WEBVTT 00:02.100 --> 00:05.300 Professor John Rogers: Readers typically finish 00:05.304 --> 00:08.794 the last books of Paradise Lost with -- I don't know, 00:08.790 --> 00:13.970 I certainly had this experience the first time I read it and, 00:13.967 --> 00:18.797 I think, actually many times since then -- with something 00:18.799 --> 00:23.909 like a sense of disappointment, and the disappointment that has 00:23.911 --> 00:28.161 traditionally accompanied these last books is usually associated 00:28.161 --> 00:30.591 with the question of their style. 00:30.590 --> 00:34.580 Michael's prophetic vision of future history is laid out 00:34.582 --> 00:38.872 before Adam with -- and you get this sense -- with a kind of 00:38.866 --> 00:41.766 labored and painstaking didacticism. 00:41.770 --> 00:44.420 We so miss Raphael, I think. 00:44.420 --> 00:47.700 The affable Raphael had charmed us with that endearing 00:47.700 --> 00:51.230 uncertainty that he had about the structure of the cosmos, 00:51.229 --> 00:53.159 for example. Was Ptolemy right? 00:53.160 --> 00:54.000 Was Copernicus right? 00:54.000 --> 00:57.610 Who cares? Raphael made an art out of his 00:57.605 --> 01:01.885 uncertainty, and he seemed to place his blessing thereby on 01:01.889 --> 01:05.799 all of the ambiguities and all of the ambivalences and 01:05.804 --> 01:10.314 uncertainties that filled nearly every line of the poem. 01:10.310 --> 01:14.020 But everything, or nearly everything, 01:14.016 --> 01:19.676 changes with the appearance of the Archangel Michael. 01:19.680 --> 01:23.350 Michael's speech is much less open -- there's no question 01:23.345 --> 01:27.465 about this -- to a proliferation of signifying possibilities. 01:27.470 --> 01:30.830 He speaks in labored, declarative sentences and his 01:30.830 --> 01:34.460 purpose seems above all to provide Adam with a powerful 01:34.460 --> 01:37.590 sense of his culpability, Adam's culpability, 01:37.594 --> 01:39.904 for the hell that is future history. 01:39.900 --> 01:42.950 I mean actually hell quite literally because there's an 01:42.948 --> 01:46.338 important way in which the last two books of Paradise Lost 01:46.336 --> 01:49.946 provide us with a kind of mirror of the first two books. 01:49.950 --> 01:53.270 The catalog of fallen history that we have at the poem's 01:53.272 --> 01:56.662 conclusion reproduces and rehearses a lot of the patterns 01:56.655 --> 01:59.615 of behavior that were established in the first two 01:59.615 --> 02:02.525 books. David's lecture on Friday has 02:02.532 --> 02:07.072 made me think of the ways in which sometimes what seems to be 02:07.069 --> 02:11.759 the futility of human action and human behavior in the last two 02:11.758 --> 02:16.068 books also harkens back to an earlier time even before the 02:16.068 --> 02:20.528 events recounted in Books One and Two -- and that's, 02:20.530 --> 02:22.640 of course, the war in heaven. 02:22.639 --> 02:26.609 The pointlessness of the war in heaven on some level gets 02:26.614 --> 02:30.874 reproduced in -- in the sense that we have sometimes of-- the 02:30.872 --> 02:34.852 pointlessness of life [laughs] after the Fall in the last 02:34.846 --> 02:38.396 couple of books of the poem.But like the war in 02:38.395 --> 02:41.305 heaven, there is a kind of heroism 02:41.307 --> 02:45.497 that's possible in the last two books of Paradise Lost. 02:45.500 --> 02:47.980 I won't be talking about this at any length, 02:47.976 --> 02:51.086 but it's an important part of Milton's conception of history 02:51.085 --> 02:54.185 and it's often referred to as Milton's "one just man" theory 02:54.194 --> 02:57.284 of history. Every generation seems to have 02:57.281 --> 03:01.741 one man who is willing to stand alone and stand apart from the 03:01.737 --> 03:05.867 corruption of the crowd, and that man will do everything 03:05.873 --> 03:10.343 he possibly can -- on some level it's still going to be futile -- 03:10.340 --> 03:14.040 to advance the civilization and the level of spiritual 03:14.039 --> 03:17.389 excellence of the people that much further. 03:17.389 --> 03:21.289 The one just man in the war in heaven was, of course, 03:21.289 --> 03:25.489 the angel Abdiel with whom Milton himself felt himself so 03:25.490 --> 03:29.430 identified.Well, in any case, think of Book Ten. 03:29.430 --> 03:33.560 Book Ten had been filled with a catalog of the punishments that 03:33.563 --> 03:37.833 Adam and Eve had to endure as a consequence of their behavior, 03:37.830 --> 03:42.540 but it seems at times as if the harshest punishment of all that 03:42.542 --> 03:47.032 comes as a consequence of the Fall will be Adam's subjection 03:47.026 --> 03:51.506 to the catechism of Michael in Books Eleven and Twelve. 03:51.509 --> 03:55.769 Adam is subjected to an instructor, an instructor whose 03:55.766 --> 03:59.066 grim sense of humor, whose abrasive sarcasm, 03:59.069 --> 04:02.209 and whose unfeeling didacticism all contribute, 04:02.210 --> 04:05.900 at least to my mind, to a sensibility utterly 04:05.903 --> 04:09.093 foreign to that of the first [laughs] 04:09.089 --> 04:12.829 ten books. If we as the sons and daughters 04:12.834 --> 04:17.274 of Adam and Eve are to be punished, it seems as if we, 04:17.269 --> 04:21.369 too, are to be punished for that original sin. 04:21.370 --> 04:22.310 How are we punished? 04:22.310 --> 04:28.400 We're punished because if we want to finish this stupid poem 04:28.399 --> 04:33.869 we have an obligation to read and experience Michael's 04:33.870 --> 04:38.970 uncompromising pedagogy, his teaching of Adam.Now, 04:38.972 --> 04:43.702 the literary style of the last books may be that aspect of them 04:43.702 --> 04:46.832 that first incites our disappointment, 04:46.829 --> 04:50.249 but it's certainly not the only disappointing element of those 04:50.251 --> 04:52.161 books. We're also disappointed with 04:52.158 --> 04:55.128 the actual content -- I'm disappointed with the content of 04:55.126 --> 04:56.216 Michael's history. 04:56.220 --> 05:01.820 I will continually be harkening back to Raphael who seems so 05:01.822 --> 05:07.902 much more affable in retrospect than maybe he did at the time. 05:07.899 --> 05:11.959 We remember Raphael's teasing account of future history in 05:11.964 --> 05:13.494 Book Five. You'll remember this. 05:13.490 --> 05:15.770 If Adam and Eve could only remain sinless, 05:15.771 --> 05:17.831 if they could only remain obedient, 05:17.829 --> 05:21.839 then their future might consist of that grand but slow 05:21.835 --> 05:25.685 transmutation into the ethereal matter of angels. 05:25.689 --> 05:29.429 It was really quite beautiful, but Adam and Eve, 05:29.427 --> 05:33.957 of course, did not remain sinless and their future history 05:33.959 --> 05:38.169 necessarily has to look disappointingly different from 05:38.173 --> 05:42.073 that natural history that Raphael had been able to 05:42.069 --> 05:46.689 anticipate.Now most critics, most Milton scholars writing 05:46.694 --> 05:49.484 about the last two books of Milton's poem have invested 05:49.479 --> 05:52.419 their time -- and you can understand why this is necessary 05:52.419 --> 05:55.309 -- have invested their time in defending books Eleven and 05:55.307 --> 05:58.357 Twelve, and there's a certain kind of 05:58.361 --> 06:02.621 nervousness about the unpleasantness of the conclusion 06:02.623 --> 06:05.633 of this poem. Critics are continually -- and 06:05.626 --> 06:08.886 I think this is misguided, but I understand it nonetheless 06:08.888 --> 06:11.858 -- they're continually attempting to shelter the poem 06:11.863 --> 06:15.303 from the accusation that its ending represents something like 06:15.297 --> 06:17.297 a disappointing falling off. 06:17.300 --> 06:21.910 Now I think these critics are right, they're absolutely right, 06:21.914 --> 06:26.384 to insist that the last books are supremely artful creations 06:26.378 --> 06:30.838 -- that's undeniable -- and that Milton displays in them his 06:30.841 --> 06:34.621 sophisticated engagement of biblical history and of 06:34.623 --> 06:38.413 theology. Milton takes extraordinary care 06:38.413 --> 06:42.943 in crafting the process of the education to which Adam is 06:42.936 --> 06:45.436 subjected in the last books. 