WEBVTT 00:01.980 --> 00:05.000 Professor John Rogers: In Book Five of Paradise 00:05.001 --> 00:07.921 Lost, Milton's theory of monism -- that's the theory of 00:07.921 --> 00:10.741 the "one first matter" that we looked at last time -- the 00:10.741 --> 00:13.401 theory of monism, or vitalism or animist 00:13.397 --> 00:16.597 materialism, there are a number of terms for it, 00:16.597 --> 00:19.467 arises in the context, you'll remember, 00:19.468 --> 00:21.878 of a discussion about digestion. 00:21.880 --> 00:27.330 I'll just remind you: Adam simply asked Raphael how 00:27.325 --> 00:31.895 it was that angels could eat human food, 00:31.900 --> 00:38.060 and Raphael responded with his radical claim for a continuum of 00:38.056 --> 00:41.826 matter and spirit in God's universe. 00:41.830 --> 00:46.920 The process of digestion was no more suggestive or important to 00:46.924 --> 00:51.444 the Archangel Raphael than, of course, it was for Milton 00:51.443 --> 00:54.853 himself. You'll remember that letter to 00:54.849 --> 00:57.999 the famous Dr. Leonard Philaras in which 00:57.995 --> 01:02.585 Milton had explained that it was his bad digestion that he 01:02.593 --> 01:07.113 believed was largely responsible for his blindness. 01:07.109 --> 01:10.559 Milton's digestive theory of blindness was actually a 01:10.560 --> 01:14.340 perfectly reasonable medical hypothesis in the seventeenth 01:14.343 --> 01:17.243 century. Theorists of digestion were 01:17.244 --> 01:21.304 continually arguing that unescaped gases could easily 01:21.298 --> 01:25.658 rise up in the body.But Milton's own adoption of this 01:25.663 --> 01:30.603 theory served a particular and, I think, an important purpose. 01:30.599 --> 01:34.349 Nearly every -- actually this is a point that's made most 01:34.349 --> 01:38.299 brilliantly in a book that I think Matthew Valdiviez has. 01:38.300 --> 01:39.560 It's by Michael Lieb. 01:39.560 --> 01:42.400 Please hold up the book because it's a great book. 01:42.400 --> 01:45.230 It's called The Dialetics of Creation. 01:45.230 --> 01:48.760 Thank you for reminding me that I'm indebted to Lieb for 01:48.757 --> 01:51.987 this point: nearly every important event in Paradise 01:51.986 --> 01:55.626 Lost is represented in some way or another as a process of 01:55.633 --> 01:59.273 digestion. Raphael tells Adam -- the 01:59.270 --> 02:03.560 archangel says, "Knowledge is as food." 02:03.560 --> 02:07.400 Adam must therefore ingest knowledge temperately just as 02:07.399 --> 02:11.099 it's his obligation to ingest food temperately and, 02:11.099 --> 02:13.929 of course, in moderation.But it's not just 02:13.932 --> 02:17.522 knowledge: everything is digestive in Paradise Lost. 02:17.520 --> 02:20.050 The process that we looked at last time, 02:20.048 --> 02:22.928 the transformation of Adam and Eve into angels, 02:22.930 --> 02:25.040 was going to be, as you remember, 02:25.037 --> 02:27.537 the product of a virtuous digestion; 02:27.539 --> 02:30.779 but so, too, will the expulsion of the rebel 02:30.777 --> 02:35.067 angels be, their expulsion from heaven when the Son of God 02:35.069 --> 02:39.209 drives them out with his chariot of paternal deity. 02:39.210 --> 02:41.690 They are essentially eliminated as waste. 02:41.690 --> 02:45.350 They're purged from the space of heaven. 02:45.349 --> 02:50.419 Milton fills his account of that expulsion with really all 02:50.419 --> 02:53.799 of the scatology that he can muster, 02:53.800 --> 02:57.260 and even the Last Judgment will be described in terms of a 02:57.262 --> 02:58.662 process of digestion. 02:58.660 --> 03:02.750 The saved will be assimilated into the body of God, 03:02.745 --> 03:07.445 into the body of the universe, and the damned at the end of 03:07.449 --> 03:11.259 time will be excreted into hell.I think Milton's 03:11.256 --> 03:15.356 transforming a lot of these absolutely central events in 03:15.361 --> 03:19.991 Christian history into something like scenes of digestion for a 03:19.988 --> 03:21.778 very good reason. 03:21.780 --> 03:26.310 By turning these moments into little or big digestive 03:26.308 --> 03:31.448 episodes, Milton's able on some level -- although this might 03:31.446 --> 03:36.406 sound irrational -- to rationalize Christian history. 03:36.410 --> 03:41.110 The process of digestion was of extraordinary interest in the 03:41.114 --> 03:44.654 seventeenth century, and scientists were fascinated 03:44.645 --> 03:47.835 in it because digestion, like a lot of other processes 03:47.835 --> 03:51.185 in the human body, seems to work without our own 03:51.192 --> 03:54.662 conscious knowledge and certainly without our own 03:54.656 --> 03:58.076 control. Digestion is a self-enclosed 03:58.078 --> 04:03.428 system that seems to obey its own natural laws rather than 04:03.430 --> 04:07.280 responding to an exercise of our will. 04:07.280 --> 04:10.520 Milton imagines so much of Christian history as scenes of 04:10.516 --> 04:13.806 digestion in a way, I think, because he needs to 04:13.814 --> 04:17.314 imagine them as occurring without the deliberate 04:17.314 --> 04:21.784 manipulation of the heavenly Father or in some way beyond the 04:21.781 --> 04:23.421 Father's control. 04:23.420 --> 04:28.910 I think Milton is continually fending off the Calvinist image 04:28.912 --> 04:32.302 of an arbitrary and punitive deity. 04:32.300 --> 04:35.710 So the fall of the rebel angels, the Fall of man, 04:35.713 --> 04:39.483 the Last Judgment -- all of these events are perfectly 04:39.483 --> 04:41.473 reasonable, natural and, 04:41.474 --> 04:45.404 at least from one important perspective in the poem, 04:45.401 --> 04:49.441 reasonable, natural, and also organic 04:49.443 --> 04:56.563 consequences of freely willed, self-determined human behavior 04:56.557 --> 04:59.637 or creaturely behavior. 04:59.639 --> 05:02.329 This is important for Milton: they're not examples of God's 05:02.330 --> 05:04.790 skittish and arbitrary punishment of his creatures, 05:04.790 --> 05:08.500 and that distinction is arising everywhere in Paradise 05:08.496 --> 05:12.066 Lost.Now Book Seven is the book of creation. 05:12.069 --> 05:15.229 Here more than anywhere we would expect, 05:15.231 --> 05:19.691 I think, a representation of the extraordinary degree of 05:19.689 --> 05:23.899 power and control that the heavenly Father is able to 05:23.904 --> 05:26.874 exercise. What is the Creation, 05:26.868 --> 05:31.278 after all, if not an arbitrary display of the Father's 05:31.281 --> 05:34.741 omnipotence? Milton knows that that's the 05:34.741 --> 05:38.691 case, but at the same time that he celebrates that, 05:38.690 --> 05:42.640 he's also struggling to represent it otherwise; 05:42.639 --> 05:48.119 and so he charges even the Creation itself with this same 05:48.117 --> 05:52.027 cluster of images involving digestion. 05:52.029 --> 05:57.479 Look for example -- this is the top of page 352, 05:57.482 --> 06:00.152 Book Seven, line 234. 