centered around an illicit act of eating; 14:48.529 --> 14:53.139 and so Milton will turn the entire activity of eating into 14:53.140 --> 14:57.430 the premise of an entire philosophy of the relation of 14:57.428 --> 15:02.118 human creatures to their God.In that "all" of God, 15:02.120 --> 15:04.000 all of God's creatures need to eat. 15:04.000 --> 15:09.290 Angels and men can be seen to be equals. 15:09.289 --> 15:10.669 This is essentially Raphael's logic. 15:10.670 --> 15:13.610 Look at line 411 of Book Five. 15:13.610 --> 15:16.430 Raphael tells Adam, this is page 312, 15:16.429 --> 15:19.489 that angels are a lot like human beings: 15:19.485 --> 15:23.465 "they hear, see, smell, touch, 15:23.465 --> 15:30.785 taste, / tasting concoct, digest, assimilate." 15:30.789 --> 15:34.819 We're soon to learn that angels also have sex because, 15:34.818 --> 15:38.998 as we know, spirits "can either sex assume," or both. 15:39.000 --> 15:42.040 But we're about to find out here something, 15:42.037 --> 15:46.297 I think, that's a little more shocking even than the fact of 15:46.304 --> 15:49.854 angelic eroticism: angels have digestive tracts in 15:49.848 --> 15:53.418 Milton's heaven, and like human beings they have 15:53.417 --> 15:57.497 within their bodies some kind of mechanism for the elimination of 15:57.501 --> 16:01.071 ingested substances -- the elimination of substances that 16:01.074 --> 16:03.694 cannot be assimilated into the body. 16:03.690 --> 16:07.350 Milton's angels actually excrete. 16:07.350 --> 16:11.200 This is a remarkable feat of literary daring, 16:11.200 --> 16:16.100 to be sure, but it's also a magnificent feat of the human 16:16.101 --> 16:18.991 imagination on Milton's part. 16:18.990 --> 16:22.310 This is what the narrator seems to be referring to when he 16:22.310 --> 16:24.000 discusses Raphael's hunger. 16:24.000 --> 16:27.240 This is line 437: "what redounds, 16:27.239 --> 16:32.199 transpires / through Spirits with ease…" 16:32.200 --> 16:34.880 It's so easy to miss: "what redounds, 16:34.876 --> 16:38.516 transpires / through Spirits with ease…" 16:38.519 --> 16:44.309 What stays, what can't be assimilated into the body, 16:44.312 --> 16:50.902 gets expelled easily.Milton is so eager here -- now, 16:50.899 --> 16:53.509 we have to ask ourselves, why is Milton doing this? 16:53.509 --> 16:55.249 He's so eager, I'm convinced, 16:55.247 --> 16:58.657 to demonstrate the essential metaphysical equivalence of 16:58.660 --> 17:02.450 human beings and angels that he is quite prepared to ask us to 17:02.446 --> 17:04.366 imagine the unimaginable. 17:04.369 --> 17:08.739 Angels are exceedingly regular, Milton is telling us. 17:08.740 --> 17:12.990 "What redounds," that food which remains in excess in the 17:12.992 --> 17:16.182 angel's body, "transpires / through Spirits 17:16.181 --> 17:18.621 with ease." Of course, as we know, 17:18.622 --> 17:21.942 Milton was acutely interested in his own gastrointestinal 17:21.937 --> 17:24.137 tract, having blamed his blindness on 17:24.142 --> 17:27.212 a digestive problem.But there's a lot more here than 17:27.207 --> 17:28.877 merely a personal interest. 17:28.880 --> 17:32.680 Eating is so central to this poem that it's actually 17:32.681 --> 17:36.631 something like a digestive process of assimilation and 17:36.632 --> 17:40.662 excretion that would have enabled the unfallen Adam and 17:40.657 --> 17:44.307 Eve to become angels eventually themselves. 17:44.310 --> 17:46.630 Turn to line 493. 17:46.630 --> 17:49.900 This is page 313. 17:49.900 --> 17:55.980 It was to be Adam and Eve's good fortune to watch their own 17:55.983 --> 18:01.573 gross corporeal bodies slowly, gradually shed their dense 18:01.574 --> 18:06.134 matter as they assumed the airy lightness of angels. 18:06.130 --> 18:09.520 How will they attain this extraordinary achievement, 18:09.519 --> 18:11.379 this wafting up to heaven? 18:11.380 --> 18:12.720 They'll do it by eating. 18:12.720 --> 18:14.820 Look at line 493. 18:14.819 --> 18:17.979 Raphael's explaining that as things are now, 18:17.984 --> 18:21.894 in a pinch angels are capable of a nutritional kind of 18:21.885 --> 18:25.335 condescension. They can eat the same food that 18:25.340 --> 18:28.640 human beings eat when they don't have a choice. 18:28.640 --> 18:32.950 Right now, Adam and Eve probably couldn't survive on 18:32.947 --> 18:37.087 angelic nectar if that is all they had to live on, 18:37.086 --> 18:44.936 probably, but Raphael adds: [T]ime may come when men 18:44.940 --> 18:48.140 With Angels may participate, and find 18:48.140 --> 18:52.520 No inconvenient Diet, nor too light Fare: 18:52.519 --> 18:54.609 And from these corporal nutriments perhaps 18:54.609 --> 18:57.969 Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, 18:57.970 --> 19:02.220 Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend 19:02.220 --> 19:05.380 Ethereal, as wee, or may at choice 19:05.380 --> 19:08.990 Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell; 19:08.990 --> 19:10.780 [and this is obviously the kicker:] 19:10.780 --> 19:15.500 If ye be found obedient. Milton is going out of his way 19:15.499 --> 19:18.639 to provide Adam and Eve with a motive for remaining obedient. 19:18.640 --> 19:23.290 By a simple process of eating -- virtuous eating, 19:23.289 --> 19:28.029 virtuous digestion, and the consequent activity of 19:28.034 --> 19:31.934 the virtuous subliming, that's Milton's term, 19:31.927 --> 19:35.637 of gross matter into spirit -- Adam and Eve will eventually, 19:35.640 --> 19:41.620 gradually begin to ascend to the winged state of angelhood. 