06:45.440 --> 06:48.560 That said, I think it's a mistake, or I'm convinced it's a 06:48.557 --> 06:51.067 mistake, to deny the fact that these books are, 06:51.073 --> 06:53.593 in addition to all of that, disappointing. 06:53.589 --> 06:59.129 So I think we can profitably examine why it is that Milton 06:59.127 --> 07:02.817 ends his poem with these last books, 07:02.819 --> 07:06.929 Michael's severe treatise on scriptural history.Now, 07:06.928 --> 07:11.558 these last books mark Milton's only attempt in Paradise Lost 07:11.560 --> 07:15.590 to represent what we would think of as actual human 07:15.594 --> 07:18.904 history. In order to understand why this 07:18.898 --> 07:22.758 section of the poem is so troubled and so worrisome, 07:22.759 --> 07:25.989 we have to understand Milton's own brush with history, 07:25.989 --> 07:29.399 his own participation in the disappointing history of the 07:29.401 --> 07:31.231 failed Puritan Revolution. 07:31.230 --> 07:35.420 Now Milton has taken great pains to keep from his poem 07:35.415 --> 07:40.305 anything like a direct allusion to the political turmoil of his 07:40.312 --> 07:43.282 own day, but what I am hoping I'll be 07:43.275 --> 07:46.365 able to do, at least for a few minutes here, 07:46.369 --> 07:50.469 is to show one of the ways in which Michael's treatment of 07:50.472 --> 07:54.362 scriptural history is still intimately connected to the 07:54.358 --> 07:58.818 contemporary political history that Milton was himself enmeshed 07:58.820 --> 08:02.180 in.Now, you may have noticed that the 08:02.178 --> 08:05.818 work of Milton's political prose by far that I have most 08:05.816 --> 08:09.586 consistently cited over the course of these lectures -- or 08:09.586 --> 08:12.356 written little things on the board [laughs] 08:12.364 --> 08:15.544 in quotation of it -- is Areopagitica, 08:15.540 --> 08:19.020 the speech against licensing that Milton had 08:19.023 --> 08:22.323 printed in 1644. There's a way in which that 08:22.317 --> 08:25.697 exuberant liberalism of Areopagitica was 08:25.702 --> 08:29.752 continually resurfacing in the most interesting and, 08:29.750 --> 08:32.900 in a lot of cases, the most daring passages of the 08:32.899 --> 08:35.909 entire poem. We remember instances in which 08:35.914 --> 08:39.724 Belial and, at another point, Eve seemed to be actually 08:39.721 --> 08:43.601 alluding to Areopagitica or certainly reproducing 08:43.599 --> 08:46.559 arguments that Milton had made there, 08:46.559 --> 08:47.909 and so I devoted a lot of attention to 08:47.914 --> 08:50.754 Areopagitica; but in doing so I think I've 08:50.745 --> 08:53.705 also distorted, maybe kind of drastically, 08:53.710 --> 08:57.470 the truth about Milton's political sensibility in the 08:57.471 --> 09:00.441 very years that he was writing Paradise 09:00.436 --> 09:05.206 Lost.Milton's epic poem appeared over twenty years, 09:05.210 --> 09:07.880 or twenty-three years, after the treatise on 09:07.875 --> 09:12.235 licensing; I've given you a sketch of this 09:12.243 --> 09:17.273 history before, but it's worth looking at at 09:17.269 --> 09:20.279 another time. In the mid 1640s, 09:20.282 --> 09:24.382 Milton was really at the height of what we can think of as his 09:24.381 --> 09:28.481 liberalism, even though that word wasn't yet in existence. 09:28.480 --> 09:31.900 Milton was wildly optimistic about the success of what he 09:31.900 --> 09:34.100 felt to be the Puritan Revolution, 09:34.100 --> 09:37.290 and he seemed genuinely confident that something like a 09:37.290 --> 09:41.010 rational, spiritual, Puritan utopia could actually 09:41.009 --> 09:43.679 be established on English soil. 09:43.679 --> 09:48.969 At the center of his political optimism was his faith in the 09:48.974 --> 09:53.734 political category that Milton called "the people." 09:53.730 --> 09:56.740 When he was writing in Latin, he would use the Latin for 09:56.743 --> 09:58.993 people, which is populus. 09:58.990 --> 10:02.760 Throughout the 1640s, up to 1650, Milton was 10:02.763 --> 10:06.453 confident, really exuberantly confident, 10:06.450 --> 10:10.340 that God had infused the power of reason and virtue into every 10:10.341 --> 10:14.111 single human individual and that this God-given capacity for 10:14.105 --> 10:17.545 reason and virtue would enable the English people, 10:17.549 --> 10:21.109 the populus, to govern themselves in an 10:21.106 --> 10:25.526 entirely non-authoritarian, almost completely egalitarian 10:25.532 --> 10:30.512 political structure.I think you can see most dramatically -- 10:30.512 --> 10:35.652 and this is a treatise that we haven't read in this course, 10:35.649 --> 10:39.059 but it's included in the Hughes -- you can see 10:39.059 --> 10:42.799 this faith in the self-rule of the people in Milton's 1649 10:42.797 --> 10:45.147 treatise, really the greatest of all of 10:45.147 --> 10:47.827 what we call the regicide treatises: The Tenure of 10:47.832 --> 10:51.102 Kings and Magistrates, in which Milton 10:51.099 --> 10:54.329 actually actively advocates the regicide. 10:54.330 --> 10:57.300 There's almost a sense in The Tenure of Kings and 10:57.298 --> 11:00.668 Magistrates that you don't even really need any kind of 11:00.673 --> 11:03.063 formal governmental structure at all. 11:03.059 --> 11:08.739 The people are actually going to be able to govern themselves 11:08.738 --> 11:13.278 without any other edifice.There turned out to 11:13.281 --> 11:16.331 be a problem, however, with Milton's 11:16.331 --> 11:19.211 political idealism, and that problem no doubt 11:19.214 --> 11:23.084 involved the fact that Milton's political idealism seemed to 11:23.081 --> 11:26.031 have had no basis whatsoever in reality. 11:26.029 --> 11:30.779 Milton may have been convinced that God had infused every 11:30.780 --> 11:35.020 single human individual with this power of rational 11:35.022 --> 11:37.632 self-rule, but the actual people, 11:37.631 --> 11:41.511 the actual populus of England, turned out not to be so 11:41.507 --> 11:42.797 easily convinced. 11:42.799 --> 11:46.189 The real English people themselves were considerably 11:46.192 --> 11:50.452 more conservative than the small Puritan elite who had pushed for 11:50.448 --> 11:54.438 the execution of Charles the First in 1649 and who had placed 11:54.439 --> 11:57.099 themselves at the head of the new, 11:57.100 --> 11:59.900 non-monarchic, republican government. 11:59.899 --> 12:02.759 If anything, the majority of the English 12:02.763 --> 12:06.143 people themselves were in favor of monarchy, 12:06.139 --> 12:09.659 and so Milton found himself, as so often, 12:09.659 --> 12:13.969 compelled to modify his own political idealism. 