WEBVTT 00:01.740 --> 00:04.620 Professor John Rogers: Samuel Johnson in The 00:04.622 --> 00:07.302 Life of Milton -- and that's The Life of Milton 00:07.302 --> 00:11.142 included in the packet, but I've also included this on 00:11.140 --> 00:12.500 the handout -- Dr. 00:12.502 --> 00:17.042 Johnson wrote that Paradise Lost is one of those books 00:17.042 --> 00:21.582 which the reader admires and lays down and forgets to pick up 00:21.582 --> 00:23.582 again. We're used to this. 00:23.580 --> 00:27.120 We've read enough Johnson to recognize characteristic 00:27.121 --> 00:31.141 curmudgeon-liness when it comes to the subject of Milton, 00:31.140 --> 00:34.610 but I think there's something to this idea that we forget to 00:34.606 --> 00:38.246 take Paradise Lost up again after we've lain it down, 00:38.250 --> 00:41.630 because to say that Paradise Lost is not exactly a 00:41.631 --> 00:45.251 page-turner is simply to say that we're already familiar with 00:45.254 --> 00:47.184 the plot. We know, of course, 00:47.182 --> 00:49.952 how the story ends, and there's nothing for us, 00:49.949 --> 00:53.379 in terms of the plot at least, to anticipate with all that 00:53.377 --> 00:56.447 much eagerness. Our foreknowledge of the 00:56.446 --> 01:01.186 story's end works continually, I think, to reinforce our sense 01:01.191 --> 01:05.081 of God's foreknowledge of the end of the story. 01:05.079 --> 01:08.809 Of course, foreknowledge of any kind makes the end seem 01:08.814 --> 01:12.834 inevitable, and I think the inevitability of an ending puts 01:12.826 --> 01:16.626 Milton -- this idea puts Milton in a terrible bind. 01:16.629 --> 01:20.709 Any sense of the inevitability of the Fall really makes -- it 01:20.714 --> 01:23.504 just makes hash, it makes nonsense, 01:23.502 --> 01:28.632 of the notion of any strong feeling of Adam's and Eve's free 01:28.625 --> 01:30.745 will. If we're disappointed with the 01:30.747 --> 01:33.127 ending of Paradise Lost, then I think 01:33.127 --> 01:36.787 it's safe to say that Milton, too, is deeply troubled by the 01:36.788 --> 01:38.498 implications of an end. 01:38.500 --> 01:44.230 It's for all of these reasons that we can say that Paradise 01:44.234 --> 01:48.654 Lost is obsessed with the problem of its own 01:48.653 --> 01:52.663 ending.Now, we remember that Milton had 01:52.655 --> 01:57.655 devoted enormous sums of energy as a young man in anticipating 01:57.659 --> 02:00.449 his own end. He was continually looking 02:00.454 --> 02:03.824 ahead to the writing of a poem that "aftertimes would not 02:03.823 --> 02:07.133 willingly let die" -- you'll remember that sentence from 02:07.133 --> 02:09.543 The Reason of Church Government. 02:09.539 --> 02:12.439 In the 1640s, he looked ahead to a political 02:12.442 --> 02:15.962 future in which the reformed government would usher in the 02:15.961 --> 02:18.371 reign of Christ at the end of time, 02:18.370 --> 02:23.620 and his early poems are filled with brief lyric narratives of 02:23.617 --> 02:26.267 anticipation. I'll just enumerate a few of 02:26.267 --> 02:27.937 those, or I'll remind you of them. 02:27.939 --> 02:31.889 The Nativity Ode had anticipated a few times the 02:31.889 --> 02:34.849 apocalypse. Comus had anticipated -- 02:34.854 --> 02:37.724 well, had anticipated the apocalypse as well, 02:37.715 --> 02:41.675 but it also anticipated the eventual marriage of the Lady. 02:41.680 --> 02:45.340 "Lycidas" anticipated, among so many other things, 02:45.336 --> 02:47.356 the undying fame of the poet. 02:47.360 --> 02:51.710 Adam, too, in Books Eleven and Twelve -- Adam seems continually 02:51.709 --> 02:55.919 to be anticipating an ending like the speaker of The Nativity 02:55.918 --> 02:58.488 Ode. Adam's always looking ahead to 02:58.491 --> 03:01.511 the Christian millennium, or the apocalypse. 03:01.509 --> 03:05.359 He's jumping ahead of himself, and Michael is always chiding 03:05.362 --> 03:07.062 him for this enthusiasm. 03:07.060 --> 03:11.950 It's as if Michael's job is to put the brakes on Adam's 03:11.947 --> 03:15.747 anticipatory excitement.Given that role 03:15.748 --> 03:19.708 that Michael plays, I think it's all the more 03:19.706 --> 03:24.206 remarkable that it's Michael -- this is our killjoy archangel 03:24.211 --> 03:28.641 who's often just as bad as Adam in his own eagerness to jump 03:28.641 --> 03:32.471 ahead of himself as he tells the story – 03:32.470 --> 03:36.640 that it's Michael himself is the angel of apocalypse from the 03:36.641 --> 03:39.771 Book of Revelation, as we learned from David's 03:39.770 --> 03:41.300 lecture on Friday. 03:41.300 --> 03:44.850 The Book of Revelation is the book from which Milton has 03:44.850 --> 03:47.180 taken, or has lifted, this character, 03:47.175 --> 03:50.155 Michael. Perhaps because of his role in 03:50.156 --> 03:53.976 Revelation, the Michael of Paradise Lost seems 03:53.982 --> 03:58.252 incapable of keeping himself from the onrush of expectation 03:58.248 --> 04:01.928 as he narrates, in what I suppose should be 04:01.932 --> 04:06.852 chronological order but isn't, the story of future history. 04:06.849 --> 04:11.439 So Michael will narrate the story of the apocalypse four -- 04:11.441 --> 04:16.351 count them, four -- times over the course of the last books, 04:16.350 --> 04:20.300 once in Book Eleven and three times in Book Twelve. 