WEBVTT 00:01.680 --> 00:04.520 Professor John Rogers: We've been looking for the 00:04.519 --> 00:07.219 last few lectures at the ethics and the theology that have 00:07.216 --> 00:10.146 throughout Paradise Lost been produced -- at least, 00:10.150 --> 00:13.150 this has been my argument -- been produced and sanctioned by 00:13.152 --> 00:14.172 Milton's narrator. 00:14.170 --> 00:18.190 We learned, for example, both from the narrator and also 00:18.186 --> 00:21.396 from Raphael that Eve is inferior to Adam. 00:21.400 --> 00:24.600 On the authority of the narrator and of Raphael, 00:24.603 --> 00:28.903 the social hierarchy of Eden is established as what we can think 00:28.898 --> 00:32.648 of as -- this is what also I have been arguing -- as the 00:32.647 --> 00:35.167 dominant discourse of the poem. 00:35.170 --> 00:37.990 We can think of this as the poem's official doctrine, 00:37.992 --> 00:40.872 if a poem can be said to have an official doctrine. 00:40.870 --> 00:44.240 But there's obviously so much more to Paradise Lost 00:44.241 --> 00:48.251 than the official discourses of Raphael and the narrator. 00:48.250 --> 00:51.580 The poem seems continually -- and this is also what I've been 00:51.581 --> 00:54.641 arguing -- continually to be opening up spaces for ideas 00:54.635 --> 00:58.805 other than the official, sanctioned language of the 00:58.811 --> 01:01.741 narrator. The angel Raphael, 01:01.739 --> 01:05.899 you'll remember, was eager to assert the 01:05.897 --> 01:12.607 hierarchical worldview when the narrator was speaking about Adam 01:12.613 --> 01:15.693 and Eve, but as we saw last time, 01:15.688 --> 01:19.978 Raphael was willing to loosen the constraints of the notion of 01:19.979 --> 01:24.199 hierarchy when he was pondering the subject of astronomy. 01:24.200 --> 01:29.040 Raphael's astronomy was marked really wonderfully by a lot of 01:29.042 --> 01:32.512 doubt and uncertainty, and he refused to determine 01:32.512 --> 01:35.862 whether Ptolemy was right or whether Copernicus was right. 01:35.860 --> 01:39.300 There's a way in which the poem's doubt about one kind of 01:39.296 --> 01:42.546 hierarchy seemed to bleed over into the other forms of 01:42.548 --> 01:45.798 hierarchy with which the poem was also concerned. 01:45.800 --> 01:49.500 This is essentially a little recap of the last 01:49.500 --> 01:53.530 lecture.Now so far in Paradise Lost, 01:53.530 --> 01:57.560 the tension between the poem's official line and what we 01:57.560 --> 02:00.760 can think of as its more subversive strains -- this 02:00.759 --> 02:04.149 tension has surfaced in Paradise Lost in a kind 02:04.150 --> 02:06.070 of contrapuntal fashion. 02:06.069 --> 02:10.189 One position is simply juxtaposed without comment with 02:10.192 --> 02:14.632 another, but the poem itself never seems explicitly in any 02:14.626 --> 02:19.446 way to acknowledge the presence of the conflict or the presence 02:19.449 --> 02:23.349 of the contradiction; that is, the poem doesn't seem 02:23.352 --> 02:26.902 to acknowledge the presence of the conflict or contradiction 02:26.897 --> 02:28.817 until now -- until Book Nine. 02:28.819 --> 02:32.799 Book Nine, which is the book of the Fall, is structured by, 02:32.800 --> 02:36.850 I think, a far more explicit opposition of that official, 02:36.849 --> 02:38.879 dominant discourse, on the one hand, 02:38.878 --> 02:42.238 and the much more open-ended critique of that discourse, 02:42.240 --> 02:45.620 on the other. The stark opposition between 02:45.624 --> 02:50.034 these two competing positions is manifest explicitly, 02:50.030 --> 02:56.020 for me, in the argument between Adam and Eve on the morning of 02:56.023 --> 03:00.453 the Fall before their separation.Before we 03:00.445 --> 03:06.045 actually look at the content of that absolutely remarkable 03:06.046 --> 03:09.616 argument, it's worth musing on the fact 03:09.616 --> 03:13.156 that Adam and Eve are having an argument at all. 03:13.159 --> 03:15.409 It's amazing, for that matter, 03:15.412 --> 03:18.132 that they're actually conversing. 03:18.129 --> 03:21.319 In the conversation between Adam and Eve before Eve's 03:21.316 --> 03:23.986 departure to work alone, we have what, 03:23.987 --> 03:28.127 I think, has to be the first conversation on earth: 03:28.132 --> 03:32.182 the first genuine dialogue, a conversation -- well, 03:32.178 --> 03:35.428 there may be a very brief exception in Book Five, 03:35.432 --> 03:39.232 but we'll set that aside -- that involves two individuals 03:39.227 --> 03:43.087 who do not already have in mind the content of the other's 03:43.091 --> 03:45.891 speech; a conversation (and of course, 03:45.889 --> 03:49.279 I'm thinking of all of the conversations that we have, 03:49.280 --> 03:51.600 or that you have, with one another) that 03:51.604 --> 03:55.484 possesses at least some element of epistemological uncertainty, 03:55.479 --> 03:58.459 an element of surprise, or the inability to know 03:58.458 --> 04:02.198 exactly what the other person is going to say before he says 04:02.198 --> 04:05.558 it.Now Milton up to this point hasn't been able to 04:05.557 --> 04:08.787 represent anything like the genuine dialogue. 04:08.790 --> 04:10.220 There are some exceptions. 04:10.219 --> 04:13.389 Maybe the dialogue between Satan and Abdiel during the war 04:13.391 --> 04:15.841 in heaven, but on earth it's not so clear. 04:15.840 --> 04:20.320 Before this moment, all language is more or less 04:20.324 --> 04:23.954 ceremonial or ritualistic utterance. 04:23.949 --> 04:26.579 Let's think of the Father and the Son in the dialogue in 04:26.580 --> 04:27.680 heaven in Book Three. 04:27.680 --> 04:30.290 The Father's omniscience, the fact that he knows 04:30.293 --> 04:33.133 everything, makes dialogue absolutely impossible. 04:33.129 --> 04:36.029 He always knows in advance what the Son is going to say. 04:36.029 --> 04:41.109 Even with Adam and Eve before Book Nine -- Adam and Eve seem 04:41.114 --> 04:43.794 to know in advance, in some way, 04:43.785 --> 04:47.055 the content of the other's speech; 04:47.060 --> 04:50.380 and so Adam will begin a speech (and this happens all the time) 04:50.375 --> 04:52.615 with some variation of this little formula: 04:52.620 --> 04:55.510 "Well thou knowest Eve that blah blah blah" -- in other 04:55.508 --> 04:57.918 words, of course you know this, 04:57.920 --> 05:00.650 Eve, but I'm going to say it anyway. 05:00.649 --> 05:03.099 Eve will tell Adam, "That day I oft remember," and 05:03.100 --> 05:06.000 then she will proceed to tell him something presumably that 05:06.000 --> 05:08.600 she's already told him a number of times before. 05:08.600 --> 05:12.470 Conversation before this point has been ritualistic, 05:12.472 --> 05:15.662 it's been ceremonial, and it is essentially 05:15.662 --> 05:20.222 unnecessary in these early parts of the poem.The dialogue 05:20.218 --> 05:24.398 between Adam and Eve at the scene of their separation is 05:24.395 --> 05:28.795 really different from these ceremonial utterances. 