19:41.619 --> 19:45.299 They will metabolize themselves into angels. 19:45.299 --> 19:48.569 It's one of the most extreme visions and one of the most 19:48.573 --> 19:50.123 beautiful visions, [laughs] 19:50.121 --> 19:53.351 however cockamamie, of human progress ever 19:53.345 --> 19:58.405 depicted, I think.Raphael's account of the superiority of 19:58.405 --> 20:02.865 spiritual matter over gross matter is without question 20:02.874 --> 20:07.264 another one of the poem's hierarchical visions, 20:07.259 --> 20:13.359 but the amazing process of what we could think of as what would 20:13.361 --> 20:18.971 have been the angelization of men and women does something 20:18.971 --> 20:22.901 really quite alarming, I think, to the principle of 20:22.901 --> 20:24.911 hierarchy as it's been presented so far. 20:24.910 --> 20:28.640 The metaphysical hierarchy of the degree of material density, 20:28.636 --> 20:31.676 which is the concern of Book Five, isn't fixed. 20:31.680 --> 20:34.800 It's not static in Milton's universe. 20:34.799 --> 20:39.809 This is a mobile society that Raphael is imagining. 20:39.810 --> 20:42.560 The hierarchy here is flexible. 20:42.559 --> 20:47.029 It's much more flexible than the gendered hierarchy was among 20:47.025 --> 20:49.105 human beings in Book Four. 20:49.109 --> 20:52.509 If Adam and Eve manage not to fall, they will arrive, 20:52.506 --> 20:55.576 we have to assume, equally at a state of angelic 20:55.576 --> 20:59.556 perfection in a state in which gender differences simply don't 20:59.561 --> 21:03.681 obtain because angels, as we know, "can either sex 21:03.675 --> 21:08.915 assume," or both.There were a few other radical thinkers in 21:08.922 --> 21:13.662 the seventeenth century who embraced a monistic vision of 21:13.661 --> 21:16.371 the universe like Milton's. 21:16.369 --> 21:19.939 Almost invariably, this monism had a kind of 21:19.943 --> 21:24.023 leftist, progressive, and in some cases actually a 21:24.016 --> 21:26.256 communist energy to it. 21:26.259 --> 21:30.749 I've written the name of one of Milton's contemporaries, 21:30.746 --> 21:34.346 Gerrard Winstanley, who was maybe not England's 21:34.349 --> 21:38.339 first communist but England's first important communist, 21:38.339 --> 21:41.829 writing fifteen or so years before Paradise Lost. 21:41.829 --> 21:45.829 The bodies of all men and women are for Winstanley -- as 21:45.829 --> 21:50.099 later for Milton -- are equally infused with heavenly spirit and 21:50.099 --> 21:53.109 heavenly soul. For Winstanley -- Milton 21:53.108 --> 21:56.908 wouldn't permit himself to go quite this far -- this 21:56.909 --> 22:01.159 physiological equality seemed to guarantee their political 22:01.156 --> 22:04.036 equality. In adopting this doctrine of 22:04.035 --> 22:07.705 monism that had been developed or worked out by much more 22:07.705 --> 22:10.585 radical thinkers like Gerrard Winstanley, 22:10.589 --> 22:14.369 Milton is really on some level consciously adopting a 22:14.371 --> 22:18.081 philosophy of body and spirit that works to undo, 22:18.079 --> 22:21.999 and maybe it works to undermine, that patriarchal 22:22.003 --> 22:25.603 insistence on Adam's superiority over Eve. 22:25.599 --> 22:29.609 On some level, some of the philosophy in Book 22:29.611 --> 22:33.711 Five, I think, is working at some subterranean 22:33.714 --> 22:38.004 stage to undermine or dismantle the Edenic, 22:38.000 --> 22:41.000 the paradisal, hierarchy.So Adam and Eve 22:41.003 --> 22:44.853 before the Fall are given the opportunity to reach their 22:44.845 --> 22:47.565 heavenly destinations on their own. 22:47.569 --> 22:51.749 Now just think how radical that is when you compare it to any 22:51.753 --> 22:55.243 mainstream notion of the way Christianity works. 22:55.240 --> 22:57.910 Adam and Eve, had they never fallen, 22:57.912 --> 23:01.962 had they never sinned, would never have needed to rely 23:01.960 --> 23:05.630 on a God or a Messiah to intervene -- an external 23:05.625 --> 23:08.675 redeemer to move in and save them, 23:08.680 --> 23:12.270 or even to reward them, for their virtue. 23:12.269 --> 23:17.209 Their virtuous behavior would have been itself a reward. 23:17.210 --> 23:21.290 We can think of them as having been in a position almost to 23:21.292 --> 23:24.562 save themselves, and Milton is arriving at this 23:24.558 --> 23:28.488 -- it's a wild and really daring alternative to the orthodox 23:28.489 --> 23:32.489 Christian vision of redemption and salvation.I think it's 23:32.487 --> 23:36.077 this orthodox notion of Christianity that Milton always 23:36.084 --> 23:38.354 felt so uncomfortable with. 23:38.349 --> 23:41.289 Were it not for the Fall, there would have been no need 23:41.291 --> 23:44.291 for the heavenly Father to sacrifice the Son in order to 23:44.288 --> 23:45.648 save fallen humanity. 23:45.650 --> 23:51.000 Human beings would [laughs] just waft up to the pearly 23:50.996 --> 23:55.936 gates like helium balloons, lighter even than air, 23:55.939 --> 24:00.579 and with no need for an external redeemer. 24:00.579 --> 24:05.389 In some ways Milton is flirting with something -- and I think 24:05.393 --> 24:08.743 the young adult book writer, Philip Pullman, 24:08.741 --> 24:12.131 absolutely has put his finger on something important in 24:12.132 --> 24:14.342 Milton, and he's a great leader and fan 24:14.341 --> 24:17.101 of Milton's -- is flirting with something that we would 24:17.097 --> 24:18.727 recognize as science fiction. 