04:20.300 --> 04:24.200 In all of his eagerness to imagine the final fulfillment of 04:24.198 --> 04:27.958 history, Michael seems almost in some way to be parodying 04:27.962 --> 04:31.922 Milton's own tendency, especially his own youthful 04:31.919 --> 04:35.769 tendency, to offer those prophetic narratives of 04:35.765 --> 04:40.645 anticipation.Now, Michael's focus in the last two 04:40.648 --> 04:46.108 books is essentially on God's providential control over the 04:46.109 --> 04:50.439 actions of the descendants of Adam and Eve, 04:50.440 --> 04:55.750 and so it's not too difficult to see why these books just 04:55.753 --> 04:58.793 structurally are so troubling. 04:58.790 --> 05:02.720 Milton is in the incredibly awkward position of trying to 05:02.724 --> 05:06.874 reconcile divine providence with the notion of free will. 05:06.870 --> 05:09.950 This has been his challenge all along, and this is also the 05:09.946 --> 05:12.806 subject of a lot of Milton's musings in the theological 05:12.811 --> 05:15.571 treatise that he wrote at the same time that he wrote 05:15.569 --> 05:19.759 Paradise Lost, The Christian Doctrine. I'm 05:19.761 --> 05:25.321 going to have you turn in your Hughes to page 984 in 05:25.320 --> 05:28.100 The Christian Doctrine. 05:28.100 --> 05:31.680 Milton devotes an entire chapter to the problem of the 05:31.676 --> 05:35.316 seeming incompatibility of divine providence and human free 05:35.315 --> 05:37.225 will, and he finds himself 05:37.227 --> 05:40.997 continually knocking up against the representation of the 05:41.000 --> 05:44.840 providential God that he finds in the Bible.So this is 05:44.841 --> 05:47.721 Christian Doctrine, page 984. 05:47.720 --> 05:52.170 This is where Milton tries to carve out a space for free will 05:52.173 --> 05:56.333 in the face of so much contrary evidence in scripture. 05:56.329 --> 05:59.319 This is on the top of the right-hand column. 05:59.319 --> 06:04.599 I believe this is -- yes, this is also on the handout. 06:04.600 --> 06:06.670 Okay. Milton's speaking about divine 06:06.673 --> 06:10.053 providence, which is obviously on some level a sensitive 06:10.053 --> 06:12.093 subject, maybe a sore subject, 06:12.085 --> 06:15.115 for such a strong believer in human free will. 06:15.120 --> 06:18.480 He's quoting here the scriptural accounts of what he 06:18.483 --> 06:21.323 calls the voluntary actions of the deity, 06:21.319 --> 06:25.079 those moments in which God is acting out of his own 06:25.080 --> 06:26.510 inscrutable will. 06:26.509 --> 06:31.859 So here we have Milton writing very systematically: 06:31.860 --> 06:33.770 Voluntary actions. 06:33.770 --> 06:34.970 2 Chronicles x.15. 06:34.970 --> 06:38.140 [This is an example.] so the king harkened not unto 06:38.144 --> 06:40.624 the people: for the cause was of God. 06:40.620 --> 06:43.870 [And then again from Proverbs.] …a man's heart deviseth 06:43.867 --> 06:47.647 his way; but Jehovah directeth his steps. 06:47.650 --> 06:51.190 [And]… man's goings are of Jehovah. 06:51.190 --> 06:53.190 [And] …the king's heart is at 06:53.189 --> 06:55.759 the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; 06:55.759 --> 06:58.519 he turneth it whithersoever he will. 06:58.519 --> 07:01.249 [And this from Jeremiah] …O Jehovah, 07:01.252 --> 07:04.702 I know that the way of man is not in himself. 07:04.699 --> 07:09.349 Now, why [laughs] would Milton do this? 07:09.350 --> 07:12.480 Why would he cite these scriptures? 07:12.480 --> 07:15.860 From Milton's point of view, and actually from the point of 07:15.857 --> 07:18.767 view of a lot of seventeenth-century Christians, 07:18.769 --> 07:22.709 these would have to be bone-chilling statements of the 07:22.711 --> 07:25.761 absolute divine control over our lives. 07:25.759 --> 07:29.559 The verses from scripture that Milton's quoting here seem to 07:29.560 --> 07:33.700 admit of nothing like free will; they conjure an image of God 07:33.700 --> 07:37.740 who controls us as a puppeteer would control his puppets, 07:37.740 --> 07:41.150 and surely this has to make Milton nervous.After quoting 07:41.146 --> 07:43.856 instances of divine action that seem clearly, 07:43.860 --> 07:48.830 I think, to counter the idea of the power of human free will, 07:48.834 --> 07:50.414 Milton adds this. 07:50.410 --> 07:53.030 It's utterly sublime: "In this, however, 07:53.029 --> 07:57.059 there is no infringement on the liberty of the human will; 07:57.060 --> 08:01.610 otherwise man would be deprived of the power of free agency..." 08:01.610 --> 08:04.330 [laughs] "Otherwise": 08:04.333 --> 08:09.373 [laughs] it's slightly loose logic but 08:09.373 --> 08:14.143 it's extraordinarily heartfelt. 08:14.139 --> 08:17.939 Milton is telling us once again that "it has to mean what I know 08:17.935 --> 08:20.875 it should mean." It wouldn't make sense 08:20.879 --> 08:22.399 otherwise. 08:22.399 --> 08:25.979 So he faces head on the most recalcitrant passages of the 08:25.977 --> 08:29.877 Bible, and he simply forces them to mean what he needs them to 08:29.875 --> 08:31.935 mean. This is precisely the challenge 08:31.937 --> 08:34.767 that Milton is confronted with in Books Eleven and Twelve. 