05:28.800 --> 05:32.190 For the first time, they're speaking speeches from 05:32.185 --> 05:36.535 alien perspectives with purposes and intentions that are foreign 05:36.537 --> 05:40.617 to one another. They seem to us familiar -- we 05:40.621 --> 05:45.241 recognize these people, and in this conversation, 05:45.240 --> 05:49.190 and it's actually an argument as much as it is a conversation, 05:49.188 --> 05:52.598 Milton is giving us an emblem, finally I think, 05:52.596 --> 05:56.096 of what this poem has been doing all along: 05:56.103 --> 05:59.613 this poem has been arguing with itself. 05:59.610 --> 06:03.120 The dominant official language of hierarchy has been pitting 06:03.124 --> 06:06.794 itself against the questioning, subversive language of 06:06.785 --> 06:10.865 equality, and here in this conversation Milton gives a 06:10.871 --> 06:15.421 dramatic shape to what has been heretofore the abstract, 06:15.420 --> 06:19.610 intellectual conflicts that had so textured so many of the 06:19.605 --> 06:22.135 earlier books. And so here in Book Nine at the 06:22.135 --> 06:24.185 moment of the separation between Adam and Eve, 06:24.189 --> 06:29.809 we can see these two world views, these two enormous ways 06:29.813 --> 06:33.733 in which Paradise Lost thinks, 06:33.730 --> 06:38.640 separate almost to the point of absolute incompatibility. 06:38.639 --> 06:44.079 Whether this divergence will be nearly a separation or whether 06:44.076 --> 06:48.246 it will be an actual divorce, I think, is an open 06:48.251 --> 06:52.711 question.Now you can think of Milton assigning faces here 06:52.709 --> 06:57.169 in Book Nine to a lot of these positions that have heretofore 06:57.168 --> 07:00.298 been abstract. Adam represents in this 07:00.302 --> 07:04.052 dialogue the nervous voice of the poem's orthodoxy, 07:04.045 --> 07:07.335 and Eve represents the questioning voice, 07:07.339 --> 07:11.429 the voice that questions and critiques that orthodoxy. 07:11.430 --> 07:15.200 To his credit -- and Milton's not often given credit for this 07:15.204 --> 07:18.664 -- he goes out of his way to lend a certain authority to 07:18.664 --> 07:21.844 Eve's critique, and he does so by structuring 07:21.840 --> 07:26.140 her argument as something like a retrospective of his own career 07:26.142 --> 07:29.902 as a radical polemicist: so Eve takes up the role of the 07:29.898 --> 07:33.378 radical Milton in this, it seems. 07:33.379 --> 07:37.599 She's put in the strange and utterly fascinating position of 07:37.603 --> 07:41.833 quoting the younger Milton, and you have something like a 07:41.830 --> 07:46.060 recap in the speeches of Eve here, in this discussion with 07:46.056 --> 07:48.256 Adam, of the great moments in this 07:48.255 --> 07:51.005 writer's work.Now, the first subject of their 07:51.006 --> 07:54.036 discussion involves the topic that has been absolutely 07:54.044 --> 07:55.944 central, and we know this, 07:55.940 --> 07:59.660 to Milton throughout his career, and this is the subject 07:59.661 --> 08:04.491 of work or labor -- essentially, the value of human activity. 08:04.490 --> 08:08.580 The ostensible premise for the separation of Adam and Eve on 08:08.579 --> 08:12.879 the morning of the Fall is Eve's desire to work separately from 08:12.876 --> 08:15.416 Adam. Eve is arguing that they will 08:15.420 --> 08:18.600 be more productive if they divide their labors. 08:18.600 --> 08:22.480 Think of the ways in which this resonates for us. 08:22.480 --> 08:25.640 Milton has been juxtaposing for years the two accounts of the 08:25.635 --> 08:28.575 value of labor that he had found in the New Testament, 08:28.579 --> 08:31.819 the parable of the workers in the vineyard and the parable of 08:31.815 --> 08:34.445 the talents. As early as Sonnet Seven, 08:34.451 --> 08:38.441 written when Milton was twenty-three or twenty-four, 08:38.440 --> 08:42.270 he was depicting scenarios in which those two parables could 08:42.265 --> 08:45.825 be seen to argue with one another on just this question: 08:45.832 --> 08:48.752 on the value and the importance of labor. 08:48.750 --> 08:51.230 While the parable of the talents seemed to be chiding 08:51.225 --> 08:53.795 Milton for not working hard enough and not working fast 08:53.796 --> 08:55.746 enough, the parable of the workers in 08:55.751 --> 08:58.661 the vineyard seemed to assure him in some way that he 08:58.663 --> 09:00.493 didn't need to work quite so hard, 09:00.490 --> 09:06.880 that God didn't require his incessant and laborious efforts. 09:06.879 --> 09:11.379 It's a measure of just how difficult Milton wants it to be 09:11.377 --> 09:15.947 for us to adjudicate between Adam and Eve in this book that 09:15.954 --> 09:19.904 he casts their argument in just this language, 09:19.899 --> 09:23.229 the language of political economy and work. 09:23.230 --> 09:27.070 It's an argument that involves all of the implications, 09:27.065 --> 09:30.965 I think, of what are for Milton those two highly charged 09:30.972 --> 09:35.312 parables.Now I think it's almost impossible for us to come 09:35.305 --> 09:39.705 to this scene without some assumption that Eve is wrong. 09:39.710 --> 09:43.260 We assume -- and it's understandable -- that because 09:43.258 --> 09:46.108 Eve will, as we know, go on to disobey the 09:46.111 --> 09:49.851 prohibition of the fruit, she must therefore at this 09:49.851 --> 09:53.561 point on some level be wrong or certainly, in some way, 09:53.559 --> 09:56.559 mistaken during this conversation. 09:56.559 --> 10:00.459 But Milton takes some amazingly interesting steps, 10:00.455 --> 10:04.745 I think, to counter what he knows will be our immediate 10:04.748 --> 10:08.038 assumptions. He attempts to counter our 10:08.043 --> 10:12.253 assumptions by allowing Eve to voice that position in a 10:12.245 --> 10:16.445 dialogue that most closely resembles the parable of the 10:16.448 --> 10:19.968 talents. So look at page 383 in the 10:19.970 --> 10:24.220 Hughes. This is Book Nine, line 201. 10:24.220 --> 10:35.770 10:35.769 --> 10:38.349 First of all, it's the narrator here who's 10:38.345 --> 10:40.225 opening the subject of work. 10:40.230 --> 10:41.390 This is line 201. 10:41.389 --> 10:45.709 He's discussing the topic of conversation between Adam and 10:50.106 --> 10:53.666 that day they best may ply / Their growing work: 10:53.669 --> 10:57.759 for much thir work outgrew / The hands' dispatch of two 10:57.762 --> 11:01.632 Gard'ning so wide."So we learn from the official 11:01.628 --> 11:07.008 perspective of the narrator here that Eve will have children. 11:07.009 --> 11:10.269 This is incredibly consequential information that 11:10.274 --> 11:13.544 she was to have children even before the Fall. 11:13.539 --> 11:16.349 We learn that even before they have children, 11:16.346 --> 11:19.536 this garden demands an extraordinary amount of work 11:19.535 --> 11:23.355 from Adam and Eve and that the garden seems in some way to be 11:23.362 --> 11:25.852 actually spinning out of control. 