24:18.730 --> 24:21.300 It's a secular image of salvation certainly, 24:21.300 --> 24:24.230 but it's a proto-scientific image of salvation. 24:24.230 --> 24:29.260 Unfallen salvation is something like a scientific process. 24:29.259 --> 24:33.469 It's the logical and inevitable result of just a particular type 24:33.473 --> 24:36.683 of virtuous, natural behavior.Milton 24:36.675 --> 24:41.625 arrives at a theology that does something that a theology is 24:41.625 --> 24:45.565 never supposed to do: it's a radical theology of 24:45.569 --> 24:50.269 bodily transformation that essentially does away with God 24:50.268 --> 24:53.958 or does away with God as we know him. 24:53.960 --> 24:56.920 Who needs God? Adam and Eve will continue to 24:56.920 --> 24:58.420 eat. They'll eat virtuously. 24:58.420 --> 24:59.370 They'll be good people. 24:59.369 --> 25:02.459 They'll become angels, and eventually they will be 25:02.458 --> 25:06.238 subsumed into that universal ball of spiritual matter at that 25:06.240 --> 25:09.140 later point when God becomes "All in All." 25:09.140 --> 25:13.230 That's that distant point in time where there will simply be 25:13.226 --> 25:16.686 no ontological difference between man and woman, 25:16.690 --> 25:20.670 between angel and man, or between us and 25:20.665 --> 25:26.775 God.Raphael's philosophy of monism offers a truly radical 25:26.782 --> 25:32.492 vision of an exaltation -- this prelapsarian notion of an 25:32.490 --> 25:37.180 exaltation of Adam and Eve up to heaven. 25:37.180 --> 25:40.450 They could have exalted themselves, and presumably we 25:40.454 --> 25:43.984 all could have exalted ourselves simply by being good, 25:43.980 --> 25:48.590 by doing it ourselves, but this daring vision of a 25:48.588 --> 25:53.388 radical self-determination couldn't possibly be more 25:53.385 --> 25:58.835 violently opposed to the version of exaltation that Raphael 25:58.840 --> 26:03.920 explains to Adam and Eve elsewhere in Book Five. 26:03.920 --> 26:08.640 This scene I know you remember, because it's so upsetting and 26:08.642 --> 26:11.792 so unforgettable: on Adam's prompting, 26:11.789 --> 26:16.359 Raphael goes on to describe the exaltation, the anointing, 26:16.357 --> 26:17.957 of the Son of God. 26:17.960 --> 26:21.930 It's an event that comes as close to anything as explaining 26:21.934 --> 26:24.474 the very first mystery of the poem, 26:24.470 --> 26:29.410 or the central mystery of the poem -- that being the cause, 26:29.413 --> 26:31.973 the origin, of Satan's fall. 26:31.970 --> 26:36.880 You can refer here to your handy little chronology, 26:36.879 --> 26:42.769 written by Alastair Fowler, of events in Paradise Lost. 26:42.769 --> 26:46.579 The origin of Satan's fall is without question one of the 26:46.578 --> 26:50.638 most crucial problems that we have when we confront this poem. 26:50.640 --> 26:53.480 On some level, God's ways can't be justified 26:53.481 --> 26:57.711 until the origin of man's Fall can be explained or understood, 26:57.710 --> 27:00.430 and man's Fall can't be understood or explained or 27:00.428 --> 27:02.868 justified until Satan's fall is explained. 27:02.869 --> 27:07.229 To account for Satan's fall, Milton relies -- he makes 27:07.231 --> 27:09.911 all this up and it's magnificent. 27:09.910 --> 27:12.950 He's relying here on the text of the second Psalm, 27:12.951 --> 27:16.491 a chapter of the Bible that he had himself translated into 27:16.488 --> 27:20.108 English in 1653. Now the second Psalm imagines 27:20.106 --> 27:21.906 the Messiah speaking. 27:21.910 --> 27:28.170 This is that verse: "[T]he Lord to me hath said, 27:28.171 --> 27:35.541 Thou art my Son; I have begotten thee this day." 27:35.539 --> 27:38.959 No one has ever known what to do with that passage from the 27:38.964 --> 27:41.754 second Psalm. The idea that the Messiah could 27:41.752 --> 27:45.312 actually remember the day that God had begotten him had for 27:45.311 --> 27:48.991 centuries and millennia provided biblical commentators with a 27:48.994 --> 27:51.944 paradox that really bordered on the absurd. 27:51.940 --> 27:56.690 What could God have meant when he said, "I have begotten thee 27:56.690 --> 28:01.440 this day"?Milton worries and worries this problem of this 28:01.441 --> 28:03.471 begetting. He does this throughout 28:03.472 --> 28:05.762 Paradise Lost and he does it in a number of ways. 28:05.759 --> 28:10.159 He transforms this mysterious declaration that he has lifted 28:10.160 --> 28:14.340 from the second Psalm into -- he's turned it into what is 28:14.337 --> 28:18.437 essentially the originary event of the entire poem. 28:18.440 --> 28:22.890 As you can see from the chronology of the poem that 28:22.891 --> 28:26.991 Fowler gives us, the exaltation of Milton's Son 28:26.987 --> 28:32.687 of God (and Fowler unfortunately calls him Christ) doesn't really 28:32.685 --> 28:35.085 function as a Christ. 28:35.089 --> 28:37.769 Milton would never in a million years, certainly, 28:37.769 --> 28:40.559 in Paradise Lost call this fellow Christ. 