12:13.970 --> 12:19.370 By 1650, Milton wasn't able to say that the English should be 12:19.370 --> 12:22.610 governed by the people -- by 1651, 12:22.610 --> 12:25.530 I should say, he was no longer able to say 12:25.527 --> 12:29.507 that, that on some level the people obviously couldn't be 12:29.513 --> 12:33.573 trusted any longer to get it right.So he had to weaken 12:33.569 --> 12:38.479 his claim that the people were all rational and self-governing. 12:38.480 --> 12:43.130 He began to forward a much less idealistic principle of 12:43.129 --> 12:48.299 government, and that was the government of England by a small 12:48.295 --> 12:52.165 elected body of people called Parliament. 12:52.169 --> 12:54.989 Parliament had existed well before Milton, 12:54.985 --> 12:58.825 before this new turn in Milton's political philosophy, 12:58.830 --> 13:03.370 but Milton was placing an entirely new importance on this 13:03.372 --> 13:05.672 body. So maybe the people themselves 13:05.673 --> 13:09.143 aren't all that rational and virtuous and self-determining, 13:09.139 --> 13:12.839 capable of self-government, but surely Parliament -- this 13:12.835 --> 13:16.525 is the new turn in Milton's thinking -- an elite group of 13:16.530 --> 13:19.860 the people, can be counted on to uphold 13:19.861 --> 13:25.151 Milton's own value of rational self-determination and rational 13:25.152 --> 13:29.092 self-rule.Well, the republican decade wears on, 13:29.090 --> 13:33.020 the 1650s, and by the time we get to the end of the decade, 13:33.019 --> 13:35.959 the kingless government of England -- under the rule of 13:35.958 --> 13:39.218 Oliver Cromwell and later under the rule of Cromwell's son -- 13:39.223 --> 13:42.433 this republican government is getting closer and closer to a 13:42.434 --> 13:43.744 complete collapse. 13:43.740 --> 13:47.180 There's a widespread popular movement: it's a movement 13:47.176 --> 13:50.676 fomented by the people seeking the return of the Stuart 13:50.677 --> 13:53.287 monarchy, and this time it's not only the 13:53.294 --> 13:56.734 common people who are calling for the return of their king. 13:56.730 --> 14:00.740 It's also Parliament who has -- from Milton's perspective, 14:00.744 --> 14:03.214 Parliament has entirely sold out; 14:03.210 --> 14:07.120 and so by late 1659, there is a majority now even in 14:07.123 --> 14:11.733 Parliament desiring -- this is again Milton's construction of 14:11.727 --> 14:16.637 it -- desiring to re-subject the English people to the tyranny of 14:16.638 --> 14:20.858 monarchy.So in 1659 when Milton is writing his final 14:20.858 --> 14:24.948 political treatise, he's compelled to alter his 14:24.952 --> 14:28.022 views once again, and he finds very little 14:28.022 --> 14:31.682 evidence of the rational, virtuous, ethical principles 14:31.679 --> 14:34.799 that he had been so confident about in Areopagitica, 14:34.799 --> 14:39.219 this idea that all human individuals possess the virtue 14:39.224 --> 14:43.124 and the reason and the spirit that he had previously 14:43.115 --> 14:44.865 attributed to them. 14:44.870 --> 14:50.240 It starts to seem as if all men are actually not created equal 14:50.240 --> 14:55.520 and that very few of them have anything like divine virtue or 14:55.523 --> 14:59.313 divine reason infused into them by God. 14:59.309 --> 15:03.239 So now the people that Milton had once so wonderfully and 15:03.244 --> 15:06.204 movingly idealized, he's able to refer to -- and 15:06.198 --> 15:08.678 it's really kind of jarring and, just frankly, 15:08.679 --> 15:12.019 it's depressing -- Milton's now able to refer to the people as 15:12.022 --> 15:14.052 the -- and I'm quoting here – 15:14.049 --> 15:18.219 "the rude and inconsiderate multitude," the unruly mob. 15:18.220 --> 15:26.410 You have a whole elaborate lexicon of invectives concerning 15:26.413 --> 15:35.453 the people in the last political treatises of Milton's.Milton 15:35.453 --> 15:39.363 imagines, because he can't even count on 15:39.363 --> 15:43.653 Parliament -- he comes to insist that the unruly and irrational 15:43.649 --> 15:45.509 English, these masses, 15:45.507 --> 15:48.627 are ungovernable even by Parliament. 15:48.629 --> 15:52.749 So the governing body is going to have to be an even smaller 15:52.750 --> 15:57.220 group, a collection of England's most rational and most spiritual 15:57.221 --> 15:58.941 men, men of course, 15:58.943 --> 16:02.353 who look exactly like John Milton himself: 16:02.352 --> 16:06.842 so a group of men more excellent than the far-too-large 16:06.842 --> 16:10.752 mass of people that constitute Parliament. 16:10.750 --> 16:14.720 You have something like what's essentially a spiritual elite. 16:14.720 --> 16:17.600 This spiritual elite would have to govern England, 16:17.596 --> 16:20.586 and Milton thinks of them as a council of saints; 16:20.590 --> 16:23.660 he refers to them as a council of saints. 16:23.659 --> 16:27.879 So in a little more than a decade this political idealist 16:27.882 --> 16:32.712 has shifted from his celebration of the power and the liberty due 16:32.709 --> 16:37.159 to the people to a depressingly shriveled sense -- and it is 16:37.158 --> 16:41.458 pretty shrunk and pretty pitiful thing -- of the power and 16:41.456 --> 16:45.976 liberty only due to a very small group of like-minded Puritan 16:45.981 --> 16:50.731 revolutionaries.So a lot of the liberal confidence of a work 16:50.732 --> 16:55.332 like Areopagitica just disappears by the time we get to 16:55.331 --> 16:58.651 Milton's late political prose. 16:58.649 --> 17:04.429 Just how depressing this shift is will become clear to you when 17:04.425 --> 17:10.285 -- have I assigned The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free 17:10.293 --> 17:13.743 Commonwealth on the syllabus? 17:13.740 --> 17:17.850 I may have taken it off this year because I did not want to 17:17.847 --> 17:22.097 depress you, but you should not let my attempt to protect you 17:22.096 --> 17:26.266 from what might seem the ugliest parts of Milton from taking 17:26.274 --> 17:29.964 advantage of Hughes's inclusion of that important and 17:29.956 --> 17:32.856 interesting text in your edition. 17:32.859 --> 17:36.039 Milton will argue in The Ready and Easy Way that he 17:36.035 --> 17:38.705 wrote in 1659 that this new spiritual council, 17:38.710 --> 17:44.040 the council of saints, they should actually be 17:44.038 --> 17:50.788 permitted to deploy military force if necessary to subject 17:50.787 --> 17:55.047 the unruly masses to their will. 17:55.049 --> 17:59.059 This is how the argument goes, and it's a disconcerting one: 17:59.057 --> 18:03.267 the people are now so little to be trusted that they have to be 18:03.269 --> 18:07.619 forced to recognize, at gunpoint if necessary, 18:07.616 --> 18:12.716 their God-given liberty and their God--;[laughs] 18:12.723 --> 18:16.203 given capacity for self-rule. 18:16.200 --> 18:19.510 Of course, it goes without question there's a horrible 18:19.510 --> 18:22.380 paradox there. Milton seems to be arguing that 18:22.377 --> 18:25.267 the people will govern themselves -- goddammit! 18:25.269 --> 18:30.079 -- even if they have to be forced to do it.So this 18:30.077 --> 18:35.337 final plan -- this is Milton's final political scheme -- is 18:35.338 --> 18:39.418 something like a junta of Puritan saints. 