11:25.850 --> 11:32.710 This is a nightmare landscape from the perspective of a house 11:32.705 --> 11:35.145 owner! I think this passage is 11:35.152 --> 11:38.682 important because it's the narrator here who validates 11:38.682 --> 11:42.812 Eve's initial position in this first speech.So Eve suggests 11:42.812 --> 11:45.612 that when Adam and Eve work together, 11:45.610 --> 11:49.290 their affectionate looks, their absolutely adorable 11:49.285 --> 11:52.735 smiles, distract each other from their labor. 11:52.740 --> 11:55.290 This is line 223 of Book Nine. 11:55.289 --> 11:58.809 So all of those intervening looks and smiles, 11:58.809 --> 12:03.609 she argues, "intermits / Our day's work brought to little, 12:03.610 --> 12:14.490 though begun / Early, and th' hour of Supper comes 12:14.486 --> 12:18.906 unearn'd." Eve has clearly embraced the 12:18.906 --> 12:22.106 Protestant work ethic, and she displays an intuitive 12:22.106 --> 12:25.426 grasp of the importance of the parable of the talents: 12:25.431 --> 12:28.941 God only rewards those who exert themselves or who invest 12:28.944 --> 12:31.144 their talent in an activity. 12:31.139 --> 12:34.779 It's impossible not to ascribe to Eve at least some of the 12:34.777 --> 12:38.217 authority that's attached to the parable of the talents 12:38.222 --> 12:42.182 here.Now Adam counters Eve with some version of the parable 12:42.179 --> 12:46.269 of the workers in the vineyard, claiming that there's more to 12:46.270 --> 12:48.120 work than simple productivity. 12:48.120 --> 12:49.280 This is line 242. 12:49.279 --> 12:52.819 Adam's talking: "For not to irksome toil, 12:52.824 --> 12:58.234 but to delight / He made us, and delight to Reason join'd." 12:58.230 --> 13:02.310 For Adam, one is still serving God when one takes pleasure in 13:02.306 --> 13:05.316 one's work. The importance lies more in the 13:05.321 --> 13:09.651 willingness to serve and not in the actual amount of work that's 13:09.653 --> 13:13.373 been accomplished or in the amount of stuff that's been 13:13.367 --> 13:16.477 produced. Milton himself was obviously 13:16.481 --> 13:20.401 always wanting to take Adam's side in this debate, 13:20.399 --> 13:24.179 but he seems to have been continually fearful -- at least 13:24.181 --> 13:27.081 this is my assumption -- that Eve was right: 13:27.084 --> 13:31.004 that God requires our continual labor.You can also hear 13:31.000 --> 13:34.980 Milton making a distinction between Eve's zeal for labor and 13:34.984 --> 13:38.364 his own efforts in writing this very poem. 13:38.360 --> 13:41.740 Milton's poem, we remember, 13:41.736 --> 13:47.706 had been "long choosing but beginning late." 13:47.710 --> 13:50.750 Like the workers in the vineyard, Milton doesn't get 13:50.747 --> 13:54.497 around to writing the poem until late in his literary career. 13:54.500 --> 13:58.600 Eve's labor is begun early, and there's even a sense here 13:58.596 --> 14:02.176 that beginning early isn't good enough for Eve; 14:02.179 --> 14:06.029 she seems to be pushing to get up even earlier and to work even 14:06.030 --> 14:08.750 harder. Eve is the modern voice of 14:08.745 --> 14:10.565 workplace efficiency. 14:10.570 --> 14:14.340 She supplies the voice of conscience that chides not only 14:14.337 --> 14:18.577 Adam but the voice of conscience that seems always to be chiding 14:18.576 --> 14:22.816 the poet himself.Now surely Adam is right -- we have to hand 14:22.815 --> 14:26.645 it to him -- in arguing that they are not in a position to 14:26.651 --> 14:30.891 earn their supper as if they were merely wage laborers. 14:30.889 --> 14:33.639 That's not how Milton's Eden works. 14:33.639 --> 14:37.499 None of their labor actually goes into the harvesting or the 14:37.504 --> 14:38.884 production of food. 14:38.879 --> 14:42.989 They're fed plenty, but that's because the fruits 14:42.988 --> 14:45.468 simply land in their hands. 14:45.470 --> 14:49.010 The work that they perform is all entirely ornamental -- it's 14:49.014 --> 14:51.554 ornamental gardening: pruning, cutting back, 14:51.554 --> 14:54.274 propping up. It's never productive in any 14:54.268 --> 14:57.298 kind of economic sense or quasi-economic sense. 14:57.299 --> 15:00.939 Their gardening is merely a virtuous activity that is 15:00.943 --> 15:04.873 entirely divorced from the demands of productivity or the 15:04.868 --> 15:06.758 demands of nourishment. 15:06.760 --> 15:09.200 So Adam is right; but while Adam is right, 15:09.204 --> 15:12.164 in a certain sense he doesn't address directly the problem 15:12.159 --> 15:14.959 that the narrator himself has already acknowledged, 15:14.960 --> 15:17.920 and that's the problem that the garden [laughs] 15:17.919 --> 15:21.909 seems to be growing at a faster rate than Adam and Eve are able 15:21.909 --> 15:23.699 to manage. This is amazing. 15:23.700 --> 15:26.470 Look at line 205. 15:26.470 --> 15:30.980 This is where Eve notes how excessive [laughs] 15:30.975 --> 15:35.475 the growth patterns seem to be in paradise. 15:35.480 --> 15:40.180 So, Eve to Adam: Adam, well may we labour 15:40.179 --> 15:42.749 still to dress This Garden, 15:42.749 --> 15:46.159 still to tend Plant, Herb, and Flow'r, 15:46.160 --> 15:49.770 Our pleasant task enjoin'd; but, till more hands 15:49.769 --> 15:52.849 Aid us, the work under our labor grows, 15:52.850 --> 15:58.280 Luxurious by restraint; what we by day 15:58.279 --> 16:01.499 Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, 16:01.502 --> 16:05.022 or bind One night or two with wanton 16:05.023 --> 16:09.003 growth derides Tending to wild. 16:09.000 --> 16:12.470 I think Eve here makes an absolutely central argument. 16:12.470 --> 16:15.630 It's not an argument that Adam counters, and I think it's not 16:15.625 --> 16:18.615 an argument that Adam would even be capable of countering: 16:18.622 --> 16:21.732 and that's the idea that the garden is on some level growing 16:21.725 --> 16:24.865 out of control, that the vegetation is 16:24.868 --> 16:28.018 literally here "tending to wild." 16:28.019 --> 16:31.749 It's "tending to wild" because Adam and Eve are continually 16:31.751 --> 16:35.351 cutting it back -- that's their "pleasant task enjoin'd": 16:35.354 --> 16:37.674 "the work under our labor grows, 16:37.669 --> 16:41.329 / Luxurious by restraint…" 16:41.330 --> 16:45.850 So Eve isn't simply describing natural growth patterns in the 16:45.848 --> 16:49.688 garden: she's examining the effects on nature of the 16:49.688 --> 16:53.528 imposition of culture.We're reminded here of the 16:53.529 --> 16:57.369 etymological origin of our notion of culture, 16:57.370 --> 17:00.590 which involves the cultivation of the land -- it's an 17:00.592 --> 17:02.082 agricultural metaphor. 