28:40.559 --> 28:43.339 He doesn't call him Jesus either because the Son of God 28:43.335 --> 28:46.525 isn't Jesus yet. He's preexistent but he's not a 28:46.527 --> 28:49.887 Christ, I think, in part because Milton doesn't 28:49.892 --> 28:53.772 want us to confuse or to construe this Son of God with 28:53.769 --> 28:58.449 anything that we've learned from any of our Sunday school classes 28:58.450 --> 29:04.330 or any exposure to traditional, orthodox, mainstream Christian 29:04.328 --> 29:09.698 Protestant or Catholic thinking.This is the event 29:09.698 --> 29:16.198 -- you'll remember how important first events are in Paradise 29:16.204 --> 29:21.994 Lost -- this is the event that seems to have happened 29:21.987 --> 29:25.707 first. What occurred in heaven before 29:25.708 --> 29:29.988 this moment, the poem gives us no definitive clue of, 29:29.990 --> 29:32.370 although Satan knows there is something important that 29:32.371 --> 29:34.871 happened before this moment, and he makes an important 29:34.869 --> 29:36.479 conjecture about it prior to this. 29:36.480 --> 29:41.670 (We don't have time to look at this today, but you may want to 29:41.672 --> 29:46.782 study for yourself Satan's own theory of a first Creation, 29:46.779 --> 29:50.039 and that's the creation of the angels.) So God the Father 29:50.042 --> 29:51.792 assembles all of the angels. 29:51.789 --> 29:58.449 This is page 316 in the Hughes, Book Five, 29:58.448 --> 30:01.458 line 600. God delivers at line 600 a 30:01.463 --> 30:05.353 pronouncement that is by any standards absolutely shocking. 30:05.349 --> 30:08.859 Satan, like the other angels, was a son of God but, 30:08.862 --> 30:12.872 unlike the other Son of God -- or the other sons of God -- 30:12.866 --> 30:16.866 Satan had been one of the first archangels in heaven. 30:16.869 --> 30:20.859 The narrator suggests (this is coming from the narrator) that 30:20.855 --> 30:24.305 Satan may have been the first archangel in heaven, 30:24.309 --> 30:28.469 first both in God's favor and also in his general preeminence 30:28.466 --> 30:31.996 over the other angels because God liked him most, 30:32.000 --> 30:34.510 liked him best, and also because he was simply 30:34.510 --> 30:36.630 better than all of the other angels; 30:36.630 --> 30:40.350 and Milton continues his meditation on the multiple 30:40.345 --> 30:44.945 meanings here of "first."Now I'm going to read this passage 30:44.952 --> 30:48.102 to you, and you tell me if you think 30:48.104 --> 30:53.194 Satan might have just a teensy bit of a reason to be miffed at 30:53.191 --> 30:57.111 God's exaltation of another one of his sons, 30:57.109 --> 31:00.859 or what we have to assume is another one of his sons. 31:00.860 --> 31:04.910 This is God at line 600: Hear all ye Angels, 31:04.914 --> 31:08.104 Progeny of Light, Thrones, Dominations, 31:08.101 --> 31:10.521 Princedoms, Vertues, Powers, 31:10.519 --> 31:14.199 Hear my Decree, which unrevok't shall stand. 31:14.200 --> 31:17.670 This day I have begot whom I declare 31:17.670 --> 31:21.630 My only Son, and on this holy Hill 31:21.630 --> 31:25.300 Him have anointed, whom ye now behold 31:25.300 --> 31:30.160 At my right hand; your Head I him appoint; 31:30.160 --> 31:32.560 And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow 31:32.559 --> 31:35.929 All knees in Heav'n, and shall confess him 31:35.925 --> 31:40.025 Lord:Under his great Vice-gerent Reign abide 31:40.030 --> 31:46.840 United as one individual Soul For ever happy. 31:46.840 --> 31:47.840 What's the tone of voice? 31:47.839 --> 31:49.869 I'm [laughs] going to interrupt myself for a 31:49.874 --> 31:51.864 moment. How are we [laughs] 31:51.860 --> 31:56.710 to imagine God pronouncing that word "happy" after what he's 31:56.705 --> 31:59.085 just told us? Under his great 31:59.093 --> 32:02.473 Vice-gerent Reign abide United as one individual Soule 32:02.470 --> 32:06.360 For ever happy: him who disobeys Mee disobeyes, 32:06.359 --> 32:08.519 breaks union, and that day 32:08.519 --> 32:12.059 Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls 32:12.060 --> 32:15.800 Into utter darkness. This, of course, 32:15.804 --> 32:19.774 is a vision of an exaltation almost diametrically opposed to 32:19.765 --> 32:22.645 the exaltation of the unfallen Adam and Eve, 32:22.652 --> 32:24.132 their wafting up. 32:24.130 --> 32:25.770 The Son of God, the Messiah, 32:25.770 --> 32:28.140 doesn't seem to have exalted himself. 32:28.140 --> 32:31.300 Along what has already been established is the recognizable 32:31.300 --> 32:34.880 pattern of a kind of natural, physiological ascent, 32:34.876 --> 32:39.546 and you can imagine Milton could have pulled that off 32:39.546 --> 32:42.956 because he could pull off anything. 32:42.960 --> 32:47.050 It's possible to imagine a scenario whereby the Son had on 32:47.051 --> 32:51.141 some level eaten his way into God's favor and achieved the 32:51.143 --> 32:55.023 status of Messiah through an Adam and Eve-like virtuous 32:55.019 --> 32:57.969 metabolism, floating up to the very top of 32:57.968 --> 33:00.558 God's throne before any of the other angels. 33:00.559 --> 33:03.829 That's how damn good he was, but that's not the story that 33:03.833 --> 33:06.703 we get. According to the narrative we 33:06.695 --> 33:11.055 have, God the Father seems quite simply to have decided 33:11.061 --> 33:15.511 arbitrarily to appoint one of the angels over all of the 33:15.509 --> 33:18.419 others. Why has he done this? 33:18.420 --> 33:21.500 God does mention something about the Son's merit. 33:21.500 --> 33:24.580 Well, he will mention something about the Son's merit later in 33:24.583 --> 33:27.743 another scene of exaltation, but it's one that's already 33:27.742 --> 33:31.392 been narrated and that's the scene that we've already read in 33:31.391 --> 33:34.251 Book Three.As for this moment right now, 33:34.250 --> 33:36.990 the motives for this declaration seem perfectly 33:36.989 --> 33:39.489 inexplicable and absolutely inscrutable, 33:39.490 --> 33:44.320 and it also seems clear that this inscrutability is the point 33:44.323 --> 33:46.743 of the Father's declaration. 