08:34.769 --> 08:39.169 The Bible had already written the story of man after the Fall, 08:39.165 --> 08:41.755 and for most of Eleven and Twelve, 08:41.759 --> 08:44.929 Milton is really forced to amplify -- he's pretty 08:44.926 --> 08:49.016 constrained here -- to amplify and elaborate on the chapters in 08:49.016 --> 08:52.576 Genesis -- this is chapters 4 through 11 in the Book of 08:52.579 --> 08:55.749 Genesis--that really speed through generations of 08:55.745 --> 08:59.435 experience in the course of a few pages.Now, 08:59.440 --> 09:03.610 the most important biblical text to my mind that Milton has 09:03.608 --> 09:07.488 to confront is the Genesis account of the expulsion. 09:07.490 --> 09:11.450 This is the moment at which Adam and Eve are actually forced 09:11.451 --> 09:13.801 to lose their paradise, and this is, 09:13.797 --> 09:16.857 of course, the moment that's heralded -- the loss that's 09:16.858 --> 09:20.408 heralded in the poem's title; and so I think we have to 09:20.406 --> 09:24.636 assume that this moment has a privileged position in Milton's 09:24.644 --> 09:27.314 poem. This is the text as it appears 09:27.313 --> 09:31.243 in Genesis, and I've also included this on the handout. 09:31.240 --> 09:33.830 This is all we learn about the expulsion from Genesis: 09:33.830 --> 09:38.830 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as 09:38.830 --> 09:42.760 one of us, to know good and evil: and now, 09:42.759 --> 09:47.109 lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of 09:47.108 --> 09:49.638 life, and eat, and live for ever: 09:52.131 --> 09:55.901 sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from 09:55.898 --> 09:59.668 whence he was taken. So he drove out the 09:59.671 --> 10:02.631 man… By any standard, 10:02.631 --> 10:06.881 I think, that we could comfortably identify as 10:06.884 --> 10:12.464 Miltonic, this text portrays a God that's unjustifiable. 10:12.460 --> 10:14.390 We've seen this argument before, though. 10:14.389 --> 10:18.859 You'll remember Satan -- Satan had accused God of jealousy when 10:18.858 --> 10:20.658 Satan was tempting Eve. 10:20.659 --> 10:23.339 Satan was telling Eve, "God doesn't want you to eat 10:23.338 --> 10:26.388 the fruit because he doesn't want you to become a god like 10:26.391 --> 10:28.761 him, a being with the superior 10:28.759 --> 10:31.009 knowledge of good and evil." 10:31.009 --> 10:34.989 And we, of course, rally to dismiss Satan's claim 10:34.988 --> 10:40.208 as yet another example of his tendency to lie and to deceive; 10:40.210 --> 10:43.250 but Satan is [laughs] -- it seems that Milton's Satan 10:43.247 --> 10:46.867 has only gotten this idea from the words of God and the Book of 10:46.870 --> 10:49.820 Genesis itself. What kind of god does Genesis 10:49.822 --> 10:52.622 portray here if not that of a vulnerable and, 10:52.617 --> 10:56.237 in some way, desperate deity who does in 10:56.236 --> 11:01.866 fact punish man out of a degree of jealousy and maybe even 11:01.866 --> 11:05.236 vengeance? God here has to force Adam and 11:05.243 --> 11:09.223 Eve out of the garden to keep them from encroaching on any 11:09.220 --> 11:12.430 more of his privileges or of his territory, 11:12.429 --> 11:17.379 to keep them from achieving the state of immortality that only 11:17.377 --> 11:21.267 God himself enjoys.Now as you can imagine, 11:21.269 --> 11:25.499 this biblical passage has been troubling to generations of 11:25.497 --> 11:29.647 readers of the Bible and especially biblical scholars. 11:29.649 --> 11:32.449 The sixteenth-century theologian Calvin, 11:32.450 --> 11:36.330 when confronted with this passage, was really forced to 11:36.327 --> 11:40.557 conclude that God was speaking ironically here -- he doesn't 11:40.563 --> 11:43.223 actually mean what he's saying. 11:43.220 --> 11:46.640 Well, you have to say something when you're dealing with a 11:46.635 --> 11:49.085 passage like this, but Milton's incredibly 11:49.091 --> 11:53.551 scrupulous here. He feels compelled to reproduce 11:53.551 --> 12:00.181 this very dark Genesis text in his own story of the expulsion. 12:00.179 --> 12:02.789 Look at Book Eleven of Paradise Lost, 12:02.786 --> 12:04.386 line ninety-three. 12:04.389 --> 12:09.109 In the Hughes Edition it's page 435. 12:09.110 --> 12:13.600 This is God speaking: Lest therefore his now 12:13.596 --> 12:16.946 bolder hand Reach also of the Tree of Life, 12:16.951 --> 12:19.081 and eat, And live for ever, 12:19.079 --> 12:23.809 dream at least to live For ever, to remove him I 12:23.814 --> 12:27.854 decree, And send him from the Garden 12:27.850 --> 12:32.520 forth to Till The Ground whence he was taken, 12:32.516 --> 12:36.446 [and this is mean,] fitter soil. 12:36.450 --> 12:39.820 Milton depicts a god in this passage who has all of those, 12:39.822 --> 12:42.122 and maybe even then some, [laughs] 12:42.117 --> 12:46.647 anthropomorphic qualities of the Yahweh of so much of 12:46.650 --> 12:50.190 Genesis. God here is distinctly human in 12:50.189 --> 12:54.929 personality, and he's able without hesitation to intervene 12:54.933 --> 12:59.183 in the lives of -- in the affairs of man in order to 12:59.177 --> 13:02.337 effect his desire for punishment. 