17:02.080 --> 17:06.400 In this respect, Eve can be seen to articulate 17:06.404 --> 17:09.964 something like a theory of culture, 17:09.960 --> 17:12.790 and her theory has everything to do with our understanding of 17:12.786 --> 17:14.666 the Fall not as a theological problem, 17:14.670 --> 17:18.890 but our understanding of the Fall as a cultural problem. 17:18.890 --> 17:21.830 According to Eve, the garden is wilding, 17:21.826 --> 17:25.136 it's growing disobedient; but it's not growing 17:25.140 --> 17:28.920 disobedient out of any natural necessity but because of Adam 17:28.917 --> 17:31.987 and Eve's cultural imposition of restraining. 17:31.990 --> 17:35.540 It's that pruning and propping and lopping and binding. 17:35.539 --> 17:38.589 If left to itself, for all we know -- who knows? 17:38.589 --> 17:42.609 I think this is a perfectly reasonable scenario -- the 17:42.607 --> 17:46.547 garden might actually grow at a reasonable, moderate, 17:46.548 --> 17:48.138 and orderly pace. 17:48.140 --> 17:52.160 This new disorderliness in the garden, this wildness, 17:52.161 --> 17:55.411 seems to be the result of the unnatural, 17:55.410 --> 18:01.530 cultural attempt to restrain that natural order.So think 18:01.532 --> 18:05.332 of what this is. God's command to Adam and Eve 18:05.330 --> 18:09.320 to restrain the garden is on some level the miniature version 18:09.324 --> 18:13.124 of his much more consequential commandment to refrain from 18:13.118 --> 18:16.378 eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. 18:16.380 --> 18:20.480 I think that Eve in this speech presents us with a reading of 18:20.484 --> 18:24.114 the significance of the more important commandment; 18:24.109 --> 18:26.599 but of course, this is a reading that is 18:26.596 --> 18:29.906 incredibly subversive, and that's why we rely so much 18:29.912 --> 18:32.082 on Eve when we read this poem. 18:32.079 --> 18:36.269 She is so magnificently the voice of the subversive. 18:36.269 --> 18:42.279 If I'm reading Eve correctly here, the imposition of law 18:42.277 --> 18:47.627 doesn't control disorder: it produces disorder. 18:47.630 --> 18:51.600 There's a sense in which the arbitrary interdiction of the 18:51.595 --> 18:55.275 fruit sets in motion an inexorable process whereby the 18:55.282 --> 18:58.902 interdiction has to be broken.This is obviously a 18:58.899 --> 19:02.589 sense of the Fall that Milton cannot permit within the 19:02.586 --> 19:06.406 official parameters of the poem's dominant doctrine even 19:06.412 --> 19:09.912 though this theory, Eve's subversive theory, 19:09.910 --> 19:13.800 does come actually rather close to a number of Paul's statements 19:13.795 --> 19:17.425 in the Epistle to the Romans -- but officially in the 19:17.433 --> 19:21.753 poem, the Fall is an act of free will. 19:21.750 --> 19:25.470 It's a freely undertaken choice, but according to Eve's 19:25.467 --> 19:29.757 embedded prophesy of the Fall, which is what I take this to 19:29.760 --> 19:33.270 be, there's no such thing really as free will. 19:33.269 --> 19:37.259 The Father's prohibition seems to necessitate in some way their 19:37.262 --> 19:40.932 disobedience in the same way that pruning a tree -- and we 19:40.932 --> 19:44.092 know this to be a fact -- pruning a tree forces or 19:44.088 --> 19:46.018 necessitates new growth. 19:46.019 --> 19:49.049 It's almost as if Eve were suggesting that there was 19:49.047 --> 19:52.507 something like an organic, natural necessity to the 19:52.507 --> 19:57.077 Fall.Now I think that's one way in which Milton looks back 19:57.075 --> 20:01.715 at his former interest in work -- at his former interest in the 20:01.719 --> 20:04.639 interaction of those two parables, 20:04.640 --> 20:09.190 and he's bending their implications and their meanings 20:09.186 --> 20:13.316 in an entirely new way here; but there's another way in 20:13.321 --> 20:16.811 which the separation dialogue looks back at and essentially 20:16.805 --> 20:20.405 uses the essential material from Milton's earlier career. 20:20.410 --> 20:25.930 This is Eve's staggeringly brilliant deployment of the 20:25.925 --> 20:29.775 central argument from Areopagitica, 20:29.775 --> 20:33.725 the 1644 anti-licensing tract. 20:33.730 --> 20:37.210 Look at line 320 of Book Nine. 20:37.210 --> 20:40.860 This is page 386 in the Hughes. Now Adam has 20:40.859 --> 20:45.379 claimed that they can best pass the trial of Satan's temptation 20:45.384 --> 20:49.694 if they're together -- a perfectly reasonable position. 20:49.690 --> 20:53.380 If Adam is there to guide Eve and to protect her, 20:53.381 --> 20:56.151 the Fall is less likely to happen; 20:56.150 --> 21:00.230 but to Eve -- and this is Eve's argument -- this sounds as if 21:00.228 --> 21:03.558 Adam were attempting to censor her environment, 21:03.559 --> 21:07.479 as if he were trying to protect her from the potentially 21:07.484 --> 21:09.914 dangerous speech of the tempter. 21:09.910 --> 21:13.140 Of course, that is what he's trying to do, 21:13.136 --> 21:17.696 and so she responds to what she hears to be Adam's paternal 21:17.699 --> 21:22.839 solicitude. This is Eve at line 322: 21:22.839 --> 21:26.839 If this be our condition, thus to dwell 21:26.839 --> 21:30.649 In narrow circuit strait'n'd by a Foe, 21:30.650 --> 21:35.860 Subtle or violent, we not endu'd Single with like defense, 21:35.857 --> 21:38.657 wherever met; How are we happy, 21:38.660 --> 21:44.340 still in fear of harm? This is a devastating question. 21:44.339 --> 21:49.039 Eve issues a powerful critique of what she takes to be Adam's 21:49.035 --> 21:50.595 act of censorship. 21:50.599 --> 21:54.849 When she suggests that she is living in an increasingly 21:54.846 --> 21:58.066 "narrow circuit straight'n'd by a Foe," 21:58.069 --> 22:02.159 it's almost as if she's alluding to Milton's declaration 22:02.160 --> 22:06.350 in Areopagitica; you remember these lines: 22:06.354 --> 22:10.844 "I cannot praise a fugitive in cloistered virtue, 22:10.838 --> 22:16.048 unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees 22:16.054 --> 22:18.514 her adversary." "What is virtue?" 22:18.509 --> 22:20.179 Milton had asked in Areopagitica. 22:20.180 --> 22:22.080 What is it if it's never tested? 22:22.079 --> 22:26.319 What is virtuous resistance if there's nothing there actually 22:26.322 --> 22:29.862 to resist, if the information one is being given is 22:29.858 --> 22:34.028 continually being licensed and censored and controlled? 22:34.029 --> 22:39.519 Eve refuses to accept the idea that Eden might be structured 22:39.521 --> 22:45.011 like an authoritarian state, like the Stuart monarchy.At 22:45.013 --> 22:47.623 line 337 she lets loose. 22:47.619 --> 22:52.299 This is a searing criticism of a paradise in which an 22:52.299 --> 22:57.339 individual cannot be relied upon to choose freely her own 22:57.339 --> 23:00.769 actions, line 337: "Let us not then 23:00.765 --> 23:06.445 suspect our happy State / Left so imperfect by the Maker wise, 23:06.450 --> 23:10.970 / As not secure to single or combin'd." 23:10.970 --> 23:12.720 Now the syntax is a little difficult there. 