06:00.149 --> 06:03.299 I think this is one of the most -- it's puzzling, 06:03.296 --> 06:07.226 and for a lot of readers it's one of the most physiologically 06:07.230 --> 06:10.970 suggestive of all of the natural processes that seem to be 06:10.966 --> 06:13.126 described in Milton's poem. 06:13.129 --> 06:15.909 The Holy Spirit -- and the Holy Spirit is an interesting entity 06:15.907 --> 06:18.637 for Milton. It seems to be something like 06:18.638 --> 06:23.228 Milton's name for a principle of energy behind a lot of natural 06:23.231 --> 06:27.381 processes, a divinely sanctioned principle of energy. 06:27.379 --> 06:31.129 The Holy Spirit inseminates chaos. 06:31.130 --> 06:33.520 This is Milton: [O]n the watr'y calm 06:33.519 --> 06:36.959 His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread, 06:36.959 --> 06:41.259 And vital vertue infus'd, and vital warmth 06:41.259 --> 06:44.169 Throughout the fluid Mass... 06:44.170 --> 06:48.920 Raphael describes the Holy Spirit's stunningly -- and we're 06:48.921 --> 06:53.261 getting used to this -- stunningly ambisexual behavior 06:53.262 --> 06:57.352 in brooding over and then, of course, inseminating the 06:57.345 --> 06:58.845 fluid mass of the abyss. 06:58.850 --> 07:01.700 This is the process, you'll remember, 07:01.704 --> 07:06.704 that actually supplies chaos with that vital power of motion, 07:06.699 --> 07:11.159 the vital power of warmth and virtue that's so consequential 07:11.157 --> 07:15.087 for Milton's theory of monism.These are all ideas 07:15.086 --> 07:19.166 that Milton discusses in a theoretical frame in chapter 07:19.165 --> 07:22.485 seven of Of Christian Doctrine. 07:22.490 --> 07:24.960 There are seven days of creation, and Milton has a kind 07:24.961 --> 07:27.851 of numerological bent, and so it will be on Book Seven 07:27.849 --> 07:31.369 of Paradise Lost in which the Creation is discussed and 07:31.370 --> 07:34.660 chapter seven of Of Christian Doctrine in which the 07:34.661 --> 07:36.221 Creation is discussed. 07:36.220 --> 07:39.970 It's this step -- this inseminating step, 07:39.966 --> 07:45.396 in which all of creation is filled with the goodness of God 07:45.398 --> 07:50.828 -- that really goes to the heart of Milton's theodicy. 07:50.829 --> 07:53.879 Because of this infusion of divinity -- because of it, 07:53.875 --> 07:57.885 everything that God creates, every natural thing, 07:57.889 --> 08:04.299 must on some level be naturally good, necessarily good. 08:04.300 --> 08:08.410 I think this much makes sense.But Raphael also 08:08.413 --> 08:11.943 describes a moment in the Creation that, 08:11.939 --> 08:15.219 I think, is a little more difficult for us to reconcile 08:15.219 --> 08:18.679 with what we know or what we feel that we know of Milton's 08:18.681 --> 08:21.561 monism. Look how this same passage 08:21.556 --> 08:25.386 continues. This is line 237: 08:25.389 --> 08:30.269 [B]ut downward [the Holy Spirit is the subject of the 08:30.271 --> 08:31.451 verb] purg'd 08:31.449 --> 08:34.909 The black tartareous cold Infernal dregs 08:34.909 --> 08:37.529 Adverse to life: then founded, 08:37.532 --> 08:40.172 then conglob'd Like things to like, 08:40.166 --> 08:44.936 the rest to several place Disparted, and between spun out 08:44.944 --> 08:49.034 the Air… The Holy Spirit "downward 08:49.029 --> 08:53.399 purg'd / The black tartareous cold Infernal dregs / Adverse to 08:53.395 --> 08:56.385 life." The Holy Spirit doesn't merely 08:56.386 --> 09:00.216 infuse chaos with vital virtue and vital warmth. 09:00.220 --> 09:03.190 It purges something from chaos, too. 09:03.190 --> 09:07.090 It's this strange digestive moment in Milton's text that has 09:07.091 --> 09:10.601 left students of Milton's theology and students of the 09:10.596 --> 09:13.766 poem scratching their heads in bewilderment, 09:13.770 --> 09:16.260 and it's for some reason. 09:16.259 --> 09:20.909 Milton is usually so precise and really every word and every 09:20.913 --> 09:25.333 image can almost always be accounted for -- but dregs? 09:25.330 --> 09:29.220 This is the question: where did these dregs come 09:29.220 --> 09:33.210 from? Why are there any dregs in the 09:33.213 --> 09:40.043 inseminated space of chaos that actually need to be purged? 09:40.039 --> 09:41.759 Think of the logic of Milton's creation. 09:41.759 --> 09:46.229 God's infusion of vital virtue and vital warmth should have 09:46.229 --> 09:50.929 completely filled the matter of chaos with spirit and life. 09:50.929 --> 09:54.789 At least theoretically, all matter should be steeped 09:54.793 --> 09:58.523 with spirit and energy and, according to all of Milton's 09:58.516 --> 10:01.406 theories of this vitalist universe in the Christian 10:01.405 --> 10:04.865 Doctrine, there shouldn't be anything 10:04.867 --> 10:07.857 in Milton's creation, technically, 10:07.855 --> 10:10.205 that's adverse to life. 10:10.210 --> 10:13.250 This really is crucial for Milton's understanding of how 10:13.253 --> 10:15.913 the universe is put together and it's crucial, 10:15.909 --> 10:20.019 too, for his theodicy, but these dregs here are simply 10:20.023 --> 10:24.913 -- there's no other way to read them: they are dead and they are 10:24.912 --> 10:29.262 inert.I'm going to be applying some pressure to these 10:29.258 --> 10:34.148 lines because what we have here is a moment of some metaphysical 10:34.147 --> 10:36.927 incoherence, and it's metaphysical 10:36.931 --> 10:40.161 incoherence at the very heart of Milton's account of the 10:40.156 --> 10:43.096 creation. This incoherence is announced 10:43.099 --> 10:47.109 with that wonderful word, "dregs," that Milton weighs 10:47.114 --> 10:50.754 down so much. He weighs it down with well, 10:50.754 --> 10:55.564 four contiguous adjectives: "black," "tartareous" -- what 10:55.562 --> 11:00.802 an awkward line -- "black tartareous cold Infernal dregs." 11:00.799 --> 11:04.139 I've spent a lot of time thinking about these lines, 11:04.136 --> 11:06.946 and I've also written about this problem, 11:06.950 --> 11:10.950 and so I'm going to ask that you to permit me a little 11:10.953 --> 11:14.733 digression -- not that you really have a choice, 11:14.730 --> 11:18.010 but I'm just announcing to you this fact that I will be 11:18.011 --> 11:21.231 digressing now.What I'm going to do is give you my 11:21.231 --> 11:23.661 theory, my pet theory, 11:23.659 --> 11:27.429 of Milton's tartareous dregs. 11:27.429 --> 11:30.579 I'm convinced here that Milton is participating in a 11:30.577 --> 11:33.597 contemporary conversation involving one of his pet 11:33.601 --> 11:36.441 subjects and one of his favorite subjects, 11:36.440 --> 11:38.230 which is that of digestion. 11:38.230 --> 11:41.160 This is a debate -- and certainly it's not Milton's 11:41.156 --> 11:44.546 debate, this is one that he inherits -- it's a debate about 11:44.551 --> 11:47.831 those indigestible elements of food known as dregs in the 11:47.828 --> 11:50.168 sixteenth and seventeenth century, 11:50.170 --> 11:52.830 also known as tartar. 