13:02.340 --> 13:05.840 I take this to be precisely a type of god that Milton is 13:05.844 --> 13:09.674 trying to counteract or to do away with throughout so much of 13:09.668 --> 13:12.718 The Christian Doctrine, a god whose 13:12.717 --> 13:16.957 all-encompassing will just steamrolls right over the free 13:16.963 --> 13:18.693 will, the free agency, 13:18.687 --> 13:22.877 of human individuals.But nonetheless we have this passage 13:22.878 --> 13:27.208 in the poem and you can -- it's not hard to see that the moment 13:27.208 --> 13:31.188 of expulsion is a crisis moment in Paradise Lost. 13:31.190 --> 13:35.580 It's not only that point at which paradise gets lost; 13:35.580 --> 13:39.670 it's also that moment, I think, in which Milton is 13:39.674 --> 13:43.854 most hard pressed to depict a god whose actions are 13:43.852 --> 13:46.622 justifiable, whose behavior can be 13:46.623 --> 13:50.313 reconciled with all of the claims of reason that Milton 13:50.311 --> 13:51.951 wants to hold him to. 13:51.950 --> 13:56.180 It's because the moment of the actual expulsion is such a 13:56.178 --> 13:59.878 crisis that Milton provides us with an alternative 13:59.877 --> 14:03.607 understanding of it, and this, I believe, 14:03.608 --> 14:09.078 is the conversation between the Father and the Son at line 14:09.077 --> 14:14.777 forty-five of Book Eleven, page 434 of the Hughes. 14:14.779 --> 14:18.519 The Son has just pleaded with the Father to show some 14:18.516 --> 14:22.316 mercy on the repentant Adam and Eve and the Father -- it's 14:22.320 --> 14:25.190 wonderful -- argues that he would like, 14:25.190 --> 14:26.760 in fact he'd love, to be merciful, 14:26.760 --> 14:29.760 but there are some things that are simply out of his control. 14:29.759 --> 14:33.949 Adam and Eve will have to leave the garden, and the 14:33.949 --> 14:39.309 justification that God gives for their departure I think is truly 14:39.311 --> 14:42.911 extraordinary. So this is line forty-eight of 14:42.913 --> 14:45.923 Book Eleven: But longer in that 14:45.916 --> 14:51.176 Paradise to dwell, The Law I gave to Nature him 14:51.175 --> 14:53.945 forbids: Those pure immortal Elements 14:53.948 --> 14:56.698 that know No gross, no unharmonious 14:56.699 --> 15:00.309 mixture foul, Eject him tainted now, 15:00.307 --> 15:04.127 and purge him off As a distemper, 15:04.130 --> 15:08.620 gross to air as gross… 15:08.620 --> 15:11.790 And we suddenly have a rationale for the expulsion 15:11.787 --> 15:15.857 that's really completely opposed to the account of the expulsion 15:15.860 --> 15:19.740 that begins at line ninety-three and completely opposed, 15:19.740 --> 15:23.720 of course, to its original in the Book of Genesis. 15:23.720 --> 15:25.370 Where did Milton get this? 15:25.370 --> 15:26.960 He's made this up. 15:26.960 --> 15:30.900 Suddenly Milton has a god behaving really very 15:30.903 --> 15:33.053 differently. God is saying, 15:33.047 --> 15:35.927 "Well, I'd love for them to stay in paradise, 15:35.929 --> 15:38.549 but you see there's nothing I can do. 15:38.549 --> 15:42.959 I established this natural law in Eden whereby the pure, 15:42.955 --> 15:46.475 immortal elements of paradise necessarily, 15:46.480 --> 15:51.620 inexorably expel and purge anything that's foul or tainted; 15:51.620 --> 15:53.610 and because, of course, the fallen bodies of 15:53.608 --> 15:55.688 Adam and Eve are actually foul and tainted, 15:55.690 --> 16:01.000 the atmospheric mechanisms already in place in paradise are 16:00.999 --> 16:05.579 in the process as we speak of purging them from the 16:05.576 --> 16:11.156 garden."The lines are beautiful and they're shocking. 16:11.159 --> 16:15.939 Milton puts in God's mouth an explanation for the expulsion of 16:15.940 --> 16:20.330 Adam and Eve that really deliberately runs counter to the 16:20.329 --> 16:23.699 explanation in the Book of Genesis and, 16:23.700 --> 16:28.000 I think, completely contradicts the one that God himself had 16:28.000 --> 16:31.940 given so publicly to the assembly of angels about fifty 16:31.936 --> 16:33.536 or so lines later. 16:33.539 --> 16:37.639 It's an explanation that completely counters the image of 16:37.640 --> 16:41.590 the jealous and vengeful God that Milton inherited from 16:41.594 --> 16:44.684 scripture. Milton is really wresting this 16:44.677 --> 16:48.587 poem away from its source in scripture and he's pushing it 16:48.585 --> 16:50.775 toward an entirely new genre. 16:50.779 --> 16:54.109 This is something much closer to what we would think of as 16:54.111 --> 16:55.691 science fiction, I think, 16:55.690 --> 16:59.810 than any kind of anthropomorphic biblical 16:59.813 --> 17:05.073 narrative.Milton is taking a tremendous risk, 17:05.069 --> 17:08.489 and to embark on such a fanciful flight of myth-making 17:08.489 --> 17:12.039 at such an incredibly important moment has to be seen as 17:12.038 --> 17:15.748 consequential. I think that Milton is taking 17:15.750 --> 17:19.440 this risk for the purposes of his theodicy, 17:19.444 --> 17:23.494 his need to justify the ways of God to men. 17:23.490 --> 17:28.980 Here at last is an image of the god who expels Adam and Eve from 17:28.982 --> 17:34.042 the garden for an entirely justifiable, rational reason. 