23:12.720 --> 23:15.160 She's saying, "Let's not imagine that we're 23:15.164 --> 23:18.344 unsafe here. Let's not doubt that the maker 23:18.341 --> 23:23.301 created us secure," by which she means "safe," "whether we're on 23:23.299 --> 23:26.289 our own or whether we're together." 23:26.289 --> 23:32.009 Then she continues: "Frail is our happiness, 23:32.011 --> 23:37.601 if this be so, / And Eden were no Eden thus 23:37.600 --> 23:41.520 expos'd." Eve here is exposing an 23:41.517 --> 23:46.937 ideological contradiction at the heart of Milton's Eden. 23:46.940 --> 23:52.610 At the center of her argument is a powerful alternative to the 23:52.611 --> 23:55.681 official line of Milton's poem. 23:55.680 --> 23:59.910 Eve is pronouncing -- this is the structure of a theological 23:59.909 --> 24:03.999 argument, this is a theodicy: she's justifying the ways of 24:03.995 --> 24:06.285 God to men as she sees them. 24:06.289 --> 24:09.049 This is the logic, I take it, of what she's just 24:09.045 --> 24:11.975 said: "If I am not free to resist temptation alone, 24:11.976 --> 24:14.376 then this is not a justifiable world. 24:14.380 --> 24:17.320 If I am not free to resist temptation alone, 24:17.320 --> 24:19.440 God is not a justifiable God. 24:19.440 --> 24:23.410 Eden were no Eden, thus exposed. 24:23.410 --> 24:27.400 Therefore," she concludes, "I must be free to resist 24:27.403 --> 24:28.973 temptation alone." 24:28.970 --> 24:32.320 That's her logical conclusion.Now Eve's claim 24:32.324 --> 24:36.454 for the true state of Eden is a lot like Milton's claim some 24:36.448 --> 24:40.288 twenty years earlier in Areopagitica for the true 24:40.292 --> 24:41.902 state of England. 24:41.900 --> 24:46.620 There is at base a state of equality among human 24:46.621 --> 24:50.841 individuals, and the individual himself, 24:50.839 --> 24:54.949 singly and not combined, should be empowered to resist 24:54.954 --> 24:56.434 temptation alone. 24:56.430 --> 25:00.830 The poem has gone to great lengths to make the official 25:00.827 --> 25:03.837 case for God's -- how could it not? 25:03.839 --> 25:10.539 this is a version of Genesis -- for God's imposition of an 25:10.541 --> 25:17.011 arbitrary set of hierarchical distinctions and for God's 25:17.007 --> 25:21.237 ability to impose arbitrary law. 25:21.240 --> 25:25.960 Milton is supporting that throughout the poem; 25:25.960 --> 25:30.830 but Paradise Lost is also willing to identify just 25:30.826 --> 25:35.946 those arbitrary hierarchies as something like the source for 25:35.954 --> 25:40.154 Eden's imperfection, and he does that even as he 25:40.150 --> 25:43.980 celebrates God's ability to impose these arbitrary 25:43.979 --> 25:47.739 distinctions. It's this exposure of Eden's 25:47.739 --> 25:51.679 structural flaws, I think, that best helps us 25:51.682 --> 25:57.062 understand the internal dynamics of the temptation scene. 25:57.059 --> 26:00.989 When Satan tempts Eve, he invariably tempts her with 26:00.989 --> 26:04.999 some version of all of those desires and all of those 26:04.995 --> 26:08.615 aspirations that Eden's hierarchical culture has 26:08.617 --> 26:12.597 struggled, and struggled mightily, 26:12.599 --> 26:17.979 to suppress.Look at the top of page 391. 26:17.980 --> 26:22.320 This is line 538 of Book Nine. 26:22.319 --> 26:25.679 Our first encounter with Eve involved, you'll remember, 26:25.679 --> 26:28.789 the suppression of her admiration of that beautiful 26:28.789 --> 26:32.459 image that she saw in the pool -- or the suppression of what 26:32.459 --> 26:36.689 came later to be interpreted as something like her narcissism. 26:36.690 --> 26:39.440 Eve was created with what seemed to be a natural, 26:39.436 --> 26:42.576 beautiful, and instinctive admiration for the image that 26:42.582 --> 26:44.072 she found in the pool. 26:44.069 --> 26:46.709 That admiration was, of course, entirely innocent 26:46.705 --> 26:49.665 because Eve had no way of knowing that that was her own 26:49.670 --> 26:51.860 image; but with the onset of that 26:51.860 --> 26:55.270 mysterious warning voice, Eve was turned away from that 26:55.268 --> 26:59.538 image of herself, and her behavior became branded 26:59.542 --> 27:02.072 as narcissism thereafter. 27:02.069 --> 27:04.919 It wasn't, of course, true narcissism, 27:04.924 --> 27:09.714 but the imposition of that new restraint upon her seems to have 27:09.707 --> 27:12.317 produced in Eve, or created in her, 27:12.323 --> 27:14.353 something like a true narcissism. 27:14.349 --> 27:17.849 It's this culturally produced -- this is a character flaw that 27:17.851 --> 27:20.551 we can identify as a culturally produced one, 27:20.549 --> 27:24.449 and it's one that Satan is able to exploit with utter ingenuity 27:24.446 --> 27:26.076 at the temptation scene. 27:26.079 --> 27:30.489 So this is Satan at line 538 to Eve: 27:30.490 --> 27:35.050 Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair,Thee all 27:35.052 --> 27:39.452 living things gaze on, all things thineBy gift, 27:39.450 --> 27:44.190 and thy Celestial Beauty adoreWith ravishment beheld, 27:44.187 --> 27:48.837 there best beheldWhere universally admir'd. 27:48.839 --> 27:52.189 So Eve's affection for a responsive image, 27:52.189 --> 27:56.679 for a sympathetic gaze -- that's all she was getting out 27:56.682 --> 28:00.442 of the pool -- was denied her at the pool. 28:00.440 --> 28:05.790 This restraint seems to have produced in her something like a 28:05.794 --> 28:11.154 self-love, a self-love that has grown luxurious by restraint, 28:11.148 --> 28:13.378 and Satan knows that. 28:13.380 --> 28:17.360 The tendency to narcissism was only one component of her 28:17.361 --> 28:21.561 character that was exposed in the scene at the poolside. 28:21.559 --> 28:23.959 The pleasure that Eve was deriving from the answering 28:23.960 --> 28:27.580 smiles, those beautiful, sympathetic looks in the pool 28:27.581 --> 28:32.841 -- that pleasure is akin in many ways to the pleasure that a lot 28:32.840 --> 28:38.100 of infants derive from the first moments of their existence. 28:38.099 --> 28:43.289 I'm thinking of the infant's pleasure in its initial 28:43.294 --> 28:46.354 interaction with the mother. 28:46.349 --> 28:50.849 This shouldn't be surprising: one of the things that Milton 28:50.849 --> 28:55.189 tries to accomplish in the narrative of Eve's development 28:55.193 --> 28:59.543 is something like a larger theory of human development in 28:59.537 --> 29:03.777 general.But of course, unlike all the rest of us, 29:03.776 --> 29:05.596 Eve doesn't have a mother. 29:05.599 --> 29:11.049 It's the role of the mother both in culture and in nature 29:11.045 --> 29:14.735 that has been systemically excluded, 29:14.740 --> 29:18.130 necessarily but nonetheless systematically excluded, 29:18.126 --> 29:19.716 from Paradise Lost. 29:19.720 --> 29:23.650 Whatever experience of a kind of maternal affection that 29:23.645 --> 29:26.765 Eve may have felt in the answering looks and the 29:26.772 --> 29:31.232 sympathetic smiles is summarily cut off with the warning voice. 