11:52.830 --> 11:55.030 I'm going to give you a little bit of information about the 11:55.031 --> 11:56.361 Renaissance philosophy of tartar, 11:56.360 --> 12:00.100 if you can believe it there is such a thing, 12:00.100 --> 12:05.410 because I think it provides a good example of just the kind of 12:05.408 --> 12:09.928 seemingly cockamamie contemporary philosophical world 12:09.932 --> 12:14.722 that a lot of early modern intellectuals inhabit.The 12:14.716 --> 12:19.146 key figure in the science of dregs and tartar is the 12:19.153 --> 12:24.203 sixteenth-century German philosopher Paracelsus. 12:24.200 --> 12:28.540 Literally, tartareous dregs are simply the residue, 12:28.536 --> 12:32.436 the sediment, produced by wine and vinegar. 12:32.440 --> 12:36.090 We still have a substance -- and if you cook you are familiar 12:36.085 --> 12:39.115 with this -- a substance made of vinegar sediments, 12:39.122 --> 12:41.312 and it's called cream of tartar. 12:41.309 --> 12:46.579 Well, Paracelsus had actually developed an entire philosophy 12:46.578 --> 12:50.948 which had as its center his understanding of these 12:50.954 --> 12:54.774 tartareous dregs, so tartar for Paracelsus was 12:54.772 --> 12:58.732 the stuff that hardened into stones within the gallbladder 12:58.725 --> 13:00.455 and within the kidney. 13:00.460 --> 13:03.960 This was the explanation for gallstones or kidney stones, 13:03.958 --> 13:07.638 and tartar was also the same material that formed a hardened 13:07.643 --> 13:10.333 yellowish substance that we still call, 13:10.330 --> 13:13.170 of course, tartar of the teeth. 13:13.169 --> 13:16.469 Milton in the seventeenth century would have called it 13:16.470 --> 13:19.900 "tooth tartar," and more commonly it was known as "tooth 13:19.895 --> 13:21.645 stone." For Paracelsus, 13:21.646 --> 13:25.266 if there's any natural substance on this planet that 13:25.271 --> 13:28.471 can be identified unequivocally with evil, 13:28.470 --> 13:33.320 it is tartar, and I mean metaphysical evil. 13:33.320 --> 13:36.690 Given the import of this matter, Paracelsus was prompted 13:36.690 --> 13:39.630 to ask the same question that we are all [laughs] 13:39.632 --> 13:42.882 prone to ask when we're squirming on the dentist chair 13:42.880 --> 13:46.310 as we're having our teeth cleaned: where in the hell does 13:46.312 --> 13:48.092 this stuff come from? 13:48.090 --> 13:51.040 Paracelsus' answer to this question was a theological one, 13:51.042 --> 13:53.842 which is why I think Milton was so interested in it, 13:53.840 --> 13:57.660 although Milton eventually had to reject it altogether.Now 13:57.658 --> 14:01.288 of course, I'm not suggesting that the central intellectual 14:01.289 --> 14:05.109 context for understanding this part of Paradise Lost is 14:05.108 --> 14:08.988 the history of dentistry or the history of oral hygiene. 14:08.990 --> 14:12.910 Nonetheless we have a moment of Milton's engagement with a 14:12.908 --> 14:16.618 contemporary theory, however seemingly off the wall. 14:16.620 --> 14:21.210 This is the theory of tartar, which was easily as theological 14:21.214 --> 14:24.974 and philosophical in the sixteenth and seventeenth 14:24.966 --> 14:27.796 centuries as it was dental: okay, 14:27.799 --> 14:31.459 so for Paracelsus, tartar originates in the food 14:31.463 --> 14:36.303 we eat, and the tartar that ends up on your teeth is simply the 14:36.295 --> 14:40.655 indigestible, unassimilable parts of that 14:40.663 --> 14:43.203 food. For a lot of Paracelsus' 14:43.200 --> 14:47.540 contemporaries this was an incredibly troubling theory. 14:47.539 --> 14:50.379 A lot of Milton's contemporaries said so, 14:50.384 --> 14:54.014 and so they had to reject completely the Paracelsian 14:54.011 --> 14:57.991 theory -- you can guess why -- because Paracelsus' theory 14:57.994 --> 15:01.384 implied, of course, that tartar had been 15:01.378 --> 15:05.928 created by God -- it's part of the natural world -- and that 15:05.925 --> 15:10.235 God was somehow responsible for the origin of evil in his 15:10.241 --> 15:13.081 creation. And so you have philosophers 15:13.081 --> 15:16.411 and theologians in the seventeenth century weighing in 15:16.414 --> 15:19.564 on the tartar question, on the origin of dregs. 15:19.559 --> 15:22.849 Of course, for the most part they're obliged to attack 15:22.849 --> 15:26.449 Paracelsus.The entire tartar controversy and all of the 15:26.449 --> 15:29.929 things that this controversy suggests about the nature of 15:29.925 --> 15:34.625 divine justice -- all of this, I think, gets compacted into 15:34.631 --> 15:39.571 this one truly extraordinary line: "black tartareous cold 15:39.573 --> 15:43.323 Infernal dregs." Milton is using this incredibly 15:43.319 --> 15:47.189 striking and strange sequence of words at this point in his 15:47.191 --> 15:50.931 creation account because he wants to open up the question 15:50.929 --> 15:53.799 for his contemporary audience -- it's, 15:53.799 --> 15:58.079 of course, lost on us -- the question of the nature of divine 15:58.077 --> 16:00.027 justice. Milton, I think, 16:00.026 --> 16:04.506 in Book Seven is relatively torn about the kind of God that 16:04.507 --> 16:08.677 he wants or that he needs to represent in the poem. 16:08.679 --> 16:12.689 Is Milton's God the punitive and arbitrary God -- something 16:12.694 --> 16:16.484 like an anthropomorphic deity, a God capable, 16:16.480 --> 16:22.760 as Paracelsus had suggested, of actually creating evil? 16:22.759 --> 16:27.159 Or is he a God from a slightly later deistic perspective, 16:27.164 --> 16:31.884 a God that we can identify with the more rational or the more 16:31.883 --> 16:36.373 natural processes implied in the theory of monism in which 16:36.365 --> 16:41.075 everything in God's creation is just necessarily infused with 16:41.084 --> 16:46.044 divinity and therefore good and alive and in some way capable of 16:46.039 --> 16:50.759 virtue?This is the type of question that Milton is asking 16:50.758 --> 16:55.318 throughout Book Seven of Paradise Lost. 16:55.320 --> 17:00.050 One of the ways that Milton stages this problem is by 17:00.053 --> 17:04.243 turning for inspiration to competing sources of 17:04.241 --> 17:06.791 authoritative knowledge. 17:06.789 --> 17:09.709 Milton has, on the one hand, the authority of scripture. 17:09.710 --> 17:12.450 You can see that although scripture tells us a lot of 17:12.450 --> 17:15.720 things, one of the things that it seems authoritatively to tell 17:15.718 --> 17:18.088 us is that it gives us a representation of the 17:18.090 --> 17:21.840 anthropomorphic, punitive deity -- at least in 17:21.835 --> 17:23.435 the Hebrew Bible. 