33:46.740 --> 33:50.430 As William Empson writes convincingly and brilliantly, 33:50.429 --> 33:53.519 although mischievously, in a wonderful book called 33:53.518 --> 33:55.798 Milton's God, the Father's declaration 33:55.799 --> 33:58.839 sounds like a challenge, like it's intended to be taken 33:58.836 --> 34:01.596 as a challenge. By saying, "On this day I have 34:01.600 --> 34:05.380 begot the Messiah," God seems almost to be suggesting that -- 34:05.381 --> 34:09.081 I don't know, that he's just created this guy 34:09.084 --> 34:14.214 out of whole cloth for this very occasion, just made him and 34:14.212 --> 34:18.212 raised this nobody to the rank of favorite. 34:18.210 --> 34:23.370 It's possible that God has just bequeathed all of his power to 34:23.374 --> 34:28.454 someone who hasn't even been around, someone who hasn't spent 34:28.454 --> 34:30.914 eternity paying his dues. 34:30.909 --> 34:33.889 What could God have been thinking? 34:33.889 --> 34:38.149 The Father knows this is an extraordinary thing to be 34:38.148 --> 34:42.078 declaring, and so he tries to soften the blow, 34:42.079 --> 34:47.499 I guess, this blow of this show of favoritism by inviting the 34:47.499 --> 34:53.459 other angels to abide "under his great Vice-gerent Reign… 34:53.460 --> 34:58.780 / united as one individual Soul / for ever happy." 34:58.780 --> 35:03.390 By "individual" the Father means "indivisible here." 35:03.389 --> 35:06.819 I'm convinced that the word "individual," which only appears 35:06.824 --> 35:10.034 twice in Paradise Lost, is one of the poem's most 35:10.025 --> 35:13.385 important words; but it has its original 35:13.389 --> 35:18.359 meaning, its etymological meaning, which simply means 35:18.363 --> 35:22.193 "can't be divided."On some level, 35:22.190 --> 35:25.600 the Father seems to be making a stab at Milton's own monistic 35:25.603 --> 35:27.143 vision of egalitarianism. 35:27.139 --> 35:31.569 The angels will all be united as one individual soul, 35:31.570 --> 35:35.570 but the Father will only invoke this harmonious, 35:35.574 --> 35:38.134 indivisible union -- when? 35:38.130 --> 35:42.020 After he's placed the Son of God at the head of the other 35:42.015 --> 35:44.795 angels. We're left to wonder just how 35:44.796 --> 35:48.886 we're supposed to reconcile this image of an indivisible 35:48.887 --> 35:52.157 egalitarianism with the competing image of an 35:52.159 --> 35:56.499 unyielding, rigorously enforced angelic 35:56.497 --> 35:59.577 hierarchy. You can recognize in this scene 35:59.579 --> 36:02.079 the opposition of irreconcilables that we've 36:02.075 --> 36:05.785 already encountered, the ones that had characterized 36:05.791 --> 36:08.711 the power relations in Milton's Eden. 36:08.710 --> 36:12.440 Milton charges this scene in heaven with its power, 36:12.442 --> 36:16.622 I think, by juxtaposing just those two forces that he was 36:16.622 --> 36:20.282 continually attempting to unite in Book Four. 36:20.280 --> 36:24.980 He yokes together the principles of freedom and 36:24.980 --> 36:30.600 equality, on the one hand, and the opposing principle of 36:30.599 --> 36:35.799 hierarchical order, on the other hand.Think how 36:35.803 --> 36:41.053 the politics in heaven here parallel the political dynamic 36:41.051 --> 36:44.551 that we've already been exposed to, 36:44.550 --> 36:48.930 that we've already seen operative on earth. 36:48.929 --> 36:53.519 In Book Four at that beautiful originary moment at the pool 36:53.519 --> 36:58.269 side, Eve had -- I think quite like Satan -- Eve had imagined 36:58.267 --> 37:01.667 herself great in favor and preeminence. 37:01.670 --> 37:04.580 She's shaken from this assumption of power and of 37:04.579 --> 37:08.339 absolute self-sufficiency when she's suddenly told that there's 37:08.337 --> 37:12.377 another creature, Adam, who has been appointed 37:12.380 --> 37:15.790 her head. Just as God does with Satan, 37:15.789 --> 37:18.989 Adam tries to soften the blow [laughs] 37:18.987 --> 37:23.907 of this arbitrary declaration of hierarchical supremacy by 37:23.914 --> 37:27.894 claiming to be united indivisibly to Eve, 37:27.889 --> 37:31.259 so Adam declares to Eve -- he seizes her hand, 37:31.264 --> 37:35.914 she yields, and he declares to her that he will have her by his 37:35.914 --> 37:40.194 side "henceforth an individual solace dear..."Milton's 37:40.190 --> 37:44.540 clearly doing something here in these two scenes with these 37:44.539 --> 37:47.989 noisy protestations of indivisibility. 37:47.989 --> 37:52.029 He invokes the beautiful notion of the interconnectedness of all 37:52.028 --> 37:55.678 of God's creatures that's implicit in this monistic vision 37:55.681 --> 37:58.651 of the first matter, but he only employs this 37:58.648 --> 38:01.918 beautiful image of a monistic unity when he's placing an 38:01.922 --> 38:04.842 absolute divide between a superior creature and an 38:04.838 --> 38:09.248 inferior one, between a greater and a lesser 38:09.250 --> 38:11.440 being. On some level, 38:11.444 --> 38:16.504 and it's very troubling, monistic indivisibility is 38:16.497 --> 38:22.457 always invoked at the most divisive moments in the poem. 38:22.460 --> 38:25.270 We can think of these as the crisis moments in Paradise 38:25.268 --> 38:27.218 Lost. At these critical moments of 38:27.216 --> 38:29.926 the arbitrary subjection of one party over the other, 38:29.929 --> 38:33.699 whether it's Adam over Eve or the Son of God over Satan and 38:33.696 --> 38:37.046 the other angels, you can see the emergence of 38:37.046 --> 38:40.596 another meaning, the modern meaning of that word 38:40.598 --> 38:43.768 "individual": "individual" as a noun rather 38:43.772 --> 38:46.722 than "individual" as an adjective. 