29:31.230 --> 29:35.640 Just as he did with her narcissism, Satan tempts Eve 29:35.638 --> 29:40.048 with precisely that natural phenomenon, that natural 29:40.047 --> 29:43.157 instinct that's been denied her. 29:43.160 --> 29:46.150 Look at Satan, line 578. 29:46.150 --> 29:50.340 He describes his first glance at the "goodly Tree far distant 29:50.340 --> 29:53.410 to behold," and we, of course, know what that 29:53.413 --> 29:55.773 goodly tree is. The serpent says: 29:55.769 --> 30:00.089 I nearer drew to gaze;When from the boughs a 30:00.089 --> 30:04.819 savory odor blown,Grateful to appetite, more pleas'd my 30:04.816 --> 30:08.206 sense Than smell of sweetest Fennel, 30:08.208 --> 30:12.728 or the TeatsOf Ewe or Goat dropping with Milk at 30:12.726 --> 30:18.216 Ev'n,Unsuckt of Lamb or Kid, that tend thir play. 30:18.220 --> 30:22.550 Surely we all agree that this is a surprising [laughs] 30:22.545 --> 30:24.825 and a strange simile here. 30:24.829 --> 30:29.619 In comparing the smell of the forbidden fruit to mother's 30:29.623 --> 30:34.933 milk, Satan is offering Eve an embedded image of the mother, 30:34.930 --> 30:40.110 and by placing the scene in the evening or what he calls "Ev'n," 30:40.107 --> 30:45.037 Satan is able to insert Eve's actual name into the expression 30:45.038 --> 30:49.888 of a natural desire to suckle at the mother's breast.But 30:49.887 --> 30:54.327 what's at stake here isn't simply Eve's longing for the 30:54.325 --> 30:57.115 mother that she never had. 30:57.119 --> 31:00.889 The situation is a lot more radical than that because at the 31:00.887 --> 31:03.057 scene at the pool, in so many ways, 31:03.059 --> 31:05.549 Eve was actually mothering herself. 31:05.549 --> 31:09.419 At least on an experiential level, Eve seemed to have been 31:09.418 --> 31:13.018 -- this is the way she must have felt it subjectively: 31:13.015 --> 31:17.015 she was the source of her own creation much as Satan claimed 31:17.019 --> 31:21.159 that he had raised himself by his own quickening power. 31:21.160 --> 31:24.440 Eve had represented the possibility for the poem of 31:24.441 --> 31:28.181 something like an absolute self-possession and an absolute 31:28.181 --> 31:29.561 self-containment. 31:29.559 --> 31:32.869 You'll remember that Adam had informed Raphael in Book Eight 31:32.865 --> 31:36.165 (this was at line 547 of Book Eight) that he had been struck 31:36.170 --> 31:39.140 by this incredible air of self-contained-ness that Eve 31:39.139 --> 31:41.309 had. He tells Raphael, 31:41.306 --> 31:46.126 "[W]hen I approach / Her loveliness, so absolute she 31:46.127 --> 31:49.527 seems / And in herself complete," 31:49.529 --> 31:51.919 and Raphael, of course, hastened to warn 31:51.922 --> 31:55.422 Adam against the attraction to female self-sufficiency. 31:55.420 --> 31:59.500 There's a sense in which Eve is absolutely independent. 31:59.500 --> 32:05.060 She's mother and daughter united in one self-determining 32:05.058 --> 32:10.718 being, and it is just this maternal self-sufficiency that 32:10.718 --> 32:17.088 the law of the garden has denied Eve -- and so like clockwork it 32:17.086 --> 32:21.226 returns here in Satan's temptation. 32:21.230 --> 32:24.740 The third element of Satan's temptation involves the taboo 32:24.739 --> 32:28.059 that was established by Raphael -- this is the taboo of 32:28.064 --> 32:30.254 speculation. Raphael had told Adam, 32:30.247 --> 32:33.077 "Don't concern yourself and don't worry so much about 32:33.076 --> 32:36.116 speculating about the cosmos because the structure of the 32:36.123 --> 32:38.303 cosmos simply doesn't concern you." 32:38.299 --> 32:42.559 "Be lowly wise," Raphael told Adam, and "know to know no 32:42.560 --> 32:44.930 more." How on earth could Milton, 32:44.932 --> 32:48.712 the author of Areopagitica, put those words in the 32:48.707 --> 32:50.457 mouth of the archangel? 32:50.460 --> 32:52.640 It's too troubling even to speculate about. 32:52.640 --> 32:57.630 But look down at line 602 of Book Nine. 32:57.630 --> 33:00.690 (This is page 392.) The serpent argues that one of the effects 33:00.685 --> 33:03.085 of the fruit was the awakening (and of course, 33:03.089 --> 33:08.749 he's lying) in him of the power of reason, wakening in him his 33:08.753 --> 33:11.263 capacity for speculation. 33:11.259 --> 33:14.779 Thenceforth to Speculations high or deepI 33:14.781 --> 33:17.391 turn'd my thoughts, and with capacious 33:17.387 --> 33:21.047 mindConsider'd all things visible in Heav'n, 33:21.049 --> 33:24.879 Or Earth, or Middle, all things fair and 33:24.875 --> 33:28.135 good... No form of speculation has been 33:28.136 --> 33:31.736 licensed or censored for the serpent, according to Satan. 33:31.740 --> 33:34.600 He gets to think whatever he wants. 33:34.599 --> 33:38.139 This is exactly the vision of the liberal, Miltonic universe 33:38.135 --> 33:41.065 represented so majestically and so compellingly in 33:41.071 --> 33:42.511 Areopagitica. 33:42.509 --> 33:47.859 Again the temptation to speculate is intimately linked 33:47.864 --> 33:54.134 with this cultural law against speculation and the restraint of 33:54.129 --> 33:59.079 speculation.Finally and most importantly, 33:59.079 --> 34:04.589 Eve is tempted with just that aspect of her status that this 34:04.588 --> 34:10.278 poem has most vigorously denied her and that's the possibility 34:10.284 --> 34:14.584 -- and I take this very seriously -- that she's 34:14.579 --> 34:18.459 actually, at least on a natural and 34:18.462 --> 34:21.742 ontological level, Adam's equal. 34:21.739 --> 34:26.519 The possibility of the fundamental or natural 34:26.517 --> 34:30.097 egalitarianism of Eden, rather, 34:30.099 --> 34:33.929 is one of the principal objects of cultural suppression in 34:33.932 --> 34:36.422 Raphael's long discourse with Adam. 34:36.420 --> 34:41.480 Raphael's denial of their equality really fills the pages 34:41.482 --> 34:45.552 of Book Eight, and so naturally the desire for 34:45.550 --> 34:50.520 equality surfaces one of the principal motives for Eve's 34:50.522 --> 34:54.312 transgression. By eating the fruit, 34:54.311 --> 34:59.661 Eve perhaps -- this is unspeakably heartbreaking -- can 34:59.661 --> 35:04.021 produce in herself an equality with Adam. 35:04.019 --> 35:07.049 That's the fantasy, and the speaking serpent 35:07.048 --> 35:10.638 provides the best evidence imaginable of the alleged 35:10.640 --> 35:15.500 ability of the fruit to function as a kind of chemical equalizer. 35:15.500 --> 35:20.600 It's like a testosterone-laced cocktail that offers the false 35:20.596 --> 35:22.206 hope of equality. 