17:23.440 --> 17:28.030 Milton also has to support this view more or less the authority 17:28.031 --> 17:32.551 of a philosopher like Paracelsus who had an image of a similar 17:32.548 --> 17:36.698 although differently configured image of a punitive deity 17:36.696 --> 17:41.066 capable of creating evil.But what kind of authority does 17:41.065 --> 17:44.915 Milton have for representing the other kind of deity: 17:44.916 --> 17:47.966 the force of life, or the energy, 17:47.967 --> 17:52.017 that might actually be much more rationally recognizable or 17:52.015 --> 17:55.155 accessible to a seventeenth-century scientific 17:55.156 --> 17:57.246 contemporary of Milton's? 17:57.250 --> 18:00.640 Well, we don't have scientists in the seventeenth century, 18:00.637 --> 18:03.847 technically. We have natural philosophers: 18:03.847 --> 18:07.867 so what is the basis of authority for contemporary 18:07.865 --> 18:09.665 natural philosophy? 18:09.670 --> 18:12.610 The question of authority and authoritative knowledge is 18:12.607 --> 18:15.757 central to the middle books, not just Book Seven but to all 18:15.757 --> 18:17.767 the central books of Paradise Lost. 18:17.769 --> 18:21.759 Raphael is presenting Adam and Eve with something like a 18:21.758 --> 18:24.528 quick education in universal knowledge, 18:24.529 --> 18:27.719 and the basis or the authority for this knowledge is constantly 18:27.716 --> 18:30.646 under question in these books because so much of Raphael's 18:30.646 --> 18:33.826 discourse has no foundation -- and this makes Milton nervous -- 18:33.832 --> 18:36.302 has no foundation in scripture whatsoever. 18:36.299 --> 18:39.659 The Bible simply can't be counted on as an exclusive 18:39.661 --> 18:44.111 source of universal knowledge, and so Milton has no choice but 18:44.109 --> 18:48.109 to turn to other forms of authority and one of them is 18:48.108 --> 18:51.808 science or natural philosophy.And so Milton at 18:51.806 --> 18:56.406 the beginning of Book Seven invokes the muse of science, 18:56.410 --> 19:00.140 the muse of astronomy, at the beginning. 19:00.140 --> 19:03.010 So look at the invocation. 19:03.009 --> 19:09.099 This is page 345 of the Hughes, the opening 19:09.096 --> 19:12.346 lines. It's here in Book Seven and 19:12.347 --> 19:17.527 only here that Milton names his muse, and the muse turns out to 19:17.532 --> 19:19.782 be Urania. Without question, 19:19.776 --> 19:22.696 of course, she's a feminine presence here. 19:22.700 --> 19:25.730 In the muse's earlier incarnations in Books One and 19:25.725 --> 19:28.745 Three, there was some uncertainty as to whether the 19:28.751 --> 19:32.441 Heavenly Spirit was a masculine figure capable of impregnating 19:32.442 --> 19:35.712 chaos and who will now impregnate Milton's mind, 19:35.710 --> 19:39.750 or whether the heavenly Spirit was a feminine spirit, 19:39.748 --> 19:43.868 a feminine power that "dove-like satst brooding on the 19:43.865 --> 19:48.525 vast Abyss" or similarly sat brooding on the brooding mind of 19:48.525 --> 19:51.485 the poet. But Book Seven is all about 19:51.492 --> 19:53.902 birth. It's all about generation and 19:53.895 --> 19:56.765 creation, and Milton requires for this book, 19:56.765 --> 19:59.745 I think, an unequivocally feminine muse, 19:59.747 --> 20:04.097 a maternal muse who was there when the world was born and who 20:04.096 --> 20:08.296 will serve here now as the nurturing mother of Milton's own 20:08.300 --> 20:11.490 poem.Now Milton -- who's committed, 20:11.490 --> 20:16.810 of course, to the truth of the Bible and similarly committed, 20:16.806 --> 20:20.236 at least in part, to a lot of the truths coming 20:20.243 --> 20:23.753 out in the world of natural philosophy -- Milton's on shaky 20:23.751 --> 20:26.111 ground as he describes the creation. 20:26.109 --> 20:29.839 His invocation is filled with something like -- and it seems 20:29.836 --> 20:33.116 absolutely authentic -- a fear of religious error. 20:33.120 --> 20:34.180 Look at line nineteen. 20:34.180 --> 20:39.590 Milton conjures the fear of falling off Pegasus -- Pegasus, 20:39.590 --> 20:44.910 the flying steed of poetry, "erroneous there to wander and 20:44.907 --> 20:47.927 forlorn." Book Seven, especially this 20:47.933 --> 20:51.833 invocation, is the focus for an enormous amount of Milton's 20:51.830 --> 20:54.840 poetic anxiety. You can measure the degree of 20:54.837 --> 20:58.677 Milton's poetic anxiety here by the reappearance of that figure 20:58.680 --> 21:02.210 that Milton has called on throughout his career at moments 21:02.214 --> 21:06.204 of intensest fear, or intensest isolation, 21:06.202 --> 21:09.992 and that's the figure of Orpheus. 21:09.990 --> 21:13.860 Orpheus' mother was the muse Calliope, the muse of epic 21:13.855 --> 21:16.655 poetry. She had been incapable of 21:16.662 --> 21:21.592 saving her son when he was dismembered by the followers of 21:21.593 --> 21:23.673 Bacchus, the Bacchae. 21:23.670 --> 21:27.940 Milton implores Urania here at the beginning of Book Seven to 21:27.938 --> 21:31.778 outdo Calliope and to spare him the fate of Orpheus. 21:31.780 --> 21:37.980 Look at line 30: [S]till govern thou my 21:37.983 --> 21:42.433 Song, Urania, and fit audience find, 21:42.434 --> 21:46.174 though few. But drive far off the barbarous 21:46.170 --> 21:49.060 dissonance Of Bacchus and his Revellers, 21:49.064 --> 21:53.304 the Race Of that wild Rout that tore the 21:53.301 --> 21:57.221 Thracian Bard In Rhodope, where Woods and 21:57.222 --> 22:00.762 Rocks had Ears To rapture, till the savage 22:00.760 --> 22:05.750 clamor drown'd Both Harp and Voice; 22:05.750 --> 22:09.530 nor could the Muse defend Her Son. 22:09.529 --> 22:12.629 So fail not thou, who thee implores: 22:12.630 --> 22:18.160 For thou art Heavn'ly, shee an empty dream. 22:18.160 --> 22:21.730 Now, Urania is the traditional name for the patroness of 22:21.730 --> 22:24.380 astronomy. If this muse of astronomical 22:24.375 --> 22:27.965 wisdom is not truly governing Milton's song -- if she's 22:27.972 --> 22:31.902 nothing more than the projection of Milton's most outrageous 22:31.902 --> 22:35.972 poetic ambitions -- then Milton will have no authority backing 22:35.966 --> 22:39.426 the poem's extraordinary claims to knowledge. 22:39.430 --> 22:42.370 Milton is, I think, really going on a limb in 22:42.369 --> 22:46.379 Paradise Lost as he's claiming what is essentially the 22:46.378 --> 22:50.188 status of divine truth for thousands of lines in this poem 22:50.187 --> 22:54.327 that really have no foundation in holy scripture at all. 22:54.329 --> 22:58.399 Think of what we've just read that I haven't spoken to at all: 22:58.400 --> 23:01.270 book Six, the story of the war in heaven, 23:01.269 --> 23:08.009 is a story that doesn't, in effect, appear in the Bible. 23:08.009 --> 23:10.889 There's a sense in this allusion to Orpheus that this 23:10.890 --> 23:13.770 poetic endeavor of Milton's is attended by really the 23:13.771 --> 23:14.991 profoundest risks. 23:14.990 --> 23:19.770 Milton implores the muse, "so fail not thou," as Calliope 23:19.772 --> 23:22.592 had failed, of course, Orpheus. 