18:39.420 --> 18:42.150 Of course, the scheme was never enacted. 18:42.150 --> 18:46.010 Shortly after Milton proposed it, the republican government 18:46.008 --> 18:48.468 completely collapsed in early 1660, 18:48.470 --> 18:51.520 and Charles the Second, the dead king's son, 18:51.523 --> 18:55.433 was returned to the throne and monarchy was restored. 18:55.430 --> 18:58.550 And Milton -- think about the position that he's in. 18:58.549 --> 19:02.029 Milton was actually placed in prison for a while for his 19:02.028 --> 19:05.698 writings against the king, and he was generally living in 19:05.700 --> 19:09.380 some degree of poverty and certainly in disgrace.All of 19:09.375 --> 19:13.105 this is a very long-winded way of saying we have come a long 19:13.114 --> 19:16.414 way by the time we get actually to the composition of 19:16.409 --> 19:17.929 Paradise Lost. 19:17.930 --> 19:21.870 We've come a very long way from the moving idealism of 19:21.866 --> 19:24.996 Areopagitica. Milton has endured an 19:24.995 --> 19:29.285 entire decade of political disappointment and I think it's 19:29.294 --> 19:33.824 possible to see the relation between the fall of Milton's own 19:33.820 --> 19:38.270 political idealism over the course of a decade and a half or 19:38.270 --> 19:43.550 so and the fall of man as it's represented in Paradise Lost. 19:43.549 --> 19:47.559 Milton's able to use the narrative of the fall of 19:47.555 --> 19:50.015 paradise in some way, I think, 19:50.019 --> 19:55.479 to map his own experience with the loss of the English 19:55.476 --> 19:59.796 commonwealth, the English commonwealth that 19:59.800 --> 20:05.260 Milton had really seen as something like a paradise of 20:05.257 --> 20:11.327 Puritan saints.You could think of Adam and Eve after the 20:11.331 --> 20:14.351 Fall, in a lot of ways at least, 20:14.347 --> 20:17.957 as a version of the English people for Milton in the late 20:17.959 --> 20:20.689 1650s. They show surprisingly few 20:20.688 --> 20:25.728 signs of internalized divine reason and internalized virtue, 20:25.730 --> 20:31.060 and so this is why -- at least, I think this is why Milton has 20:31.057 --> 20:35.857 to introduce into his narrative this irritable Archangel 20:35.861 --> 20:38.971 Michael, and this is why Milton stages 20:38.967 --> 20:42.657 this scene of angelic instruction so differently from 20:42.657 --> 20:45.777 the way he staged the scene with Raphael. 20:45.779 --> 20:48.589 I only need to mention Eve's role in all of this. 20:48.589 --> 20:52.409 Eve, you'll remember, decided on her own not to stick 20:52.414 --> 20:55.654 around for Raphael's lessons in astronomy. 20:55.650 --> 20:58.240 She'd just as soon learn it, she told us, 20:58.243 --> 20:59.803 [laughs] later from Adam, 20:59.799 --> 21:03.559 whose pedagogy was a little more interesting than Raphael's 21:03.559 --> 21:07.189 because Adam interspersed his lessons with kisses. 21:07.190 --> 21:10.090 That was Eve's choice, and Milton goes out of his way 21:10.091 --> 21:12.101 to represent that as Eve's choice; 21:12.099 --> 21:15.729 but after the Fall, Eve is not given that choice. 21:15.730 --> 21:19.650 She's forced to absent herself here and Adam, 21:19.646 --> 21:24.626 who gets to stay -- it's not clear what kind of privilege 21:24.630 --> 21:29.970 that is -- is subjected to the severity of Michael's teaching 21:29.971 --> 21:34.871 on some level because he can't be trusted to behave as a 21:34.866 --> 21:37.846 rational, self-governing individual after 21:37.846 --> 21:40.376 the Fall. Someone is going to have to 21:40.376 --> 21:44.256 teach him, and in fact teach him quite forcefully, 21:44.259 --> 21:50.279 how to understand life in the fallen world.So Michael 21:50.275 --> 21:56.285 enters onto the scene and -- I think this is his goal, 21:56.289 --> 22:00.499 at least -- to instill in Adam the powers of reason and virtue. 22:00.500 --> 22:03.070 He does this by means of a history lesson, 22:03.072 --> 22:06.772 something that before the Fall, Adam seems to have possessed 22:06.774 --> 22:10.394 instinctively -- or rather, it was a kind of reason and 22:10.385 --> 22:12.725 virtue that he possessed instinctively, 22:12.729 --> 22:14.949 but now it needs to be instilled. 22:14.950 --> 22:18.400 Michael presents Adam with the sweep of Christian history and 22:18.402 --> 22:21.452 with the promise of man's eventual redemption from the 22:21.452 --> 22:24.662 Fall, and it's this entire lesson 22:24.664 --> 22:30.554 that Adam is going to have to internalize, literally take in 22:30.552 --> 22:33.202 to himself. The last two books of 22:33.203 --> 22:35.953 Paradise Lost, I think in a lot of ways, 22:35.948 --> 22:39.228 represent something like a drama of internalization. 22:39.230 --> 22:43.160 One of the important aspects of these books is what they have to 22:43.163 --> 22:45.983 tell us, I think, about the complicated 22:45.979 --> 22:50.479 psychological process of the internalization of any kind of 22:50.480 --> 22:54.980 authoritative wisdom.So we're finally now in a position 22:54.981 --> 22:57.621 actually to look at the poem. 22:57.619 --> 23:03.659 Look at page 442 in the Hughes. This is Book 23:03.663 --> 23:05.963 Eleven, line 411. 23:05.960 --> 23:10.380 Michael's history lesson is really quite extraordinarily, 23:10.375 --> 23:12.105 carefully organized. 23:12.109 --> 23:15.609 It's broken up into two discrete sections, 23:15.612 --> 23:20.312 books Eleven and Twelve, and these two discrete sections 23:20.311 --> 23:23.901 proceed along entirely distinct lines. 23:23.900 --> 23:27.000 The first half of the lesson, which takes us up to the moment 23:27.000 --> 23:29.790 of God's destruction of the world with Noah's flood, 23:29.789 --> 23:36.329 is presented to Adam as a vision, and Adam sees this early 23:36.334 --> 23:39.094 history unfold itself. 23:39.089 --> 23:43.199 This is something that comes to him through the access of his 23:43.200 --> 23:45.500 eyes. The second half of the lesson, 23:45.497 --> 23:48.827 which is the entirety of the lesson as it exists in Book 23:48.829 --> 23:51.979 Twelve, is not presented to Adam visually at all. 23:51.980 --> 23:55.460 Michael simply describes it to Adam. 23:55.460 --> 23:59.820 He relates it in the form of a narrative.This shift from 23:59.823 --> 24:02.563 vision to narrative has everything, 24:02.559 --> 24:05.629 I think, to do with the psychological process of 24:05.632 --> 24:09.622 internalization that Milton is exploring in the last books. 24:09.619 --> 24:13.019 I think it has everything to do as well with the shift in 24:13.015 --> 24:16.765 literary style to which Milton subjects the ending of his great 24:16.774 --> 24:19.574 epic. The turn to the new style of 24:19.565 --> 24:23.975 books Eleven and Twelve is in a lot of ways analogous to 24:23.975 --> 24:28.465 Michael's turn to didactic narrative in Book Twelve after 24:28.465 --> 24:32.255 the grand tableaus, after all of the visual 24:32.260 --> 24:37.300 splendor that he has conjured in the visions -- the masques the 24:37.302 --> 24:41.212 tableau vivant essentially -- that Michael 24:41.206 --> 24:43.886 presents to Adam in Book XI. 24:43.890 --> 24:47.360 This new style is geared even more intensely toward the 24:47.357 --> 24:49.217 project of internalization. 