35:22.210 --> 35:27.970 Look at line 687, Satan to Eve: [L]ook on mee,Mee who 35:27.971 --> 35:31.471 have touch'd and tasted, yet both live,And life more 35:31.470 --> 35:34.460 perfet have attain'd than FateMeant mee, 35:34.460 --> 35:38.120 by vent'ring higher then my Lot. 35:38.119 --> 35:40.249 In other words, "Eat this fruit and you will 35:40.246 --> 35:42.516 become greater than you have, up to this point, 35:42.522 --> 35:43.662 been allowed to be. 35:43.659 --> 35:48.079 Eat this fruit and you will become greater than your lot in 35:48.080 --> 35:52.270 life permits." Now this has to be one of the 35:52.272 --> 35:55.042 most powerful inducements. 35:55.039 --> 36:00.929 As a political philosopher, Milton knows better than anyone 36:00.934 --> 36:06.424 the power of the desire for equality.It's just this 36:06.422 --> 36:12.722 promise of equality that is most important to Eve after she has 36:12.724 --> 36:16.174 eaten the fruit. This is after the Fall. 36:16.170 --> 36:19.740 This is line 816 of Book Nine. 36:19.740 --> 36:22.720 This is the middle of page 397. 36:22.720 --> 36:28.410 Eve is musing to herself: But to Adam in what 36:28.412 --> 36:30.932 sortShall I appear? 36:30.929 --> 36:34.019 shall I to him make knownAs yet my change, 36:34.024 --> 36:37.464 and give him to partakeFull happiness with mee, 36:37.462 --> 36:40.522 or rather not. But keep the odds of Knowledge 36:40.518 --> 36:42.578 in my powerWithout Copartner? 36:42.579 --> 36:47.859 so to add what wantsIn Female Sex, the more to draw his 36:47.862 --> 36:53.282 Love [and I love this], And render me more equal, 36:53.276 --> 36:57.596 and perhaps,A thing not undesireable, 36:57.603 --> 37:03.663 sometimeSuperior: for inferior who is free? 37:03.659 --> 37:07.469 There is an unspeakable pathos charging these lines because it 37:07.471 --> 37:11.031 becomes clear that one of the primary reasons that Eve has 37:11.032 --> 37:14.412 fallen in the first place involves a structural problem 37:14.406 --> 37:17.406 inherent in the Miltonic paradise: and that's the 37:17.405 --> 37:20.525 official insistence on a social hierarchy. 37:20.530 --> 37:24.280 Of course, the poem is continually arguing that social 37:24.281 --> 37:27.821 inferiority does not impinge upon human freedom. 37:27.820 --> 37:32.940 Just because Eve is inferior to Adam doesn't mean that she isn't 37:32.940 --> 37:35.150 free. That's the official line, 37:35.151 --> 37:39.291 but Milton knows perfectly well that the radical type of freedom 37:39.289 --> 37:43.359 for which he had argued in his early career as a polemicist had 37:43.361 --> 37:46.581 been founded upon an assumption of equality. 37:46.579 --> 37:50.229 In Areopagitica Milton had implied that we're all free 37:50.233 --> 37:54.073 to read whatever we want because we are all equally endowed with 37:54.070 --> 37:56.880 reason. That's at least implicitly his 37:56.884 --> 38:01.254 argument, yet Paradise Lost had instituted at the heart 38:01.245 --> 38:05.315 of its body politic a distinctly hierarchical society. 38:05.320 --> 38:09.700 There may be a natural instinct for equality. 38:09.699 --> 38:13.219 There's a natural instinct for equality that we feel both with 38:13.224 --> 38:16.284 Adam and with Eve, but the official culture of 38:16.277 --> 38:19.367 Eden has labored to suppress that instinct; 38:19.369 --> 38:23.879 and at the moment of the temptation, the tremendous cost 38:23.877 --> 38:27.317 of that suppression is measured.Now, 38:27.320 --> 38:30.960 from the doctrinal point of view, Eve is clearly wrong here 38:30.962 --> 38:34.482 to question her divinely sanctioned place in the order of 38:34.479 --> 38:36.959 things. We have to see her as wrong, 38:36.956 --> 38:40.526 but there is a voice that counters the poem's doctrine, 38:40.530 --> 38:45.260 and it argues that the imposition of such an arbitrary 38:45.257 --> 38:50.157 law of hierarchy can only produce a corresponding desire 38:50.163 --> 38:52.843 to subvert that hierarchy. 38:52.840 --> 38:56.790 You'll note here the further point that the denial of 38:56.791 --> 39:00.361 equality doesn't merely precipitate a desire for 39:00.362 --> 39:03.592 equality. I think it pushes us even 39:03.588 --> 39:07.258 further to a desire -- it's really wild. 39:07.260 --> 39:12.530 The denial of equality actually pushes us even further to a 39:12.528 --> 39:14.798 desire for superiority. 39:14.800 --> 39:18.200 Eve entertains the lovely thought of being -- and isn't 39:18.195 --> 39:19.825 this a wonderful phrase! 39:19.829 --> 39:24.649 -- "sometime / Superior," as if Adam and Eve could assume 39:24.646 --> 39:29.456 different positions on the hierarchical ladder at will -- 39:29.461 --> 39:34.451 as if Adam and Eve could "either rung assume" or both, 39:34.449 --> 39:37.099 just as Milton's angels can "either sex assume." 39:37.099 --> 39:41.289 The suppression of equality even pushes Eve to that 39:41.286 --> 39:45.296 perfectly illogical but completely understandable 39:45.304 --> 39:49.244 formulation: she'd like to be "more equal," 39:49.239 --> 39:52.009 as if equality could be quantified in some way; 39:52.010 --> 39:56.080 as if equality weren't a relational phenomenon, 39:56.075 --> 40:00.755 a structural phenomenon, but one that could be assumed 40:00.760 --> 40:06.420 entirely by oneself and one that could be hoarded and kept within 40:06.416 --> 40:11.066 the self in quantity.Now, according to the official 40:11.068 --> 40:14.188 doctrine of the poem, the moment of Eve's eating of 40:14.186 --> 40:17.736 the fruit is the origin of the original human condition of 40:17.740 --> 40:20.920 fallen-ness. Man lived until this time in a 40:20.920 --> 40:25.090 state of paradisal perfection, and it's out of an absolutely 40:25.089 --> 40:29.329 free will that man chooses to disobey the divine command. 40:29.329 --> 40:32.799 But the narrative that Milton employs to illustrate this 40:32.800 --> 40:36.080 official doctrine seems continually to be questioning 40:36.082 --> 40:37.662 just that assumption. 40:37.659 --> 40:42.449 Milton's poetry seems to counter this belief in Edenic 40:42.446 --> 40:46.056 perfection and counter this belief, even, 40:46.058 --> 40:49.488 in Edenic freedom before the Fall. 40:49.489 --> 40:54.039 There's a sense in Paradise Lost that Adam and Eve -- 40:54.044 --> 40:58.684 and I know this is heretical -- were never completely free in 40:58.675 --> 41:01.325 Eden. They were always burdened by a 41:01.334 --> 41:05.134 set of cultural constraints of which the prohibition of the 41:05.131 --> 41:07.751 fruit was simply the most outrageous, 41:07.750 --> 41:11.530 but certainly not the only, one.Look at page 402. 41:11.530 --> 41:16.690 This is another important moment after the Fall, 41:16.692 --> 41:19.902 line 1051. This is the moment in which 41:19.900 --> 41:24.310 Adam and Eve wake up after their first act of sexual intercourse 41:24.309 --> 41:27.249 after the Fall. This is their first attempt at 41:27.254 --> 41:30.014 fallen sleep which, of course, doesn't turn out to 41:30.006 --> 41:31.126 be that pleasant. 