17:34.039 --> 17:37.439 Here at last is an image of a god who's not at all the evil 17:37.435 --> 17:40.535 puppeteer who deliberately forces the movements of his 17:40.539 --> 17:44.039 human creatures. It's an entirely benign -- it's 17:44.038 --> 17:48.538 almost an impersonal -- god who willingly subjects himself to 17:48.543 --> 17:50.943 the law, to the law of nature, 17:50.944 --> 17:54.854 and to the natural moral processes of nature that are 17:54.845 --> 17:58.215 inevitably at work in the garden.This, 17:58.220 --> 18:03.510 of course, isn't the first time that we've encountered the force 18:03.507 --> 18:06.777 of contradiction in Paradise Lost. 18:06.779 --> 18:10.159 Throughout the poem, Milton has been opposing 18:10.157 --> 18:13.887 competing notions of God, opposing accounts of crucial 18:13.886 --> 18:16.146 events. You'll remember Raphael's 18:16.154 --> 18:19.264 account of creation in Book Seven in which Milton had 18:19.264 --> 18:22.224 opposed the literal, the anthropomorphic, 18:22.216 --> 18:26.316 story of Genesis with his own really wildly original, 18:26.315 --> 18:30.485 incredibly beautiful story of something like a natural 18:30.492 --> 18:34.072 self-creation. There are two accounts, 18:34.068 --> 18:38.678 as I mentioned in the last class, of Noah's flood in 18:38.677 --> 18:41.567 Michael's own history lesson. 18:41.569 --> 18:46.499 Events are continually being related twice and sometimes even 18:46.497 --> 18:51.107 three times in Paradise Lost, and the purpose of these 18:51.114 --> 18:54.574 narrative repetitions, I think, has nothing to do with 18:54.568 --> 18:58.018 Milton's desire to make this poem impenetrable or just 18:58.022 --> 19:01.342 confusing. Milton is on something like a 19:01.339 --> 19:05.209 systematic level, I think, juxtaposing the poem's 19:05.211 --> 19:10.051 official theological reading of events with an alternative -- 19:10.050 --> 19:14.490 what we could think of as a naturalistic or maybe a more 19:14.487 --> 19:17.227 rational reading of events. 19:17.230 --> 19:20.790 He's struggling to represent a more palatable, 19:20.788 --> 19:24.268 a more rational, alternative to the arbitrary 19:24.268 --> 19:29.008 anthropomorphic deity who is so capable of jealousy and these 19:29.014 --> 19:32.894 all-too-human motives that he finds in the Book of 19:32.889 --> 19:37.159 Genesis.Up to this point in Milton's poem, 19:37.160 --> 19:42.060 we really haven't known what to do with a lot of these conflicts 19:42.059 --> 19:46.569 and contradictions that the poem was presenting us with. 19:46.569 --> 19:50.449 Conflicting accounts of key moments in Christian history 19:50.451 --> 19:54.051 just seemed to be held in suspension in the text. 19:54.049 --> 19:58.439 It's often difficult to discern how we're supposed to interpret 19:58.444 --> 20:02.914 the relation between opposing views, or among opposing views. 20:02.910 --> 20:05.740 I think this is a problem that we've been confronting all 20:05.738 --> 20:08.818 along: is one version right and the other version is wrong? 20:08.819 --> 20:11.719 Is one version a satanic perspective on these events and 20:11.720 --> 20:13.250 the other is a divine view? 20:13.250 --> 20:15.990 What's the point of all of these oppositions and 20:15.987 --> 20:18.897 conflicts?Well, if those are the questions that 20:18.899 --> 20:22.039 we're asking, it's safe to say that Milton in 20:22.040 --> 20:25.580 his magnificent genius has already anticipated those 20:25.578 --> 20:29.088 questions. I think here in the last books 20:29.086 --> 20:33.686 of the poem, Milton is struggling, and to some effect, 20:33.692 --> 20:37.692 to make some kind of sense of this problem. 20:37.690 --> 20:42.720 Michael presents a theory of reading that on some level can 20:42.719 --> 20:46.879 account for some of the confusions of Paradise 20:46.882 --> 20:52.002 Lost: it's the theory of scriptural interpretation known 20:51.999 --> 20:55.289 as typology, and it had been around for 20:55.288 --> 20:57.688 centuries. According to the typological 20:57.694 --> 21:01.104 interpretation of Christian history, characters and events 21:01.104 --> 21:04.934 in the Hebrew Bible, which Christians called the Old 21:04.931 --> 21:09.911 Testament, are seen as types of characters and events in the New 21:09.912 --> 21:12.272 Testament. This mode of reading became a 21:12.271 --> 21:15.161 way for Christian readers of the Bible to reinterpret everything 21:15.164 --> 21:18.244 in the Hebrew scriptures, and to appropriate the Hebrew 21:18.235 --> 21:21.805 scriptures, as an anticipation of the Christian truths that 21:21.806 --> 21:25.216 would be revealed, they believed, 21:25.215 --> 21:28.385 later in the gospel. 