24:49.220 --> 24:54.360 It places a greater and greater burden on Adam and certainly on 24:54.356 --> 24:59.406 the reader to ascertain its significance.Traditionally, 24:59.410 --> 25:01.620 the truths of history could actually be seen, 25:01.619 --> 25:03.679 but eventually, by the time we get to Book 25:03.677 --> 25:05.837 Twelve, they can only be heard. 25:05.839 --> 25:11.949 Adam has to become increasingly active in his own education. 25:11.950 --> 25:21.450 So let's look first at the visionary aspect of Book Eleven. 25:21.450 --> 25:23.700 I don't know what to do with this passage. 25:23.700 --> 25:26.360 This is line 411: Michael leads Adam to the top 25:26.356 --> 25:30.596 of the highest hill in paradise, a hill so high -- explain this 25:30.597 --> 25:35.227 to me -- that Adam can see the location of every great Western 25:35.229 --> 25:39.709 city that will come to establish itself in future years, 25:39.710 --> 25:43.870 but simply seeing all of these locations isn't sufficient. 25:43.869 --> 25:47.099 Michael's pedagogy has to be more thoroughgoing even than 25:47.098 --> 25:50.788 that, and so he inspires Adam to see the actual scenes of history 25:50.788 --> 25:52.978 unfold themselves before his eyes. 25:52.980 --> 25:56.960 This is what we're told at line 411: 25:56.960 --> 25:58.780 … [B]ut to nobler sights 25:58.779 --> 26:01.969 Michael from Adam's eyes the Film remov'd 26:01.970 --> 26:05.510 Which that false Fruit that promis'd clearer sight 26:05.510 --> 26:09.790 Had bred; then purg'd [Michael having 26:09.786 --> 26:11.946 purged Adam's eyes] with 26:11.950 --> 26:14.610 Euphrasy and Rue The visual Nerve, 26:14.613 --> 26:18.423 for he had much to see; And from the Well of Life three 26:18.424 --> 26:20.914 drops instill'd. So deep the power of these 26:20.913 --> 26:24.323 Ingredients pierc'd, Ev'n to the inmost seat of 26:24.317 --> 26:27.597 mental sight, That Adam now enforc't to close 26:27.601 --> 26:31.071 his eyes, Sunk down and all his Spirits 26:31.066 --> 26:35.686 became intranst… There's something about the 26:35.693 --> 26:39.443 ophthalmological specificity about this passage that really 26:39.439 --> 26:42.259 gets me. This account of what Milton is 26:42.262 --> 26:46.492 telling us was actually done to Adam's eyes in order to allow 26:46.488 --> 26:49.938 him to see the unfolding of Christian history. 26:49.940 --> 26:54.320 The ingestion of the forbidden fruit seems to have weakened his 26:54.320 --> 26:58.280 eyesight, and so the new film that has come to cover over 26:58.277 --> 27:01.807 Adam's eyes has to be purged with these herbs, 27:01.810 --> 27:03.550 Euphrasy and Rue. 27:03.549 --> 27:07.329 Michael goes even further than that and adds for good measure 27:07.332 --> 27:11.052 three drops from the well of life in order to permit Adam to 27:11.051 --> 27:14.461 see in his mind's eye sights impossible even before the 27:14.455 --> 27:17.035 Fall.This scene of inspiration, 27:17.039 --> 27:21.539 I think, is strange, but of course it has a powerful 27:21.544 --> 27:25.344 charge for us, not least because for so much 27:25.342 --> 27:30.732 of the poem the poet himself has claimed to be inspired in his 27:30.730 --> 27:34.820 composition of the poem, and we know this: 27:34.818 --> 27:39.638 Milton was blind and he was convinced that something -- or 27:39.641 --> 27:44.041 at least this is the William Kerrigan argument that I 27:44.041 --> 27:49.461 exfoliated for you all -- he was convinced that something that he 27:49.457 --> 27:54.527 had eaten had on some level been responsible for the vaporous 27:54.534 --> 27:58.854 film that seemed to have covered his eyes. 27:58.849 --> 28:03.059 In the invocation to Book Three, you'll remember Milton 28:03.063 --> 28:06.653 bids the muse Urania to purge him of that film: 28:06.652 --> 28:10.322 "all mist from thence / purge and disperse, 28:10.319 --> 28:13.959 that I may see and tell / of things invisible to mortal 28:13.962 --> 28:15.892 sight." Milton's clearly drawing a 28:15.894 --> 28:19.104 connection here between his own inspiration to write Paradise 28:19.103 --> 28:22.163 Lost and Adam's preparation to witness the vision that is 28:22.158 --> 28:24.398 future Christian history.That much, 28:24.400 --> 28:26.540 I think, is clear, but what exactly does this 28:26.543 --> 28:30.163 connection mean? What is the relation between 28:30.164 --> 28:35.854 Michael's vision in Book XI and the inspired epic poem that 28:35.850 --> 28:40.080 Urania -- the heavenly muse, the heavenly spirit, 28:40.082 --> 28:43.542 or whatever we're supposed to call that entity -- that this 28:43.541 --> 28:45.451 entity helps Milton to write? 28:45.450 --> 28:50.760 I welcome other possibilities, but I think the relation seems 28:50.763 --> 28:54.043 to be something like an ironic one, 28:54.039 --> 28:58.189 and that irony is suggested, I think, by the weird chemical 28:58.194 --> 29:01.274 exactitude of Milton's description of Adam's 29:01.274 --> 29:04.574 inspiration. We have an actual scene of 29:04.574 --> 29:09.224 medically induced inspiration at the very moment that the 29:09.215 --> 29:13.935 inspiration of the poem itself seems to have been lost and 29:13.939 --> 29:17.899 comes to a stop, the loss of innocence that has 29:17.896 --> 29:22.106 brought with it the loss of Milton's -- or what I think we 29:22.106 --> 29:25.866 were associating with and identifying as Milton's -- 29:25.873 --> 29:30.383 inspired poetry.Milton carefully crafts his account, 29:30.380 --> 29:36.060 I think, of this vision of poetry in a poetic style that 29:36.055 --> 29:42.035 can only with great difficulty be described as inspired. 29:42.039 --> 29:45.649 It's these last two books are amazing works of art, 29:45.646 --> 29:49.966 but we don't have anything like that extravagant and dramatic 29:49.974 --> 29:54.374 rhetorical lushness that had so characterized the previous ten 29:54.374 --> 29:58.004 books. What you have in Book Eleven is 29:57.998 --> 30:00.758 Milton's enactment, in some way, 30:00.757 --> 30:05.827 of the birth of what we can think of as modern poetry, 30:05.829 --> 30:11.819 a poetry that's been purged of excess and purged of all of that 30:11.820 --> 30:14.140 open-ended figuration. 30:14.140 --> 30:17.520 Think of the Renaissance and the literature of Spenser and 30:17.519 --> 30:21.199 Shakespeare. The Renaissance called the 30:21.199 --> 30:26.129 amplitude of its great writers copia. 30:26.130 --> 30:30.650 We no longer have that copia here in the last two books. 30:30.650 --> 30:35.990 We have a poetics that is given to Puritan austerity and simple 30:35.994 --> 30:40.024 declarations of moral facts, and you will see that the 30:40.019 --> 30:42.499 poetic mode of Paradise Regained and, 30:42.496 --> 30:45.186 in fact, the poetic mode of a lot of 30:45.189 --> 30:49.459 later poets -- I'm thinking of the discursive poetry of a 30:49.461 --> 30:54.191 Romantic poet like Wordsworth -- has been heavily influenced by 30:54.191 --> 30:58.231 the last two books of Paradise Lost.So Adam 30:58.234 --> 31:02.734 has to be chemically induced to see future Christian history 31:02.734 --> 31:08.384 because all other inspiration in the poem is no longer operative. 31:08.380 --> 31:11.960 Adam has to be compelled, literally compelled, 31:11.963 --> 31:16.823 to see how this history unfolds itself in the manner of little 31:16.821 --> 31:19.211 pageants and little skits. 31:19.210 --> 31:23.050 He has to see it, of course, because he's not 31:23.045 --> 31:27.745 able at this stage in his development to understand its 31:27.751 --> 31:32.721 import through the non-visual faculty of imagination. 