38:46.719 --> 38:50.509 Dictionaries and historians of the English language claim that 38:50.505 --> 38:53.355 the modern meaning of the word "individual," 38:53.360 --> 38:57.080 a noun referring to a person who is self-sufficient, 38:57.075 --> 39:01.555 autonomous, independent, a being -- that this noun 39:01.563 --> 39:07.273 doesn't appear in England until later in the seventeenth 39:07.268 --> 39:10.498 century; but I think that it's precisely 39:10.495 --> 39:14.395 at these crisis moments in Paradise Lost that Milton 39:14.397 --> 39:17.497 uses the original, the traditional sense of 39:17.496 --> 39:21.426 "individual," an adjective meaning "indivisible," only to 39:21.432 --> 39:25.442 begin pushing that word and forcing it into something like 39:25.439 --> 39:28.109 its modern sense of "individual," 39:28.110 --> 39:34.650 the modern, essentially liberal idea of a human being as an 39:34.651 --> 39:38.671 absolutely isolate, self-determining, 39:38.672 --> 39:44.212 fundamentally unaffiliated person.Here at the scene of 39:44.212 --> 39:48.782 the Son's exaltation Milton -- I don't know. 39:48.780 --> 39:52.100 For a lot of readers, this is really a repellant 39:52.095 --> 39:54.955 scene. It's a scene of a tyrannical 39:54.960 --> 39:58.000 and arbitrary ordering of a society. 39:58.000 --> 40:01.370 Milton does this only to display a little window, 40:01.369 --> 40:05.019 I think, onto a totally different kind of society. 40:05.019 --> 40:08.929 You can see in this word "individual" a glimpse into the 40:08.925 --> 40:12.115 world of what we can think of as modernity. 40:12.119 --> 40:16.969 Paradise Lost is just on the cusp of a liberal worldview, 40:16.969 --> 40:21.359 and the poem provides us a glimpse of the liberal world of 40:21.356 --> 40:24.556 equal individuals, a world of rational 40:24.560 --> 40:28.770 self-determination and self-exaltation rather than the 40:28.772 --> 40:33.382 arbitrary subjection of one class of creatures over another 40:33.382 --> 40:38.312 class.So it's one thing for Satan to witness this seemingly 40:38.310 --> 40:41.410 arbitrary exaltation of the Son. 40:41.409 --> 40:43.969 This arouses in him, as you can imagine, 40:43.967 --> 40:46.587 feelings of injustice that, of course, 40:46.590 --> 40:52.410 famously leave him to coax a third of all of the other angels 40:52.414 --> 40:55.234 in a rebellion against God. 40:55.230 --> 40:58.910 That was bad enough, but it's an entirely different 40:58.906 --> 41:02.136 matter, I think, when Satan learns -- I don't 41:02.142 --> 41:06.552 know if "learns" is the right verb -- when Satan hears in his 41:06.554 --> 41:11.194 discussion with Abdiel that God created everything including the 41:11.187 --> 41:15.597 angels themselves by means of the agency of the Son, 41:15.600 --> 41:18.950 through the Son. For Satan this is a 41:18.951 --> 41:23.491 mind-blowing revelation, and it's hard to miss as so 41:23.489 --> 41:28.559 surprising because we take this as just orthodoxy that any 41:28.563 --> 41:32.393 right-thinking Christian might accept. 41:32.390 --> 41:36.080 Look at page 322. 41:36.080 --> 41:41.450 This is line 835 of Book Five. 41:41.449 --> 41:44.709 When Abdiel tells Satan, "Why are you so upset, 41:44.712 --> 41:46.702 Satan? Of course, he would exalt the 41:46.695 --> 41:48.805 Son. It was the Son through whom we 41:48.807 --> 41:52.667 were all created" -- this notion just pushes Satan further than 41:52.668 --> 41:54.098 anything pushes him. 41:54.099 --> 41:58.519 This new revelation pushes him into making one of the greatest 41:58.518 --> 42:02.138 formulations of the modern -- an outrageous one, 42:02.139 --> 42:04.119 but it's central to the modern principle of 42:04.115 --> 42:06.745 individualism.Let me give you a little background. 42:06.750 --> 42:10.650 Abdiel has traveled with Satan and the other disloyal angels, 42:10.650 --> 42:13.450 the rebel angels, to the northern quarter of 42:13.445 --> 42:15.945 heaven; but Abdiel, like Milton himself 42:15.947 --> 42:19.287 during the English Revolution -- and Abdiel was in some way 42:19.291 --> 42:22.921 Milton's self-portrait -- Abdiel was willing to distance himself 42:22.923 --> 42:25.463 from the mob sensibility of the rebels. 42:25.460 --> 42:29.300 He stands up to Satan with the pious rage, the zeal, 42:29.297 --> 42:32.907 that Milton always fancied himself capable of. 42:32.909 --> 42:38.319 So Abdiel asks Satan, and this is at the top of page 42:38.322 --> 42:44.802 322, how he can dare to question God's justice in exalting the 42:44.796 --> 42:47.976 Son over the other angels. 42:47.980 --> 42:50.720 Abdiel tells Satan it was the Son, by whom 42:50.719 --> 42:53.529 As by his Word, the mighty Father made 42:53.530 --> 42:58.120 All things, ev'n thee, and all the Spirits of Heav'n 42:58.119 --> 43:01.639 By him created in thir bright degrees… 43:01.639 --> 43:04.489 Abdiel tells Satan that if it weren't for the Son of God, 43:04.487 --> 43:06.417 Satan would never have been created. 43:06.420 --> 43:09.190 It's Satan- [laughs] who certainly seems to be 43:09.194 --> 43:11.484 shocked here, and it's his response to 43:11.475 --> 43:14.995 Abdiel's claim that is, I think, one of the most 43:15.003 --> 43:18.583 stunning, one of the most outrageous moments in 43:18.576 --> 43:21.756 Paradise Lost. Line 852. 