23:22.589 --> 23:26.969 Behind this cry lurks a kind of nagging fear that Urania, 23:26.966 --> 23:31.026 too, may turn out to be an empty dream: the fear that 23:31.030 --> 23:33.350 Urania, just like Calliope, 23:33.348 --> 23:37.718 will turn out to be nothing more than a convenient fiction 23:37.723 --> 23:42.023 dreamt up by a desperately ambitious poet.But there's 23:42.021 --> 23:47.011 another reason that Milton is invoking a feminine muse here. 23:47.009 --> 23:51.339 He wants in this next section of the poem to establish a new 23:51.343 --> 23:55.093 perspective for this book of universal knowledge, 23:55.089 --> 23:59.119 and he's relying on a new muse to liberate him in some way from 23:59.116 --> 24:02.816 the strictures of the orthodox forms of knowledge that are 24:02.818 --> 24:06.388 sanctioned seemingly so unequivocally by the Bible. 24:06.390 --> 24:10.340 Milton's struggling to balance the dominant theological 24:10.337 --> 24:14.277 discourse with this new discourse, this new language of 24:14.284 --> 24:16.774 science or natural philosophy. 24:16.769 --> 24:20.649 So what you have in Book Seven is a really startling opposition 24:20.651 --> 24:24.161 of essentially competing forms of knowledge and competing 24:24.157 --> 24:25.657 images of authority. 24:25.660 --> 24:27.820 Milton will invariably -- how can he not? 24:27.819 --> 24:31.199 And he does this authentically: he acknowledges the validity of 24:31.204 --> 24:33.774 a scriptural account of a natural phenomenon, 24:33.769 --> 24:38.359 but he will only do so in order to set the scripture aside at 24:38.363 --> 24:42.353 some point and begin to explore an entirely different 24:42.345 --> 24:45.895 perspective, an entirely different account, 24:45.900 --> 24:49.160 of the same phenomenon.Let's look at an 24:49.163 --> 24:52.663 example of this at the bottom of page 355. 24:52.660 --> 24:56.270 This is Book Seven, line 387. 24:56.269 --> 25:01.699 Look at what Milton does with the Genesis account of creation. 25:01.700 --> 25:04.340 Here we have the fifth day of creation; 25:04.339 --> 25:09.379 this is when the God of Genesis creates fish and fowl. 25:09.380 --> 25:13.400 Milton begins the account here with a dutiful and humble 25:13.404 --> 25:17.114 transcription of Genesis, and in some cases the verse is 25:17.107 --> 25:20.277 actually a word-for-word transcription of the King James 25:20.276 --> 25:23.436 translation, in some cases the Geneva 25:23.436 --> 25:26.486 translation. You can see the King James 25:26.490 --> 25:28.580 translation in the footnotes. 25:28.579 --> 25:33.089 Sometimes Milton will normally fiddle with just a couple of 25:33.090 --> 25:37.830 words to make the Genesis text fit into the metrical scheme of 25:37.834 --> 25:42.814 his blank verse. Look at line 387: 25:42.809 --> 25:47.319 And God said, let the Waters generate 25:47.319 --> 25:50.569 Reptile with Spawn abundant, living Soul: 25:50.569 --> 25:53.329 And let Fowl fly above the Earth, with wings 25:53.329 --> 25:56.079 Display'd on the op'n Firmament of Heav'n. 25:56.079 --> 25:58.789 And God created the great Whales… 25:58.789 --> 26:02.059 And so on and so forth all the way up to 398: 26:02.061 --> 26:05.631 "And let the Fowl be multipli'd on the Earth." 26:05.630 --> 26:10.100 These lines have to be -- and they've certainly been cited as 26:10.101 --> 26:14.201 such since the eighteenth century -- they have to be the 26:14.201 --> 26:17.621 flattest, the least interesting lines in 26:17.621 --> 26:20.791 the entire poem. One of Milton's first editors, 26:20.791 --> 26:22.341 this is on the handout, Dr. 26:22.335 --> 26:25.655 Bentley, had actually argued that these lines were so bad 26:25.660 --> 26:28.510 that they just needed to be deleted from the text 26:28.511 --> 26:31.641 altogether. Bentley's thesis was [laughs] 26:31.638 --> 26:34.688 an ingenious one: that Milton actually isn't 26:34.692 --> 26:37.392 responsible for these lines at all. 26:37.390 --> 26:39.520 According to Dr. Bentley, sometimes the 26:39.517 --> 26:42.987 amanuensis -- the young man who would act as secretary and take 26:42.988 --> 26:46.178 down the next installment of ten lines or fifteen lines or 26:46.179 --> 26:49.309 whatever -- would just [laughs] start making things up or 26:49.314 --> 26:51.334 didn't hear Milton properly. 26:51.329 --> 26:55.319 A lot of the lines that Bentley most disliked were to be 26:55.317 --> 26:59.827 dismissed for just this reason, that they clearly had nothing 26:59.831 --> 27:03.641 to do with Milton's own composition.Bentley asked 27:03.636 --> 27:07.206 this question, and it's a good question: 27:07.207 --> 27:12.697 why should Raphael be so tied up to the letter in Genesis, 27:12.700 --> 27:16.500 Raphael who makes this narrative thousands of years 27:16.502 --> 27:18.482 before Genesis was writ? 27:18.480 --> 27:20.750 Not a bad question. 27:20.750 --> 27:23.250 Dr. Bentley reasonably asks, 27:23.247 --> 27:27.687 "If Raphael came before Moses, long before Moses, 27:27.687 --> 27:30.367 why is he quoting Moses?" 27:30.370 --> 27:33.410 Why indeed? What might be the significance 27:33.406 --> 27:36.136 of Milton's being tied up to the letter in Genesis? 27:36.140 --> 27:40.860 Milton begins his account of the fifth day of creation by 27:40.859 --> 27:45.749 paying homage to the scriptural source for his own creation 27:45.748 --> 27:48.358 account, but that's, of course, 27:48.358 --> 27:50.028 not where Milton ends. 27:50.030 --> 27:51.340 Look at line 399. 27:51.339 --> 27:54.149 After Milton has exhausted -- thank God! 27:54.150 --> 27:58.130 -- he's exhausted his bald versification of the King James 27:58.126 --> 28:02.166 Bible, he lets loose with an entirely new representation of 28:02.173 --> 28:05.553 creation. Listen to this: 28:05.549 --> 28:10.269 Forthwith the Sounds and Seas, each Creek and Bay 28:10.269 --> 28:13.479 With Fry innumerable swarm, and Shoals 28:13.480 --> 28:17.020 Of Fish that with thir Fins and shining Scales 28:17.019 --> 28:20.949 Glide under the green Wave, in Sculls that oft 28:20.950 --> 28:26.150 Bank the mid Sea… Milton takes the austerity of 28:26.145 --> 28:29.445 Genesis and amplifies it with some of the lushest, 28:29.450 --> 28:33.160 most luxuriant verse in all of Paradise Lost. 28:33.160 --> 28:36.880 I urge you all to read these lines out loud in the privacy of 28:36.883 --> 28:39.123 your homes. So much of this poem has to be 28:39.123 --> 28:41.033 experienced in your mouth, I'm convinced, 28:41.034 --> 28:42.854 before it can fully be appreciated. 28:42.849 --> 28:45.309 This is, in fact, how Milton experienced it. 28:45.309 --> 28:49.189 He experienced it sonically because he was blind and wasn't 28:49.192 --> 28:51.202 able to read it on the page. 28:51.200 --> 28:54.970 This particular description of the fish and fowl continues for 28:54.974 --> 28:57.454 another perfectly amazing forty lines. 28:57.450 --> 29:01.490 It's an extraordinary tour de force.The sounds of 29:01.489 --> 29:05.049 water of which Milton speaks at line 300 here are, 29:05.049 --> 29:09.989 of course, the bodies of water that are suddenly filled with an 29:09.985 --> 29:13.245 enormous variety of aquatic life forms; 29:13.250 --> 29:16.740 but the sounds that emerge forthwith in this passage are 29:16.738 --> 29:20.668 also the sounds of this amazing burst of imaginative poetry. 