31:32.720 --> 31:35.870 I think Milton, the inspired prophet, 31:35.869 --> 31:40.509 has an incredibly and troublingly complicated relation 31:40.505 --> 31:45.515 to Adam at this point -- Adam, who is so uninspired in this 31:45.520 --> 31:49.970 poem that Milton has claimed to be so overly inspired to write 31:49.966 --> 31:51.566 in the first place. 31:51.569 --> 31:54.159 My guess is that the blind poet, Milton, 31:54.159 --> 31:58.079 is actually scornful on some level of the fact that Adam has 31:58.076 --> 32:02.056 to be inspired merely to see the events of future years. 32:02.059 --> 32:06.329 Milton's own prophetic powers presumably entirely transcended 32:06.325 --> 32:09.305 the entire category of the visual.Okay, 32:09.310 --> 32:12.770 let's move on. Look at the top of page 446 in 32:12.769 --> 32:16.629 the Hughes. This is Book Eleven, 32:16.634 --> 32:20.264 line 556. This is Milton's description 32:20.260 --> 32:23.700 [laughs] of the cities of the plain that 32:23.702 --> 32:26.942 Adam sees, and the emphasis is everywhere 32:26.937 --> 32:31.107 in this account on those things that can be discerned through 32:31.112 --> 32:33.132 acts of visual perception. 32:33.130 --> 32:37.690 So line 556: He look'd and saw a 32:37.688 --> 32:39.548 spacious Plain, whereon 32:39.550 --> 32:42.750 Were Tents of various hue; by some were herds 32:42.750 --> 32:45.930 Of Cattel grazing: others, whence the sound 32:45.930 --> 32:48.100 Of Instruments that made melodious chime 32:48.099 --> 32:51.829 Was heard, of Harp and Organ… 32:51.829 --> 32:54.239 And here Milton goes on to describe the player of that 32:54.236 --> 32:56.146 organ; this is the first human 32:56.154 --> 32:59.974 musician. Presumably, this is the first 32:59.967 --> 33:02.777 human artist of any kind. 33:02.780 --> 33:06.120 He hears the chime but also: [W]ho mov'd 33:06.119 --> 33:09.829 Thir stops and chords was seen: his volant touch 33:09.829 --> 33:12.389 Instinct through all proportions low and high 33:12.390 --> 33:17.180 Fled and pursu'd transverse the resonant fugue. 33:17.180 --> 33:21.170 Now we might reasonably expect that Milton's one and only 33:21.169 --> 33:24.659 representation of a human musician in the poem, 33:24.660 --> 33:28.300 a figure whose artistic touch is a lot like Milton's, 33:28.296 --> 33:31.926 "instinct through all proportions low and high" -- we 33:31.933 --> 33:36.343 might expect that this would appear in a favorable context. 33:36.340 --> 33:38.370 Why would we not? 33:38.369 --> 33:41.349 But, as in so many [laughs] other instances throughout 33:41.347 --> 33:42.917 these final books, Milton, 33:42.920 --> 33:47.450 who has so absolutely become our stereotype of him as the 33:47.451 --> 33:51.391 humorless Puritan, is turning on -- he's really 33:51.393 --> 33:56.213 betraying the very art of sound that constitutes one of his 33:56.205 --> 33:58.855 poem's greatest achievements. 33:58.859 --> 34:02.339 There has to be something self-wounding here in this 34:02.335 --> 34:05.465 derogation of music, and I don't care that it's 34:05.470 --> 34:09.560 fallen music.Nonetheless, this is beautiful music that 34:09.564 --> 34:12.204 Milton knows that he's representing here, 34:12.199 --> 34:15.489 but the beautiful music of the organ is nonetheless 34:15.492 --> 34:17.932 inextricably linked to the Fall. 34:17.929 --> 34:22.169 The organist's fingers flee and pursue the resonant fugue just 34:22.166 --> 34:25.496 as Adam and Eve will soon be fleeing paradise, 34:25.500 --> 34:31.410 pursued, of course, by a band of armed cherubim. 34:31.409 --> 34:36.219 Like the beautiful sounds that are heard, beautiful sights that 34:36.219 --> 34:40.249 are seen are necessarily unvaryingly suspect in these 34:40.254 --> 34:42.664 books. It's really not until books 34:42.655 --> 34:46.265 Eleven and Twelve that we get the full sense of just how much 34:46.269 --> 34:48.499 [laughs] of a surly Puritan Milton has 34:48.497 --> 34:50.617 become, just how much of the 34:50.619 --> 34:53.559 suspiciousness, the general suspiciousness, 34:53.559 --> 34:57.549 that the Puritans had of the whole aesthetic category, 34:57.550 --> 35:00.410 how much of that he has adopted for himself. 35:00.410 --> 35:03.410 Look down at line 580. 35:03.409 --> 35:06.209 These men on the cities of the plain: 35:06.210 --> 35:09.700 Long had not walkt, when from the Tents behold 35:09.699 --> 35:12.309 A Beavy of fair Women, richly gay 35:12.310 --> 35:15.740 In Gems and wanton dress; to the Harp they sung 35:15.739 --> 35:19.169 Soft amorous Ditties, and in dance [laughs] 35:19.173 --> 35:23.263 I love this phrase and I don't really know if it 35:23.260 --> 35:30.230 meant then what it means now] came on [isn't that 35:30.234 --> 35:33.964 wonderful?]: The Men though grave, 35:33.963 --> 35:38.323 ey'd them, and let thir eyes Rove without rein, 35:38.322 --> 35:41.752 till in the amorous Net Fast caught, 35:41.745 --> 35:46.965 they lik'd, and each his liking chose… 35:46.969 --> 35:50.069 So the faculties of perception here are nothing more than the 35:50.070 --> 35:51.310 vehicles of deception. 35:51.309 --> 35:54.719 They're implicated in this endless replaying of the sexual 35:54.717 --> 35:58.627 seduction that is now viewed, mistakenly of course, 35:58.630 --> 36:01.870 as the cause of the Fall.Well, 36:01.869 --> 36:07.169 dopey Adam here is still at an early stage in Michael's 36:07.168 --> 36:10.798 achingly long lesson in history. 36:10.800 --> 36:14.670 Of course, Adam thinks that things with his descendants are 36:14.665 --> 36:18.395 starting to look pretty good, and so that's what he tells 36:18.397 --> 36:20.727 Michael at the top of page 447. 36:20.730 --> 36:25.040 This is line 598: "True opener of mine eyes, 36:25.043 --> 36:29.263 prime Angel blest, / Much better seems this 36:29.256 --> 36:32.526 Vision, and more hope / Of peaceful 36:32.531 --> 36:36.151 dayes portends, then those two past…" 36:36.150 --> 36:40.380 As so often -- and this is a pattern that will repeat itself 36:40.378 --> 36:44.748 until the book is done -- Adam has completely missed the point 36:44.750 --> 36:46.470 of Michael's lesson. 36:46.469 --> 36:50.449 He mistakes the pleasant appearance of this scene with 36:50.451 --> 36:54.371 moral rectitude itself, and so when Adam tells Michael, 36:54.373 --> 36:57.873 "Much better seems this Vision," he's really no better 36:57.866 --> 37:01.756 than the men who live on the plain who are eying the bevy of 37:01.755 --> 37:05.635 fair women and letting their eyes rove without rein.It's 37:05.644 --> 37:09.474 the fact that this beauty is apprehended solely through the 37:09.467 --> 37:12.317 eyes, solely through the senses, 37:12.319 --> 37:15.809 that, of course, lies at the heart of the danger 37:15.806 --> 37:18.756 here. Adam has to learn to exercise 37:18.760 --> 37:23.810 his reason, and this is one of the things that Michael gets him 37:23.805 --> 37:25.835 to perform eventually. 37:25.840 --> 37:28.760 All things beautiful are by definition here suspect, 37:28.758 --> 37:31.388 and this is one of the lessons derived from, 37:31.389 --> 37:36.249 I think, the most elaborate of all of the classes that Michael 37:36.249 --> 37:40.949 offers Adam -- and that's the history of the great flood. 37:40.950 --> 37:42.040 Look at page 452. 37:42.040 --> 37:45.350 This is line 826. 