21:28.390 --> 21:32.990 This was a central way in which Christians could assert some 21:32.985 --> 21:37.415 kind of superiority over Judaism in light of the fact that 21:37.424 --> 21:41.324 Judaism had this awkward but nonetheless incredibly 21:41.318 --> 21:45.448 significant temporal priority over Christianity.So 21:45.446 --> 21:48.246 typology becomes a big deal. 21:48.250 --> 21:53.050 Look at Milton's dealing with the typological perspective in 21:53.048 --> 21:55.728 Paradise Lost, Book Twelve, 21:55.732 --> 21:59.132 line 312. This is page 461 in the 21:59.130 --> 22:01.820 Hughes. Milton looks at the Old 22:01.816 --> 22:05.236 Testament figure of Joshua -- and he's not making this up. 22:05.240 --> 22:10.740 There's a long tradition of thinking of Joshua as a type of 22:10.741 --> 22:13.551 Jesus. Joshua represents in this 22:13.549 --> 22:18.469 reading an early version of the Jesus that Christians come to 22:18.470 --> 22:21.390 call Christ, and the full significance of 22:21.391 --> 22:25.021 Joshua's life can't have been revealed in his own lifetime or 22:25.016 --> 22:28.516 actually during anyone's lifetime in the Old Testament. 22:28.519 --> 22:32.449 The full significance of the Old Testament type isn't known 22:32.449 --> 22:36.039 until the emergence of the New Testament anti-type, 22:36.039 --> 22:40.579 the anti-type being the Christian fulfillment of the 22:40.575 --> 22:42.945 Hebraic type. In this case, 22:42.950 --> 22:45.910 the anti-type is the birth of Jesus. 22:45.910 --> 22:50.000 Christian exegetes were constantly mapping out elaborate 22:49.995 --> 22:54.225 systems of types and anti-types as they read the Bible. 22:54.230 --> 22:58.720 There's a very interesting book on Milton's use of typology by 22:58.718 --> 23:01.168 William Madsen, M-a-d-s-e-n, 23:01.170 --> 23:06.970 called From Shadowy Types to Truth.Look a little 23:06.970 --> 23:09.570 further up on page 461. 23:09.569 --> 23:15.369 This is Michael's actual theory of typology, line 300 of Book 23:15.369 --> 23:18.269 Twelve. In the typological view of 23:18.274 --> 23:22.424 history, true meaning emerges over time by means of an 23:22.420 --> 23:25.710 historical process, and this is how Michael 23:25.706 --> 23:30.006 articulates it: So Law appears imperfet 23:30.013 --> 23:33.873 [and by law Michael means mosaic law, the 23:33.869 --> 23:38.389 law dispensed on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament] 23:38.387 --> 23:41.907 and but giv'n With purpose to resign them in 23:41.907 --> 23:44.657 full time Up to a better Cov'nant, 23:44.660 --> 23:48.130 disciplin'd From shadowy Types to Truth, 23:48.132 --> 23:51.932 from Flesh to Spirit, From imposition of strict Laws, 23:51.927 --> 23:54.827 to free Acceptance of large Grace, 23:54.832 --> 23:59.642 from servile fear To filial, works of Law to 23:59.635 --> 24:03.765 works of Faith. Christian history obeys a 24:03.771 --> 24:07.171 process whereby the shadowy types of the Old Testament are 24:07.172 --> 24:10.222 eventually revealed in all of their truth in the New 24:10.215 --> 24:13.245 Testament. Old Testament law gives way to 24:13.250 --> 24:16.890 New Testament faith, and the laws of the flesh start 24:16.889 --> 24:20.599 to yield to something like a faith in the spirit. 24:20.599 --> 24:23.909 That's the message here, and Michael presents this with 24:23.907 --> 24:26.597 the official theological understanding of the 24:26.602 --> 24:28.932 significance of Christian history. 24:28.930 --> 24:32.810 This is really the official doctrine of the revelation of 24:32.810 --> 24:36.900 all of the types and anti-types that Michael has given us in 24:36.898 --> 24:40.918 this whirlwind history of life after the Fall.Michael's 24:40.917 --> 24:43.547 also doing a lot more than that. 24:43.549 --> 24:47.619 Michael's theory of reading biblical history, 24:47.622 --> 24:53.182 I think, is also something like a theory of reading this very 24:53.176 --> 24:55.306 poem. He's giving us an 24:55.310 --> 24:58.980 interpretative key, I submit, to some of the most 24:58.983 --> 25:02.123 difficult aspects of Paradise Lost. 25:02.119 --> 25:06.589 The history of civilization that Michael offers us is filled 25:06.593 --> 25:09.223 with moments of seeming repetition. 25:09.220 --> 25:12.900 Joshua appears in the Old Testament, but he seems to point 25:12.904 --> 25:16.464 ahead to the new Joshua, Jesus, in the New Testament. 25:16.460 --> 25:20.100 These typological repetitions are closely related, 25:20.099 --> 25:23.959 I think, to the narrative repetitions that we have in 25:23.962 --> 25:27.382 Milton's poem, narrative repetitions like the 25:27.377 --> 25:30.837 competing accounts of the creation or the competing 25:30.841 --> 25:32.851 accounts of the expulsion. 25:32.849 --> 25:34.519 These are things that we've looked at. 25:34.519 --> 25:37.809 And the theory of typology works to make sense, 25:37.814 --> 25:40.964 on some level, of some of the differences and 25:40.964 --> 25:44.904 some of the conflicts among these repeated narratives in 25:44.903 --> 25:49.093 Milton's story.Now, we have been confused. 25:49.089 --> 25:52.959 We may have been confused about what to do with the poem's 25:52.959 --> 25:57.099 competing accounts of various moments of Christian history. 25:57.099 --> 26:00.179 This is where the theory of typology comes in. 26:00.180 --> 26:03.520 The old-fashioned anthropomorphic images of the 26:03.520 --> 26:07.880 deity, the images that Milton inherits in large part from the 26:07.877 --> 26:11.337 text of Genesis, begin to look like shadowy 26:11.342 --> 26:14.982 types, the shadowy types of the Old Testament. 