43:21.760 --> 43:28.430 Satan is aghast that we were: [F]orm'd then sayest thou? 43:28.430 --> 43:30.100 and the work Of secondary hands, 43:30.099 --> 43:33.469 by task transferr'd From Father to his Son? 43:33.470 --> 43:36.650 strange point and new! 43:36.650 --> 43:38.540 Doctrine which we would know whence learnt: 43:38.544 --> 43:41.434 who saw When this creation was? 43:41.430 --> 43:44.660 remember'st thou Thy making, while the Maker 43:44.659 --> 43:49.119 gave thee being? We know no time when we were 43:49.117 --> 43:52.407 not as now; Know none before us, 43:52.405 --> 43:56.945 self-begot, self-rais'd By our own quick'ning power, 43:56.945 --> 44:00.555 when fatal course Had circl'd his full Orb, 44:00.557 --> 44:05.187 the birth mature Of this our native Heav'n, 44:05.193 --> 44:09.263 Ethereal Sons. Now, nearly everyone agrees 44:09.263 --> 44:12.773 that -- all Milton critics agree that this claim for angelic 44:12.768 --> 44:15.978 self-creation is in one way or the other crucial to our 44:15.976 --> 44:19.296 understanding of the fall of the rebel angels and Satan's 44:19.302 --> 44:21.562 justification of the rebellion. 44:21.559 --> 44:24.259 This claim of self-creation obviously prepares Satan for 44:24.259 --> 44:27.159 that pronouncement that he will make later in hell but which 44:27.155 --> 44:29.065 comes at the beginning of the poem, 44:29.070 --> 44:32.620 that claim for the absolute priority of the mind: 44:32.615 --> 44:36.895 the mind is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, 44:36.900 --> 44:42.790 a hell of heaven.Now Abdiel surely is right to insist that 44:42.793 --> 44:48.693 not only were the -- we have to give it to Abdiel that he's on 44:48.687 --> 44:52.287 to something, that the angels were created 44:52.292 --> 44:55.242 and not only that, they were created in all 44:55.236 --> 44:58.316 likelihood through the agency of the Son; 44:58.320 --> 45:02.400 but even though Abdiel's right, Satan's theory of angelic 45:02.395 --> 45:04.865 origin isn't easily dismissible. 45:04.869 --> 45:07.609 It's not as easily dismissible as it is by C.S. 45:07.608 --> 45:11.238 Lewis in the little quotation at the bottom of the handout. 45:11.239 --> 45:15.479 I always try to make a little plug for the validity of at 45:15.484 --> 45:18.824 least a little of a part of Satan's claim. 45:18.820 --> 45:21.480 I want to do this because on some level, I think Satan's 45:21.481 --> 45:24.291 outrageous argument here is one of the greatest things that 45:24.287 --> 45:26.607 anybody gets to say in Paradise Lost, 45:26.610 --> 45:30.120 because if we're going to understand the origin of 45:30.120 --> 45:32.830 Satan's fall, we have to understand something 45:32.830 --> 45:35.850 about the origin of Satan himself.You have the 45:35.849 --> 45:37.819 chronology on the handout. 45:37.820 --> 45:40.830 It's right to place the exaltation of the Son as the 45:40.833 --> 45:44.323 first event officially described in Paradise Lost, 45:44.320 --> 45:47.220 but there's of course an event that happened before 45:47.219 --> 45:50.369 that which Milton's narrative very carefully never describes, 45:50.369 --> 45:55.019 and that's the creation of the angels. 45:55.019 --> 45:58.659 So we get Satan's theory of the creation of the angels and 45:58.658 --> 46:02.328 Abdiel, as we would expect, takes great offense, 46:02.332 --> 46:07.532 but it's important -- and Abdiel's right and Satan's wrong 46:07.525 --> 46:12.535 -- but it's important to determine exactly what is wrong 46:12.535 --> 46:18.635 about Satan's theology here and how it would counter Milton's. 46:18.639 --> 46:21.619 Satan's obviously wrong to ascribe the creation of the 46:21.619 --> 46:24.769 angels to something like a random occurrence of fate when 46:24.766 --> 46:27.496 Satan says, "when fatal course / had 46:27.504 --> 46:29.324 circl'd his full Orb." 46:29.320 --> 46:32.550 Milton's explained a number of times in the poem that there's 46:32.545 --> 46:34.745 no such thing as a power called "fate," 46:34.750 --> 46:37.760 so that's easily dismissible.But it's not 46:37.760 --> 46:41.800 absolutely clear to me that Satan is wrong to claim that the 46:41.796 --> 46:45.966 angels are "self-rais'd / by their own quick'ning power." 46:45.969 --> 46:50.189 I think on some level this has to be seen as true, 46:50.188 --> 46:55.438 at least according to what we know of the dynamic processes in 46:55.439 --> 46:59.399 Milton's account of the monistic Creation. 46:59.400 --> 47:03.420 God has impregnated matter with spirit, and after this initial 47:03.415 --> 47:07.365 act of impregnation he seems able to allow this spiritualized 47:07.365 --> 47:11.445 matter pretty much to organize itself on its own into all these 47:11.446 --> 47:14.866 beautiful and varied forms of creation. 47:14.869 --> 47:18.099 If we're not completely shocked to hear Satan's claim for having 47:18.095 --> 47:20.395 raised himself by his own quickening power, 47:20.400 --> 47:24.450 at least upon a rereading of Paradise Lost that might 47:24.450 --> 47:28.840 be because it looks an awful lot like the theory of creation that 47:28.843 --> 47:30.563 we get in Book Seven. 47:30.559 --> 47:34.529 It also sounds like a moment in Book Three that we've already 47:34.527 --> 47:38.297 encountered: when the angel Uriel -- the angel that Milton 47:38.297 --> 47:41.667 credits for having the best eyesight in heaven, 47:41.670 --> 47:45.490 rather remarkably -- when Uriel gives us his eyewitness account 47:45.490 --> 47:49.820 of the Creation, it sounds a little bit like 47:49.824 --> 47:56.874 Satan's.Satan's argument that the angels are self-raised 47:56.869 --> 48:00.929 has something, I think, like a foundation even 48:00.926 --> 48:02.296 in Book Five itself. 