37:45.349 --> 37:48.399 This story is so important that it's one that's actually 37:48.397 --> 37:52.107 narrated twice. We have first the narrator's 37:52.113 --> 37:57.863 description of the prophetic reenactment of the flood -- or 37:57.859 --> 37:59.859 rather, it's not a reenactment, 37:59.856 --> 38:02.566 it's a pre-enactment because it actually hasn't happened yet. 38:02.570 --> 38:05.910 This is the version that Adam actually sees. 38:05.909 --> 38:09.009 Then second, we have Michael's long, 38:09.010 --> 38:14.320 play-by-play accounting to Adam of what it is exactly that he 38:14.324 --> 38:18.314 has just seen at line 826 of Book Eleven. 38:18.309 --> 38:21.819 This is the narrated section of the story of the flood. 38:21.820 --> 38:26.940 Michael is describing for Adam the terrible rain that will undo 38:26.939 --> 38:30.489 all of the work of the earth's creation: 38:30.489 --> 38:31.949 … [A]ll fountains of the Deep 38:31.949 --> 38:34.909 Broke up, shall heave the Ocean to usurp 38:34.909 --> 38:38.129 Beyond all bounds, till inundation rise 38:38.130 --> 38:41.680 Above the highest Hills: then shall this Mount 38:41.679 --> 38:45.109 Of Paradise by might of Waves be mov'd 38:45.110 --> 38:48.300 Out of his place, push'd by the horned flood, 38:48.300 --> 38:52.260 With all his verdure spoil'd, and Trees adrift 38:52.260 --> 38:56.480 Down the great River to the op'ning Gulf, 38:56.480 --> 39:04.520 And there take root an Island salt and bare 39:04.519 --> 39:11.359 [This line:] The haunt of Seals and Orcs, 39:11.355 --> 39:17.905 and Sea-mews' clang. Michael's describing the effect 39:17.912 --> 39:19.172 of the flood on Eden. 39:19.170 --> 39:23.910 This is the mount of paradise, which, like all other things, 39:23.913 --> 39:28.903 will be moved out of its place by the flood and washed into the 39:28.898 --> 39:32.758 opening gulf of the ocean.Now this particular 39:32.758 --> 39:37.898 image teaches us a lot more than simply the extent of this mighty 39:37.904 --> 39:41.704 flood. The point here is the ultimate 39:41.703 --> 39:47.233 insignificance of all tangible things, of anything whose beauty 39:47.227 --> 39:50.967 we had been appreciating by our senses. 39:50.969 --> 39:55.729 Adam has been permitted by an extraordinary administration of 39:55.725 --> 40:00.555 magic eyedrops to see a scene of future history whose point is 40:00.561 --> 40:03.191 the vanity, the emptiness, 40:03.185 --> 40:08.715 of all those things that can be seen, and the lesson is 40:08.723 --> 40:11.393 absolutely devastating. 40:11.389 --> 40:14.909 The garden of paradise -- whose lush vegetation, 40:14.906 --> 40:19.246 whose wandering rivers we have had described for us in such 40:19.245 --> 40:23.805 powerfully visual terms and in such powerfully seductive verse 40:23.809 --> 40:28.149 -- this garden will one day be pulled into the sea where it 40:28.148 --> 40:31.738 will "take root an Island salt and bare, 40:31.739 --> 40:36.519 / the haunt of Seals and Orcs, and Sea-mews' clang."The 40:36.520 --> 40:41.710 effect here is not simply on our visual memory of the vegetative 40:41.713 --> 40:46.743 splendor of Milton's paradise: Milton's assaulting as well our 40:46.740 --> 40:50.450 aural memory of the sounds of paradise, 40:50.449 --> 40:55.039 our memory of the beauty of the poetic verse that had produced 40:55.039 --> 40:59.399 in us our visual sense of the gorgeousness of the Garden of 40:59.402 --> 41:02.092 Eden. In the repressive Puritan 41:02.092 --> 41:06.922 regime of the last two books, the resonant organ tones of the 41:06.923 --> 41:11.113 poem's earlier books also have to be washed away. 41:11.110 --> 41:20.650 So in that amazing line, "the haunt of Seals and Orcs, 41:20.654 --> 41:31.644 and Sea-mews' clang," Milton creates an onomatopoetic line. 41:31.640 --> 41:35.150 What does it do? It actually enacts with a kind 41:35.154 --> 41:39.514 of strident horror the squawking, horrible sounds of 41:39.513 --> 41:41.483 these sea creatures. 41:41.480 --> 41:46.620 It offers us a sonic emblem of the general stridency, 41:46.623 --> 41:52.163 I think, of the concluding books: the uncompromising tone 41:52.163 --> 41:58.203 of severity that instructs us not to overvalue the lush beauty 41:58.197 --> 42:04.427 of the previous books -- not to overvalue the beauty of paradise 42:04.429 --> 42:09.569 but also not to overvalue the beauty of the poetry of 42:09.573 --> 42:16.723 Paradise Lost.Well, a question presents itself at 42:16.723 --> 42:22.563 this point and it's one that I think is inescapable. 42:22.559 --> 42:26.119 Why does Eden have to be destroyed at all? 42:26.119 --> 42:29.259 "Why is it washed away in Noah's flood?" 42:29.260 --> 42:35.450 we ask. The paradise that was lost, 42:35.446 --> 42:38.516 it turns out, wasn't the significant one. 42:38.519 --> 42:42.469 This is an incredibly important part of Michael's lesson. 42:42.469 --> 42:47.499 Look at how Michael explains this at line 836: 42:47.499 --> 42:52.529 paradise is destroyed -- he's talking to Adam: 42:52.529 --> 42:57.779 "To teach thee that God attributes to place / no 42:57.783 --> 43:02.053 sanctity, if none be thither brought / by 43:02.053 --> 43:05.653 Men who there frequent, or therein dwell." 43:05.650 --> 43:08.390 Now think of what Michael has just said. 43:08.389 --> 43:11.779 The Garden of Eden will become an "Island salt and bare" at 43:11.780 --> 43:15.520 least a thousand years after the moment that Michael is currently 43:15.522 --> 43:17.512 related this prophecy to Adam. 43:17.510 --> 43:22.940 Eden will be destroyed in order to teach Adam at this very 43:22.935 --> 43:28.165 moment in the present time that places aren't divine, 43:28.170 --> 43:31.520 only the people that live in them.This is an 43:31.522 --> 43:36.162 extraordinarily bizarre temporal disjunction that we have here. 43:36.159 --> 43:40.259 Paradise isn't going to be destroyed for another millennium 43:40.260 --> 43:45.090 or so in the time of Noah, but it will be destroyed in 43:45.087 --> 43:51.517 order to make good on Michael's prophecy of its destruction. 43:51.519 --> 43:55.639 Paradise has to be destroyed so that Michael's prophecy of that 43:55.635 --> 43:59.285 event can have its proper pedagogical effect on Adam now 43:59.285 --> 44:02.135 in the present moment of the narration. 44:02.139 --> 44:06.489 Michael attempts -- it's an amazing way to compel the 44:06.487 --> 44:11.337 internalization of paradise by forcing Adam to confront its 44:11.337 --> 44:15.457 real-life destruction.Now, at the conclusion of these 44:15.455 --> 44:18.345 lessons in history -- this is near the end of Book Twelve, 44:18.349 --> 44:23.659 page 467, line 585 -- Michael states in much more formal terms 44:23.655 --> 44:26.955 just this lesson of internalization. 44:26.960 --> 44:31.650 So, "having listened to my history," Michael tells Adam: 44:31.650 --> 44:36.340 "hen wilt thou not be loath / To leave this Paradise, 44:36.340 --> 44:41.160 but shalt possess / A Paradise within thee, happier far." 44:41.159 --> 44:44.389 Once Adam pictures the terrible destruction of paradise, 44:44.393 --> 44:47.693 he'll come to understand that an internalized paradise is 44:47.685 --> 44:51.455 superior, and it's a happy compensation 44:51.456 --> 44:54.356 for the lost place of Eden. 44:54.360 --> 44:57.250 Readers of Milton, and certainly scholars of 44:57.248 --> 45:01.348 Milton, have taken Michael at his word when he tells Adam that 45:01.346 --> 45:05.306 the paradise that dwells within will be happier far than the 45:05.310 --> 45:09.210 paradise in which he himself is currently dwelling and will 45:09.206 --> 45:11.516 soon, of course, be forced to 45:11.522 --> 45:15.222 leave.There's an important sense in which we have to see 45:15.221 --> 45:18.731 the inward paradise as the greater and more consequential 45:18.732 --> 45:20.302 Miltonic phenomenon. 