26:14.980 --> 26:17.410 The more modern, what we could think of as 26:17.414 --> 26:19.674 something like the quasi-scientific, 26:19.670 --> 26:23.510 rational explanation in the poem of certain events begins to 26:23.509 --> 26:27.609 emerge as something like a type of -- as a new kind of truth. 26:27.609 --> 26:31.519 The shadowy types of Milton's scriptural literalism -- and 26:31.519 --> 26:35.699 there's no question that that's an important component of this 26:35.703 --> 26:40.233 poem -- maybe they yield to the truths of the more scientific, 26:40.230 --> 26:43.480 the more naturalistic side of Milton's imagination.It's 26:43.478 --> 26:46.778 not exactly the case that one version is wrong and the other 26:46.783 --> 26:47.963 version is right. 26:47.960 --> 26:50.860 We could think of one version as being an early, 26:50.856 --> 26:54.796 literalist understanding of an event and the other as a later, 26:54.799 --> 26:57.779 more rational, more sophisticated 26:57.781 --> 27:03.651 understanding of an event -- an entirely natural as opposed to a 27:03.650 --> 27:09.240 supernatural account of the forces at work in the world. 27:09.240 --> 27:13.390 I think you can see Milton inviting just this type of 27:13.388 --> 27:17.778 typological reading of his own poem at the conclusion of 27:17.776 --> 27:22.636 Paradise Lost.Let's look at the poem's final simile 27:22.643 --> 27:27.433 and just take a moment to be grateful that Milton has decided 27:27.430 --> 27:31.100 to give us a final simile after all of [laughs] 27:31.100 --> 27:34.850 what we've been through with Michael. 27:34.850 --> 27:38.160 Okay. This is line 625 of Book 27:38.159 --> 27:42.519 Twelve, page 468 in the Hughes. 27:42.519 --> 27:46.209 Now we've already had two anticipatory narratives of the 27:46.207 --> 27:48.957 expulsion so far, and I'll just remind you of 27:48.957 --> 27:51.577 them. In the literalist narrative, 27:51.580 --> 27:56.220 God explains that the expulsion will occur by means of Michael's 27:56.216 --> 27:59.966 actually shoving Adam and Eve out of the garden; 27:59.970 --> 28:03.240 but you'll remember also that more naturalistic, 28:03.244 --> 28:07.014 that quasi-scientific version of the story in which God 28:07.007 --> 28:11.257 explains that Adam and Eve are going to be ejected out of Eden 28:11.257 --> 28:14.947 by means of some certain atmospheric pressures. 28:14.950 --> 28:19.560 Here at the end of the poem, we have what I take to be the 28:19.561 --> 28:22.961 actual representation of the real event. 28:22.960 --> 28:27.620 This is taking place on the literal level at the present 28:27.616 --> 28:32.526 moment of the story and on the literal level of the Genesis 28:32.527 --> 28:34.387 account, line 625. 28:34.390 --> 28:39.110 [F]or now too nigh Th' Arch-Angel stood, 28:39.111 --> 28:43.081 and from the other Hill To thir fixt Station, 28:43.082 --> 28:46.232 all in bright array The Cherubim 28:46.230 --> 28:50.330 descended… So you have these 28:50.333 --> 28:55.243 anthropomorphic beings, the cherubim -- these angels, 28:55.236 --> 29:00.986 these armed angels descend to earth to effect God's punishment 29:00.988 --> 29:04.408 of man; but no sooner has Milton given 29:04.405 --> 29:08.745 us this literal Genesis-based description of the expulsion 29:08.748 --> 29:13.468 than he embarks for a final time on a simile that really throws 29:13.472 --> 29:17.512 everything that he's just written into question. 29:17.510 --> 29:19.080 The cherubim have descended. 29:19.080 --> 29:20.880 They're: [O]n the ground 29:20.880 --> 29:26.690 Gliding meteorous [meteorous is "like a meter"] 29:26.692 --> 29:31.442 as Ev'ning Mist Ris'n from a River o'er the 29:31.443 --> 29:35.343 marish glides, And gathers ground fast at the 29:35.343 --> 29:40.453 Laborer's heel Homeward returning. 29:40.450 --> 29:42.840 Pay attention to what Milton is doing here. 29:42.839 --> 29:48.579 He's juxtaposing the descent of the angels with the ascent of 29:48.578 --> 29:52.978 the rising mist. The angels who are "gliding 29:52.984 --> 29:59.154 meteorous" are being likened to the mist that's rising and that 29:59.148 --> 30:02.618 also glides. Through this antithesis he 30:02.618 --> 30:06.038 signals, I think, to the reader that there are 30:06.042 --> 30:10.382 something like two competing perspectives on this horrible 30:10.379 --> 30:13.879 but consequential event of the expulsion. 30:13.880 --> 30:17.040 There's the literalist, the anthropomorphic image of 30:17.039 --> 30:20.079 the descending angels, and then you have something 30:20.075 --> 30:23.915 like the naturalistic image of the vapors and the mists of Eden 30:23.917 --> 30:27.697 that will eject Adam and Eve by means of a kind of atmospheric 30:27.696 --> 30:30.746 reaction. It's as if God's expulsion of 30:30.750 --> 30:34.680 Adam and Eve from the garden were such a terrible event -- 30:34.683 --> 30:38.963 and certainly it is for us after our many weeks-long investment 30:38.960 --> 30:42.960 now in Milton's story of Eden -- so terrible that Milton is 30:42.962 --> 30:46.832 compelled to suggest some explanation of it that actually 30:46.825 --> 30:50.615 absolves God of any jealousy or any vengeance, 30:50.619 --> 30:55.329 any of those things that the Genesis account invites us to 30:55.329 --> 30:56.899 attribute to God. 30:56.900 --> 31:01.080 You can see Milton struggling to make this event more 31:01.078 --> 31:05.868 compatible with his theodicy, more compatible with what we 31:05.872 --> 31:10.972 can think of as the naturalistic side of his imagination.So 31:10.970 --> 31:15.410 where has Milton taken us in this beautiful simile? 