29:20.670 --> 29:25.400 The verse here explodes with a kind of sonic energy that had 29:25.396 --> 29:28.686 been entirely repressed, or suppressed, 29:28.686 --> 29:32.726 during Milton's lifeless adherence to scripture: 29:32.734 --> 29:37.304 "And Shoales / Of Fish that with thir Fins and shining 29:37.300 --> 29:40.660 Scales" -- Milton's swimming here. 29:40.660 --> 29:44.340 He's loving every moment of it -- you know it-- in a sensual, 29:44.343 --> 29:48.153 alliterative verse that almost completely drowns out our memory 29:48.149 --> 29:51.709 of the bland King James English of the previous lines. 29:51.710 --> 29:55.310 This demonstration of poetic strength coincides with Milton's 29:55.314 --> 29:58.444 new sense of the strength, or a new sense of a force, 29:58.438 --> 30:02.028 behind creation. He takes the masculine image of 30:02.025 --> 30:05.945 God's verbal command from Genesis, "And God said," 30:05.950 --> 30:10.580 and he replaces it with an alternative feminine conception 30:10.578 --> 30:14.958 of creation that places the power of creation in Nature 30:14.963 --> 30:20.163 herself.In his description of the first schools of fish, 30:20.160 --> 30:23.670 Milton, I think, is subscribing or can be seen 30:23.672 --> 30:27.812 to subscribe to a new and daring school of thought. 30:27.810 --> 30:33.070 Look at the sixth day, line 450. 30:33.069 --> 30:36.069 Milton begins -- and we've seen him do this before -- he 30:36.068 --> 30:38.248 scrupulously follows the Genesis text. 30:38.250 --> 30:40.000 This is Genesis: "And God said, 30:40.004 --> 30:43.694 Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, 30:43.690 --> 30:47.900 cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after 30:47.903 --> 30:50.013 his kind, and it was so." 30:50.009 --> 30:54.079 Milton reproduces the scriptural description nearly 30:54.077 --> 30:58.137 verbatim, but he very scrupulously omits that final 30:58.144 --> 31:01.484 clause from Genesis, "and it was so"; 31:01.480 --> 31:05.080 because he wonders well, how was it so? 31:05.079 --> 31:08.529 The Genesis account of creation is clearly inadequate here 31:08.526 --> 31:11.486 because it relies on some mystical or some magical 31:11.488 --> 31:14.328 fulfillment of the Father's divine command. 31:14.329 --> 31:17.599 Genesis refuses to provide a rational or something like a 31:17.601 --> 31:21.281 natural explanation for how the creation of "cattle and creeping 31:21.281 --> 31:24.671 thing" came to be so.Now in the years of the Scientific 31:24.669 --> 31:28.349 Revolution in the later years of the seventeenth century, 31:28.349 --> 31:32.689 the Genesis account of creation was coming under a lot of 31:32.690 --> 31:37.490 scrutiny and the phrase "And God said" was increasingly seen as 31:37.494 --> 31:41.314 -- this is inadequate, this is an insufficiently 31:41.307 --> 31:44.037 believable form of natural causation. 31:44.039 --> 31:47.839 There was a pressure felt by a lot of intellectuals to imagine 31:47.844 --> 31:50.734 another form, a more naturalistic force or 31:50.734 --> 31:54.024 power of causation, at work, and this is exactly 31:54.015 --> 31:55.965 what Milton himself does. 31:55.970 --> 32:01.350 He replaces the biblical phrase "And it was so" with a 32:01.352 --> 32:07.242 spectacularly naturalistic drama of what we can think of as 32:07.242 --> 32:11.822 self-creation. Look what Milton does. 32:11.819 --> 32:15.449 The Earth obey'd, and strait 32:15.450 --> 32:18.620 Op'ning her fertile Womb teem'd at a Birth 32:18.619 --> 32:22.169 Innumerous living Creatures, perfet forms, 32:22.170 --> 32:25.750 Limb'd and full grown… 32:25.750 --> 32:29.970 Invoking a Mother Earth -- of course, this Mother Earth obeys 32:29.969 --> 32:33.459 the Heavenly Father' but Milton, by invoking her, 32:33.462 --> 32:37.392 is performing an operation similar to the strategy that he 32:37.388 --> 32:39.798 had performed in the invocation. 32:39.799 --> 32:42.909 He's countering the entirely masculine force behind the 32:42.912 --> 32:45.682 Genesis creation with a new feminine presence. 32:45.680 --> 32:49.050 The female earth may just demonstrate her initial 32:49.045 --> 32:52.125 obedience and subordination to the Father, 32:52.130 --> 32:55.930 but after this humbling of herself, she's empowered to 32:55.932 --> 33:00.452 produce -- and she does this on her own -- all of the innumerous 33:00.453 --> 33:01.963 living creatures. 33:01.960 --> 33:05.180 Milton's imagining here a female authority distinct from 33:05.178 --> 33:08.278 the authority of the Father who's issuing these verbal 33:08.279 --> 33:10.569 commands. He depicts this new source of 33:10.567 --> 33:13.407 creative power by drawing on a literary authority quite 33:13.411 --> 33:15.361 distinct from the Book of Genesis. 33:15.359 --> 33:20.159 The image of the earth opening up her fertile womb actually 33:20.164 --> 33:23.234 comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. 33:23.230 --> 33:26.670 Interestingly, this comes from the section of 33:26.674 --> 33:30.984 the Metamorphoses that describes life after the flood: 33:30.981 --> 33:35.291 Deucalion's flood, seen by Christian readers in 33:35.290 --> 33:40.460 Milton's day as a classical version of Noah's flood. 33:40.460 --> 33:43.460 So it's a fallen phenomenon that Milton is placing well 33:43.460 --> 33:46.740 before the Fall.But what Milton does after this point in 33:46.738 --> 33:49.848 this passage doesn't even have an authority in Ovid. 33:49.850 --> 33:54.280 Look at line [laughs] 463. 33:54.279 --> 33:58.249 Milton begins to represent what may have seemed to less 33:58.254 --> 34:01.644 courageous poets as utterly unrepresentable. 34:01.640 --> 34:05.710 This is the actual birthing of these living forms, 34:05.706 --> 34:10.596 the emergence of cattle and creeping things from the fertile 34:10.603 --> 34:13.843 womb of the living earth, line 463. 34:13.840 --> 34:23.530 This gets me: "The grassy Clods now Calv'd." 34:23.530 --> 34:31.020 The grassy clods of earth are actually opening up and giving 34:31.016 --> 34:35.536 birth to calves. It's an amazingly daring 34:35.539 --> 34:37.779 sequence of five words. 34:37.780 --> 34:39.690 It's a spectacular image of creation. 34:39.690 --> 34:43.090 The grassy Clods now Calv'd, now half appear'd 34:43.090 --> 34:45.940 The Tawny Lion, pawing to get free 34:45.940 --> 34:49.370 His hinder parts, then springs as broke from 34:49.371 --> 34:52.771 Bonds, And Rampant shakes his Brinded 34:52.765 --> 34:55.655 mane… You'll note at the bottom of 34:55.663 --> 34:57.933 the page that Merritt Hughes tells us -- and I love this 34:57.930 --> 34:59.940 about Hughes, that he gives us this footnote 34:59.941 --> 35:02.821 -- that the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge had singled out 35:02.824 --> 35:05.694 just this image, the image of the tawny lion, 35:05.694 --> 35:08.504 as unworthy of Milton's gifts as poet. 35:08.500 --> 35:12.580 You can see what offended Coleridge and what presumably 35:12.575 --> 35:14.835 also offends Merritt Hughes. 