45:20.300 --> 45:23.370 As a radical Protestant, Milton had always insisted on 45:23.369 --> 45:26.959 the superiority of inward human reason and of the inward spirit 45:26.960 --> 45:30.200 over anything like the visual splendor of churches or the 45:30.203 --> 45:33.913 sanctity of so-called holy places -- or the written codes, 45:33.909 --> 45:37.669 for that matter, of church doctrine. 45:37.670 --> 45:42.910 From a doctrinal point of view, there is no question Michael is 45:42.914 --> 45:47.074 beyond reproach here; but I still want to apply, 45:47.066 --> 45:51.726 because this is what I do, a little bit of skepticism to 45:51.733 --> 45:54.113 this little bit of dogma. 45:54.110 --> 45:57.260 How convincing is Michael here? 45:57.260 --> 46:00.810 Does our learning in one line that the paradise within us is 46:00.809 --> 46:04.479 actually happier far -- does it really undo our investment, 46:04.480 --> 46:07.220 the readers' investment, in this place, 46:07.219 --> 46:11.399 this paradise which has been so lovingly and so beautifully 46:11.400 --> 46:15.510 described in the thousands of lines that preceded it? 46:15.510 --> 46:18.340 When Michael describes the "Seals and Orcs and Sea-Mews' 46:18.340 --> 46:21.480 clang" that will literally take over the place of paradise, 46:21.480 --> 46:26.230 can we help but look back with regret at the liberal beauties 46:26.232 --> 46:30.592 of this poem before this strident archangel had taken it 46:30.588 --> 46:35.338 over essentially -- taken the poem into receivership with his 46:35.340 --> 46:40.410 unyielding dogmatism?From the aesthetic point of view, 46:40.409 --> 46:46.489 I think Michael's discourse is a complete disaster. 46:46.489 --> 46:50.539 We experience it as a form of loss, and Milton compels us as 46:50.544 --> 46:53.734 readers, I think, to experience along with Adam 46:53.727 --> 46:56.637 and Eve something like the loss of paradise. 46:56.639 --> 47:01.139 We are compelled to undergo the loss of what we loved about 47:01.136 --> 47:02.606 Paradise Lost. 47:02.610 --> 47:06.090 We are compelled to undergo the aesthetic fall that is taken 47:06.086 --> 47:07.186 by this very poem. 47:07.190 --> 47:10.200 This is, I think, Milton's way of precipitating 47:10.195 --> 47:14.175 our internalization of his poem.As I mentioned earlier, 47:14.179 --> 47:18.179 in the late 1650s Milton was no longer able to justify the 47:18.180 --> 47:21.620 extension of political liberties to the people. 47:21.619 --> 47:23.919 The English people, to his mind, 47:23.916 --> 47:28.506 had fallen and Milton could no longer imagine granting them the 47:28.509 --> 47:32.069 kind of freedom of self-determination that he had 47:32.065 --> 47:35.325 described so rhapsodically in a treatise like 47:35.325 --> 47:37.395 Areopagitica. 47:37.400 --> 47:42.740 You can see a related hardening of sensibility really in the 47:42.738 --> 47:48.258 last books of Paradise Lost in the fallen reader 47:48.258 --> 47:50.428 and the fallen poet. 47:50.429 --> 47:53.979 We can no longer afford the moral and theological 47:53.983 --> 47:58.063 uncertainty that had been fostered and really celebrated 47:58.055 --> 48:01.975 by the sublime poetic style that we can now call, 48:01.980 --> 48:05.170 now that it's gone, Miltonic. 48:05.170 --> 48:08.450 It's as if we can no longer afford the indulgence in all of 48:08.447 --> 48:11.947 those stylistic elements of the earlier books that have been so 48:11.951 --> 48:15.061 carefully purged from Michael's lessons in history. 48:15.059 --> 48:19.119 It's as if we can't afford to indulge in those ethically 48:19.118 --> 48:22.728 ambiguous similes, the delectable allusions to the 48:22.734 --> 48:27.144 full range of pagan classics, and those extraordinary flights 48:27.141 --> 48:30.511 of the poet's own original myth-making -- all of those 48:30.511 --> 48:34.011 elements that have made this poem so grand but that have 48:34.008 --> 48:36.348 continually, as we've charted, 48:36.345 --> 48:40.915 threatened to unhinge the story from anything like its basis in 48:40.923 --> 48:45.283 moral doctrine or scriptural certainty.The poetic effect 48:45.279 --> 48:49.709 that we have here is primarily one of loss and it's a type of 48:49.710 --> 48:53.550 loss that we've encountered before in Milton. 48:53.550 --> 48:57.760 I'm just about at my conclusion, but I want to remind 48:57.755 --> 49:01.635 you of Milton's first poem, his first great poem, 49:01.638 --> 49:04.548 the Nativity Ode of 1629. 49:04.550 --> 49:07.660 Milton, you'll remember, had described the triumphant 49:07.655 --> 49:10.935 entry of Christ. His destruction of all of the 49:10.943 --> 49:15.833 evil pagan gods and the onset of the Christian era was celebrated 49:15.829 --> 49:19.139 as a joyous one; but of course it brought with 49:19.135 --> 49:22.905 it a loss that Milton at that time was willing to measure. 49:22.909 --> 49:25.699 The pagan nymphs, you'll remember, 49:25.698 --> 49:30.008 felt the pain of their banishment from the beautiful 49:30.008 --> 49:35.078 forests of classical literature: "With flower-inwov'n tresses 49:35.079 --> 49:39.639 torn / the Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets 49:39.642 --> 49:42.542 mourn." That poem of religious 49:42.536 --> 49:45.716 celebration made a brief, but it was potent, 49:45.716 --> 49:49.046 detour into elegy, and Milton seemed almost to 49:49.052 --> 49:53.282 recognize the painfulness of the loss of classical literature and 49:53.276 --> 49:56.706 the loss of the poetic beauty with which we associate 49:56.708 --> 50:00.868 classical literature.I think there's a related sense of loss 50:00.867 --> 50:04.427 that attends the otherwise triumphant conclusion of the 50:04.431 --> 50:08.061 theological doctrine that Michael presents at the end of 50:08.061 --> 50:11.301 Book Twelve. On the doctrinal level, 50:11.301 --> 50:16.021 Michael does end on a painfully optimistic note -- I know that's 50:16.017 --> 50:20.577 an oxymoron but it still brings me pain -- the way in which he 50:20.583 --> 50:24.853 represents the promise of man's eventual redemption. 50:24.849 --> 50:28.779 But on an aesthetic level, you have almost the plangency, 50:28.784 --> 50:32.654 I think, of elegy -- a sad consciousness of all of those 50:32.649 --> 50:36.509 pleasures and all of those liberties that now have to be 50:36.513 --> 50:38.203 forsaken.Okay. 50:38.199 --> 50:42.099 I'm ending the lecture there, but I just want to remind you 50:42.101 --> 50:45.601 that that, of course, is not the end of the story. 50:45.599 --> 50:48.549 The poem will change a final time. 50:48.550 --> 50:52.510 Once again, in its last hundred lines or so you will have the 50:52.510 --> 50:56.670 reemergence of a lot of things that we associate with Milton. 50:56.670 --> 51:00.510 Certainly we'll have the reemergence of the epic simile, 51:00.514 --> 51:04.154 which we'll pay attention to closely on Wednesday. 51:04.150 --> 51:09.000 So focus for the next class on the poem's ending.