48:02.300 --> 48:05.770 It begins to resemble that condition of absolute 48:05.773 --> 48:10.353 self-determination that Raphael had promised to Adam and Eve if 48:10.354 --> 48:12.354 they remained obedient. 48:12.349 --> 48:15.009 If Adam and Eve will only remain sinless, 48:15.008 --> 48:18.398 they'll be able to raise themselves to that ethereal 48:18.398 --> 48:20.258 state of angelic status. 48:20.260 --> 48:23.300 This is a world in which individuals -- rational, 48:23.295 --> 48:26.895 self-determining individuals -- determine their own status 48:26.900 --> 48:30.690 rather than accept one that has been arbitrarily imposed upon 48:30.694 --> 48:33.444 them. This is an egalitarian world 48:33.435 --> 48:37.815 that Milton is introducing us to, and I think that in moments 48:37.818 --> 48:41.108 such as these, we see Milton laboring to 48:41.113 --> 48:46.123 arrive at a theory of matter and a theory of creation that can 48:46.123 --> 48:49.083 support something like a poetics; 48:49.079 --> 48:51.459 a poetics but also a philosophy, a political 48:51.462 --> 48:53.182 philosophy of egalitarianism. 48:53.179 --> 48:57.169 To claim that matter can move itself to organize itself into 48:57.174 --> 49:01.284 stars and into angels, which is what Uriel will claim 49:01.279 --> 49:06.399 happens, is essentially to lay the philosophical foundation for 49:06.404 --> 49:10.794 a political philosophy that's not authoritarian by any 49:10.785 --> 49:13.425 stretch. It's not even hierarchical: 49:13.431 --> 49:14.481 it's egalitarian. 49:14.480 --> 49:17.930 This is a physics, a theological physics that can 49:17.932 --> 49:20.452 bolster the claims of a politics. 49:20.449 --> 49:24.439 It's a philosophy that can imagine human beings as being 49:24.443 --> 49:28.653 equally capable of organizing themselves and creating their 49:28.653 --> 49:32.943 own sense of order without the meddlesome intervention of an 49:32.937 --> 49:37.197 arbitrary God.Now, many of my colleagues in the 49:37.195 --> 49:41.885 Milton community dismiss the possibility that there could be 49:41.885 --> 49:46.095 anything even remotely like something valid in Satan's 49:46.097 --> 49:48.877 wonderful rejoinder to Abdiel. 49:48.880 --> 49:52.760 They nearly always overlook the Creation account that we get 49:52.755 --> 49:56.365 from Uriel in Book Three, which I think supports on some 49:56.368 --> 49:58.468 level part of Satan's claim. 49:58.469 --> 50:02.949 They're also eager to dismiss Eve's feelings of injustice at 50:02.949 --> 50:04.619 her inferior status. 50:04.619 --> 50:08.079 They dismiss it as just another one of Milton's unquestioning 50:08.081 --> 50:11.891 acts of misogyny -- but I don't think it's unquestioning at all. 50:11.889 --> 50:15.989 All three of these examples for me demonstrate Milton's 50:15.988 --> 50:20.308 willingness to question nearly every form of religious and 50:20.313 --> 50:22.973 social and political orthodoxy. 50:22.969 --> 50:28.419 Milton is continually putting the official doctrines of even 50:28.422 --> 50:30.642 his own poem on trial. 50:30.639 --> 50:34.519 He's continually pitting the narrator's own celebration of 50:34.520 --> 50:38.060 hierarchy -- Milton's own celebration of hierarchy -- 50:38.060 --> 50:42.210 against a more subversive and a more questioning philosophy of 50:42.213 --> 50:46.093 egalitarianism.Milton's narrator -- and Milton is with 50:46.093 --> 50:50.183 him to some extent -- comes down most firmly on the side of a 50:50.178 --> 50:55.808 divinely established hierarchy, but this exquisitely textured, 50:55.808 --> 50:59.688 richly textured poem can be distinguished, 50:59.688 --> 51:04.418 and in fact I think it has to be distinguished, 51:04.420 --> 51:09.410 from the views of the narrator. 51:09.409 --> 51:12.879 On some incredibly important level that's not on the level of 51:12.881 --> 51:16.421 what the narrator tells us, the poem is itself insistently 51:16.423 --> 51:19.343 egalitarian, and I mean that in a special sense: 51:19.343 --> 51:23.013 it's egalitarian in the sense that it's a poem rather than a 51:23.008 --> 51:26.548 dogmatic treatise or a work of political philosophy. 51:26.550 --> 51:30.180 As a poem, Paradise Lost places all of its divergent 51:30.180 --> 51:33.620 theories and all of its competing ideologies and visions 51:33.622 --> 51:37.382 of the way the world works -- places them all side by side on 51:37.378 --> 51:40.068 something like a level playing field, 51:40.070 --> 51:43.230 the playing field of the poetic line. 51:43.230 --> 51:47.760 The poem connects these competing ideas with nothing 51:47.764 --> 51:52.924 more leading than that most liberal of all conjunctions, 51:52.921 --> 51:56.111 or. This poem makes the reader the 51:56.106 --> 52:00.736 equal of the poet because either this is the case or that is the 52:00.741 --> 52:03.171 case, and Milton is always telling us 52:03.172 --> 52:04.422 to decide ourselves. 52:04.420 --> 52:08.250 The poem lays down -- and I'll conclude here -- a range of 52:08.252 --> 52:11.682 ideological possibilities, and it does that from its 52:11.682 --> 52:14.172 opening line to its closing line; 52:14.170 --> 52:21.340 and then it permits the reader, or maybe I should say it forces 52:21.338 --> 52:28.158 the reader, to choose among these possibilities.Okay. 52:28.159 --> 52:31.529 We're on a roll, this is our big week: 52:31.534 --> 52:35.004 Books Seven and Eight for next time.