35:14.840 --> 35:19.200 There is more than just a little breach of decorum in this 35:19.201 --> 35:23.411 image of a lion wiggling his bottom in order to free his 35:23.409 --> 35:26.239 hinder parts. Milton's not only portraying 35:26.238 --> 35:29.518 the lion's attempt to give birth to itself, which is no small 35:29.515 --> 35:32.295 feat as it paws its way out of the earth's womb. 35:32.300 --> 35:36.410 He's also depicting something like a liberation of sexual 35:36.409 --> 35:39.149 energy. There's an emblem of the erotic 35:39.145 --> 35:42.955 charge that Milton is giving so much of this nonscriptural 35:42.960 --> 35:46.040 material in Book Seven of Paradise Lost. 35:46.039 --> 35:49.929 When the lion springs "as broke from Bonds," there's a 35:49.927 --> 35:53.337 sense that Milton is representing his own springing 35:53.337 --> 35:57.227 from the confining bonds of a scriptural tradition that is 35:57.225 --> 36:00.085 insufficiently literarily inspiring. 36:00.090 --> 36:03.550 It's also a liberation fully akin to his poetic escape, 36:03.548 --> 36:05.788 we'll remember, from the tyranny, 36:05.789 --> 36:08.019 the bondage, of rhyme.Now, 36:08.021 --> 36:12.101 throughout so much of Paradise Lost, the 36:12.099 --> 36:16.719 lines of hierarchical authority seem to be incredibly clearly 36:16.716 --> 36:19.406 drawn, but in Book Seven Milton begins 36:19.414 --> 36:22.684 to experiment a little more freely with forms of authority 36:22.677 --> 36:25.877 and images of hierarchy that actually counter more of the 36:25.883 --> 36:29.493 orthodox notions that he finds in the Bible -- or in fact, 36:29.489 --> 36:32.289 that he finds in the culture at large. 36:32.289 --> 36:35.859 The book itself is inspired by a distinctly feminine muse, 36:35.861 --> 36:38.181 and in its description of creation, 36:38.179 --> 36:42.149 there's a significant degree of autonomy granted to this 36:42.154 --> 36:44.764 feminine power, the Earth -- this new 36:44.756 --> 36:47.816 phenomenon, the Earth. 36:47.820 --> 36:51.430 Now Book Eight would seem in a lot of ways to put an end to 36:51.431 --> 36:54.731 this, what would seem to be a provisional or momentary 36:54.730 --> 36:56.910 celebration of feminine energy. 36:56.909 --> 37:01.069 In fact, Book Eight seems to reassert the subordination of 37:01.068 --> 37:04.858 woman to man that had characterized our first glimpse 37:04.862 --> 37:07.272 of Adam and Eve in Book Four. 37:07.269 --> 37:11.039 You'll remember that it's in Book Eight that Adam recounts 37:11.040 --> 37:15.070 for Raphael the request that he had made to God for a partner, 37:15.074 --> 37:16.534 some fellow human. 37:16.530 --> 37:18.430 He specifically asked God for an equal. 37:18.429 --> 37:22.249 This is Book Eight, line 382: For "mong unequals 37:22.248 --> 37:26.878 what society / Can sort, what harmony or true delight?" 37:26.880 --> 37:31.020 Adam asks.But God didn't seem all that interested in 37:31.021 --> 37:34.561 granting Adam's request for an equal partner, 37:34.559 --> 37:37.699 and Raphael's continually urging Adam to remember his 37:37.701 --> 37:38.971 superiority to Eve. 37:38.969 --> 37:43.199 He mustn't mistake Eve's beauty for nobility or wisdom or 37:43.197 --> 37:47.497 equality, and of course, that has been Adam's tendency. 37:47.500 --> 37:53.920 Raphael famously contracts his brow when Adam shows a tendency 37:53.916 --> 37:57.966 to idolize his wife, and whenever the conversation 37:57.969 --> 38:01.629 turns to Adam's relation to Eve, Raphael expresses a fixed and 38:01.630 --> 38:04.990 inflexible opinion on the matter of sexual hierarchy. 38:04.989 --> 38:09.819 One sex clearly has a priority over the other.But Book 38:09.820 --> 38:14.650 Eight is also concerned with another kind of hierarchy, 38:14.650 --> 38:19.510 the hierarchy of the heavens: the relations of the heavenly 38:19.506 --> 38:21.846 bodies. Raphael and Adam also in Book 38:21.852 --> 38:25.152 Eight discuss at considerable length the relative position in 38:25.148 --> 38:27.728 space of the sun and the earth and the moon. 38:27.730 --> 38:31.470 Does the sun travel around the earth, which remains fixed at 38:31.471 --> 38:35.531 the center of the universe as the medieval Ptolemy had argued, 38:35.530 --> 38:38.920 or does the earth revolve around the sun as the early 38:38.917 --> 38:42.627 modern Copernicus and then later Galileo had theorized? 38:42.630 --> 38:44.710 Adam, of course, isn't certain, 38:44.710 --> 38:48.250 though it certainly looks to him, as it looks to us, 38:48.246 --> 38:51.086 as if the sun moves around the earth. 38:51.090 --> 38:55.860 Now Adam's uncertainty here is only reasonable but [laughs] 38:55.861 --> 39:00.721 the remarkable aspect of this dialogue is that the Archangel 39:00.715 --> 39:03.425 Raphael isn't certain either. 39:03.429 --> 39:05.769 Raphael doesn't really know which way [laughs] 39:05.774 --> 39:08.954 the planets revolve even though he has spent much of this very 39:08.951 --> 39:11.401 morning on his flight from heaven to earth, 39:11.400 --> 39:14.750 where presumably he had some opportunity to observe the 39:14.749 --> 39:16.919 workings of the heavenly planets. 39:16.920 --> 39:21.990 It appears that God has made it difficult even for the angels to 39:21.987 --> 39:26.087 discern the hierarchical structure of the cosmos. 39:26.090 --> 39:30.180 There's an illegibility about hierarchy built in to the 39:30.179 --> 39:34.039 system.Of course, by the mid-seventeenth century 39:34.042 --> 39:37.982 the jury was still out as to whether the universe was 39:37.980 --> 39:42.120 heliocentric or geocentric, and Milton wasn't alone in 39:42.115 --> 39:43.935 expressing some uncertainty. 39:43.940 --> 39:45.890 You could say, and it has been said, 39:45.889 --> 39:48.339 that it was wise of him to hedge his bets; 39:48.340 --> 39:52.260 but there's a lot more going on in the discussions of astronomy 39:52.257 --> 39:56.107 than just a serious desire to get to the bottom of a difficult 39:56.112 --> 39:58.452 contemporary scientific question. 39:58.449 --> 40:02.369 There's way too much made of Raphael's confusion here and his 40:02.365 --> 40:04.775 uncertainty about cosmic hierarchy. 40:04.780 --> 40:08.880 The sun and the earth, or the sun and the moon, 40:08.879 --> 40:11.819 are deliberately gendered here. 40:11.820 --> 40:15.160 Milton uses the traditional gender assignments of these 40:15.155 --> 40:18.795 heavenly bodies that he inherits from the Latin language, 40:18.800 --> 40:22.460 and he holds to them scrupulously throughout the 40:22.464 --> 40:25.094 poem. The sun is always masculine, 40:25.091 --> 40:28.661 and the earth and the moon are always feminine. 40:28.659 --> 40:32.209 The controversy about the priority of the heavenly bodies 40:32.211 --> 40:35.071 is, in some way, Milton's reformulation of the 40:35.065 --> 40:38.105 controversy about the priority of the sexes. 