41:31.130 --> 41:37.160 So: [U]p they roseAs from unrest, and each the other 41:37.159 --> 41:43.489 viewing,Soon found thir Eyes how op'nd, and thir mindsHow 41:43.485 --> 41:46.385 dark'n'd; innocence, that as a 41:46.389 --> 41:51.249 veilHad shadow'd them from knowing ill, was gone,Just 41:51.246 --> 41:53.106 confidence, and native 41:53.107 --> 41:57.467 righteousness,And honor from about them, naked leftTo 41:57.473 --> 42:00.483 guilty shame... So this is Milton's version of 42:00.476 --> 42:01.226 the Genesis text. 42:01.230 --> 42:04.870 This is what Genesis tells us: "he eyes of both were opened, 42:04.865 --> 42:07.325 and they knew that they were naked..." 42:07.329 --> 42:10.719 They've awakened to a new form of consciousness, 42:10.719 --> 42:15.189 but Milton wants us to know that this new form of knowledge, 42:15.190 --> 42:18.530 this new self-consciousness, isn't an enlightenment: 42:18.534 --> 42:19.784 it's a darkening. 42:19.780 --> 42:24.760 "hir minds / How dark'n'd," Milton explains.But it's so 42:24.760 --> 42:27.680 much more complicated than that. 42:27.679 --> 42:30.799 No sooner has Milton depicted the Fall as a darkening than he 42:30.798 --> 42:32.668 does something incredibly strange. 42:32.670 --> 42:36.530 He describes the Fall from innocence as if the Fall were in 42:36.526 --> 42:39.046 itself something like an enlightenment: 42:39.052 --> 42:42.072 "innocence, that as a veil / Had shadow'd 42:42.067 --> 42:44.917 them from knowing ill, was gone…" 42:44.920 --> 42:47.770 There's an incredibly complicated but wonderfully 42:47.767 --> 42:50.967 contradictory interplay of lightening and darkening, 42:50.969 --> 42:53.479 and the imagery here begins to deconstruct itself. 42:53.480 --> 42:56.420 On the one hand, the Fall darkens their minds, 42:56.418 --> 42:59.548 and on the other hand, they're enlightened as the 42:59.553 --> 43:03.413 shadowy veil is lifted.It's at this moment that the poem 43:03.406 --> 43:07.316 seems to expose the fictional status of its representation of 43:07.324 --> 43:11.454 something like a perfect, unfallen innocence. 43:11.449 --> 43:13.699 Surely we expected Milton to say something completely 43:13.700 --> 43:16.220 different. Surely we expected Milton to 43:16.223 --> 43:20.233 say that innocence was the natural, naked Adam and Eve, 43:20.230 --> 43:23.460 and that this innocent nakedness is now being covered 43:23.463 --> 43:27.323 with a veil, a veil of guilt or a veil of shame -- but Milton's 43:27.318 --> 43:30.438 doing, of course, exactly the opposite. 43:30.440 --> 43:31.230 What does he say? 43:31.230 --> 43:33.900 Innocence was itself the veil. 43:33.900 --> 43:38.760 The very idea of their perfect, unfallen state was the veil; 43:38.760 --> 43:42.240 the very notion that Adam and Eve ever lived in a free 43:42.243 --> 43:43.693 paradise was a veil. 43:43.690 --> 43:47.300 It was a fiction, it was a false covering -- a 43:47.304 --> 43:51.644 veil thrown over the Edenic society that was always and 43:51.640 --> 43:56.540 already a product of fallen cultural constraints.Now, 43:56.539 --> 43:59.579 I don't need to remind you of this because I know this is what 43:59.582 --> 44:01.842 you're thinking. We have, of course, 44:01.841 --> 44:06.071 run into the image of the veil before in Paradise Lost. 44:06.070 --> 44:08.660 An image of the veil appeared in the description in 44:08.656 --> 44:12.226 the length of Eve's hair, and remember that was a fact of 44:12.225 --> 44:16.555 culture that was being mistaken by the narrator as a fact of 44:16.556 --> 44:17.886 nature. In Book Four, 44:17.893 --> 44:20.543 line 304, the narrator -- and you don't need to move there 44:20.541 --> 44:23.381 because you remember these lines -- the narrator tells us that 44:23.375 --> 44:25.745 Eve: [A]s a veil down to the 44:25.750 --> 44:29.110 slender waistHer unadorned golden tresses wore 44:29.110 --> 44:31.970 Disshevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd 44:31.969 --> 44:35.759 As the Vine curles her tendrils, which impli'd 44:35.760 --> 44:39.330 Subjection... Our first understanding of 44:39.334 --> 44:42.764 Eve's subjection to Adam was derived from the length of Eve's 44:42.759 --> 44:44.699 hair, which she wore as a veil. 44:44.699 --> 44:48.019 A veil, of course, is only worn to hide something. 44:48.019 --> 44:52.049 It's a covering of a source of shame that in this case may have 44:52.053 --> 44:55.683 seemed to be Eve's nakedness, but that equation of Eve's hair 44:55.677 --> 44:57.697 with a veil took place -- think of it. 44:57.699 --> 45:01.669 It took place before the Fall, before nakedness was shameful. 45:01.670 --> 45:05.290 The poem seemed to raise the possibility that there was 45:05.292 --> 45:09.522 actually never a moment at which Adam and Eve were entirely free 45:09.518 --> 45:13.408 from the kinds of constraints and the kinds of prohibitions 45:13.408 --> 45:16.358 that we associate with fallen culture, 45:16.360 --> 45:21.110 with culture after the breaking of the prohibition.It's, 45:21.108 --> 45:26.178 of course, no accident that the image of the veil occurs in Book 45:26.178 --> 45:30.848 Nine in the context of our introduction to Edenic hierarchy 45:30.846 --> 45:34.866 and to the fact of Eve's subordinate status, 45:34.869 --> 45:39.579 because the Fall itself seems in so many ways, 45:39.584 --> 45:45.244 I think, to be one of the cultural consequences of this 45:45.242 --> 45:48.702 fact of sexual subordination. 45:48.699 --> 45:52.139 Milton's strange image of the veil of innocence in Book Nine 45:52.140 --> 45:54.650 -- what is this? This is a paradox, 45:54.645 --> 45:58.845 a rhetorical paradox, and this paradox announces what 45:58.848 --> 46:02.968 is essentially the paradoxical construction of Eden, 46:02.971 --> 46:04.751 of Milton's Eden. 46:04.750 --> 46:07.080 On the official, on the doctrinal, 46:07.075 --> 46:10.245 level of the poem, the falling of this veil of 46:10.246 --> 46:13.696 innocence exposes Adam's and Eve's nakedness. 46:13.699 --> 46:16.609 It's a sign of their new fallen consciousness of their shame. 46:16.610 --> 46:20.200 That's how we're supposed to be reading, presumably, 46:20.203 --> 46:22.713 this image; but this paradoxical image also 46:22.711 --> 46:25.431 works on that other level, on the much more subversive 46:25.431 --> 46:26.511 level of the poem. 46:26.510 --> 46:31.540 It exposes a structural flaw at the heart of Milton's paradise. 46:31.539 --> 46:35.789 Milton lets the doctrinal veil fall from the poem, 46:35.794 --> 46:40.924 and he exposes his own alliance here -- and I really believe 46:40.916 --> 46:46.296 this -- with Eve's critique of Eden's arbitrary hierarchy. 46:46.300 --> 46:52.420 It's as if Milton had torn the veil of dogma from his poem and 46:52.423 --> 46:57.443 he's begun to realize what Eve has known all along: 46:57.442 --> 47:02.062 "Eden were no Eden thus expos'd."Okay. 47:02.060 --> 47:03.000 That's it.