40:38.110 --> 40:42.000 The field of astronomy provides Milton with something like a 40:41.999 --> 40:44.569 scientific discourse about the sexes, 40:44.570 --> 40:48.420 an alternative source of knowledge that permits him to 40:48.423 --> 40:52.933 counteract the more traditional and more theological account of 40:52.932 --> 40:55.982 the sexes, assimilable from his culture 40:55.984 --> 41:00.424 but also from the Bible.Look at page 366 in the Hughes. 41:00.417 --> 41:04.627 Raphael's certainty about sexual hierarchy in the human 41:04.631 --> 41:08.191 sphere seems to give way to nothing but doubts and 41:08.192 --> 41:12.192 uncertainty as soon as that hierarchy is extended to the 41:12.188 --> 41:15.858 cosmic sphere. Science provides a different 41:15.861 --> 41:19.011 kind of space: this is a discursive space for 41:19.007 --> 41:22.437 a more liberated, a more open-ended discussion of 41:22.438 --> 41:26.168 sexual politics. It provides Milton with an 41:26.165 --> 41:30.525 opposing source for the knowledge about the sexes, 41:30.530 --> 41:34.540 a knowledge that seemed so complete and so sewn up from the 41:34.535 --> 41:38.675 theological point of view implicit in the Genesis account. 41:38.679 --> 41:43.309 So on page 366 -- this is Book Eight, line 148. 41:43.309 --> 41:48.179 Raphael is beginning to grow exceedingly speculative here, 41:48.178 --> 41:53.558 and he dares to conjecture that there may exist out there in the 41:53.559 --> 41:56.889 cosmos other suns and other moons: 41:56.890 --> 42:00.360 [O]ther suns perhaps With their attendant moons thou 42:00.356 --> 42:03.756 wilt descry Communicating Male and Female 42:03.756 --> 42:07.206 Light, Which two great Sexes animate 42:07.206 --> 42:11.116 the World, Stor'd in each Orb perhaps with 42:11.115 --> 42:15.145 some that live. The two great sexes here that 42:15.146 --> 42:19.056 communicate their light do so with an equal brilliance. 42:19.059 --> 42:21.039 The greatness of one isn't emphasized here, 42:21.043 --> 42:23.643 at least in these lines, at the expense of the other. 42:23.639 --> 42:26.789 You'll remember with Adam and Eve in our first description of 42:26.789 --> 42:29.939 them in their naked majesty -- they were lords of all and, 42:29.940 --> 42:33.110 presumably, equally lords of all. 42:33.110 --> 42:36.790 When Raphael conjectures that some creatures might actually 42:36.788 --> 42:40.718 live on these infinitely distant other suns and other moons, 42:40.719 --> 42:44.649 he's pointing to an alternative conceptual world in which the 42:44.652 --> 42:48.652 relation of the two great sexes might be configured altogether 42:48.650 --> 42:52.250 differently.Raphael concludes the discussion at line 42:52.254 --> 42:54.524 159, and he suggests essentially to 42:54.522 --> 42:57.802 Adam that it's not Adam's place -- Adam should just cool it -- 42:57.802 --> 43:00.602 it's not his place to pursue these grand questions of 43:00.598 --> 43:02.048 heavenly organization. 43:02.050 --> 43:05.850 So this is Raphael: "But whether thus these things, 43:05.850 --> 43:09.200 or whether not, / Whether the Sun predominant 43:09.195 --> 43:14.465 in Heav'n / Rise on the Earth; or Earth rise on the Sun..." 43:14.469 --> 43:17.479 Raphael's just telling us it simply doesn't matter, 43:17.480 --> 43:21.150 and he suggests a decisive -- if such a thing makes sense -- a 43:21.153 --> 43:24.343 decisive uncertainty about whether the predominant sun 43:24.344 --> 43:27.904 rises on the earth or whether the predominant earth rises on 43:27.896 --> 43:29.866 the sun. One Milton critic, 43:29.866 --> 43:32.096 John Guillory, has been absolutely right, 43:32.104 --> 43:34.514 I think -- he's the best reader of this, 43:34.510 --> 43:38.150 the whole problem -- in suggesting that we can hear 43:38.147 --> 43:42.727 behind these lines the brooding question of sexual hierarchy. 43:42.730 --> 43:46.060 Is the man on top or is the woman on top? 43:46.059 --> 43:50.319 Is the masculine sex predominant, or could it be that 43:50.317 --> 43:52.607 the feminine predominates? 43:52.610 --> 43:56.400 When speaking about the sexes in the language of human 43:56.402 --> 43:59.912 relations, Raphael is utterly definitive about who 43:59.908 --> 44:03.188 predominates over whom, but when he's speaking the 44:03.189 --> 44:06.199 language of science he seems baffled -- and it's lovable. 44:06.199 --> 44:11.079 His confusion in the scientific realm can be seen to force us to 44:11.083 --> 44:15.893 reconsider his certainty about relations in the human realm, 44:15.889 --> 44:20.979 in the ethical realm.Now none of this is to say that 44:20.979 --> 44:26.809 Milton is a feminist or even that Milton is a proto-feminist. 44:26.809 --> 44:30.009 The question of what Milton actually believes about the 44:30.007 --> 44:34.327 priority of the sexes is really, I think, too difficult to 44:34.332 --> 44:39.422 discover or extract simply from a reading of the text. 44:39.420 --> 44:44.120 This poem is far too filled with contradictions to give us 44:44.119 --> 44:48.819 anything like a clear road map to Milton's own beliefs, 44:48.820 --> 44:52.640 if it could even be said that he or any of us actually have 44:52.635 --> 44:56.245 firm and fixed beliefs about such huge and consequential 44:56.253 --> 44:59.283 matters as the relation between the sexes. 44:59.280 --> 45:03.070 But it is, I think, possible to see that Milton is 45:03.068 --> 45:07.478 struggling in some way to keep in suspension the competing 45:07.475 --> 45:11.875 sources of knowledge that address this crucial question in 45:11.881 --> 45:15.041 Paradise Lost, the question of the 45:15.035 --> 45:16.705 relation between the sexes. 45:16.710 --> 45:20.860 Milton's poem is -- we can't deny this -- is a far more 45:20.864 --> 45:24.484 theological poem than it is a scientific one, 45:24.480 --> 45:27.940 but Milton will nonetheless use the language of natural 45:27.943 --> 45:30.383 philosophy, the language of science, 45:30.380 --> 45:35.390 to open up some of the pressing questions that his theology 45:35.390 --> 45:37.810 seems to have closed down. 45:37.809 --> 45:41.289 You can see Milton willingly placing himself in the role of 45:41.294 --> 45:44.964 Raphael at just those moments when the archangel is discussing 45:44.958 --> 45:46.928 astronomy. It's as if Milton, 45:46.934 --> 45:50.534 just like that affable angel -- and don't you love it that 45:50.527 --> 45:54.117 Milton lets us know that Raphael is the affable angel, 45:54.119 --> 45:57.269 quite unlike the Michael that we will meet in the last two 45:57.268 --> 45:58.968 books? -- as if Milton, 45:58.966 --> 46:02.806 just like Raphael, were throwing his hands affably 46:02.814 --> 46:06.904 up in the air in complete uncertainty and telling us, 46:06.897 --> 46:09.407 the readers, "I don't know. 46:09.409 --> 46:11.589 I don't know the answer to these big questions. 46:11.590 --> 46:14.000 You decide." Okay.