31:15.410 --> 31:20.420 Here at the end of Book Twelve, he's returned us to one of the 31:20.417 --> 31:24.027 most beautiful similes of the entire poem. 31:24.029 --> 31:28.139 That was the simile with which he had ended Book One of 31:28.142 --> 31:29.592 Paradise Lost. 31:29.589 --> 31:33.409 The beginning of Paradise Lost also 31:33.405 --> 31:36.365 features a laborer, you'll remember: 31:36.372 --> 31:40.822 the belated peasant who sees, or dreams he sees, 31:40.815 --> 31:43.645 fairy elves at twilight.Now, 31:43.649 --> 31:49.229 Milton began Paradise Lost with the claim that he would 31:49.226 --> 31:55.256 assert eternal providence and justify the ways of God to men. 31:55.259 --> 31:58.539 It may very well have seemed at the beginning of the poem that 31:58.537 --> 32:01.597 the idea of God's providence -- of God's foreknowledge, 32:01.599 --> 32:06.149 foreseeing -- was going to be completely at odds with the idea 32:06.152 --> 32:07.722 of man's free will. 32:07.720 --> 32:11.110 A god who knows what's going to happen in advance -- and I know 32:11.114 --> 32:14.184 I've made this argument a number of times -- simply isn't 32:14.180 --> 32:17.300 justified on some level -- this is certainly what a lot of 32:17.301 --> 32:20.591 Milton's contemporaries thought and generations of readers of 32:20.586 --> 32:23.816 the Bible before Milton thought -- simply isn't justified in 32:23.816 --> 32:27.426 setting up a paradise that he knows isn't going to last, 32:27.430 --> 32:29.420 that will have to be lost. 32:29.420 --> 32:32.620 But if we were struck by the difficulty of Milton's theodicy 32:32.622 --> 32:36.482 when we began the poem, that's because we had no idea 32:36.480 --> 32:41.310 then just how far Milton was going to be able to push our 32:41.310 --> 32:45.880 conception of God and our notion essentially of divine 32:45.881 --> 32:51.311 providence.The whole idea of divine providence has undergone 32:51.314 --> 32:56.064 an amazing transformation over the course of Paradise 32:56.057 --> 33:00.407 Lost, and it makes its final 33:00.407 --> 33:03.947 appearance in the poem's final lines. 33:03.950 --> 33:09.000 Michael has just escorted Adam and Eve to the eastern gate of 33:08.997 --> 33:13.457 paradise, and then he's disappeared -- "Thank God," we 33:13.456 --> 33:18.076 say! Just before Adam and Eve leave 33:18.079 --> 33:22.159 Eden forever, they look back: 33:22.160 --> 33:26.840 Som natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon; 33:26.839 --> 33:29.679 The World was all before them, where to choose 33:29.680 --> 33:34.410 Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide: 33:34.410 --> 33:38.980 They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, 33:38.980 --> 33:44.370 Through Eden took thir solitary way. 33:44.369 --> 33:50.139 This exquisitely beautiful and quiet ending has always teased 33:50.139 --> 33:53.119 the readers of Milton's poem. 33:53.119 --> 33:55.869 Our puzzlement, I think, derives from the 33:55.872 --> 33:59.792 opposition here of ideas that really seem entirely at odds 33:59.794 --> 34:01.244 with one another. 34:01.240 --> 34:06.200 Adam has just been presented by Michael with a powerful vision 34:06.202 --> 34:10.432 precisely of the workings of divine providence in the 34:10.432 --> 34:13.592 universe. We're not surprised to see Adam 34:13.585 --> 34:17.365 and Eve departing the garden "with Providence thir guide" 34:17.370 --> 34:20.480 given what we've just learned from Michael; 34:20.480 --> 34:24.180 but in the light of the presence of this guide, 34:24.176 --> 34:28.836 the final two lines of the poem always seem so difficult to 34:28.836 --> 34:34.056 understand: "They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, 34:34.059 --> 34:38.459 / through Eden took thir solitary way."The 34:38.457 --> 34:43.247 eighteenth-century critic and classical editor Dr. 34:43.245 --> 34:49.105 Richard Bentley was surely not the first reader to be puzzled 34:49.108 --> 34:53.608 by these lines, but he was the first reader to 34:53.607 --> 34:57.847 spell out the difficulties of these last two lines. 34:57.850 --> 34:59.440 Look here on your handout. 34:59.440 --> 35:00.890 Dr. Bentley had found the 35:00.890 --> 35:04.090 conclusion of the poem so conflicted that he suggested 35:04.092 --> 35:08.022 that Milton couldn't possibly have been responsible for them. 35:08.019 --> 35:12.259 Once again, the lines as they appear in our text are clearly 35:12.258 --> 35:15.988 the garbled product of the confused secretary to whom 35:15.994 --> 35:17.794 Milton was dictating. 35:17.789 --> 35:20.859 So look at the handout -- this is near the bottom third of the 35:20.857 --> 35:24.457 text. Bentley asks how the expression 35:24.462 --> 35:28.662 of the last two lines can be justified. 35:28.659 --> 35:29.709 I'm going to quote Bentley here: 35:29.710 --> 35:33.300 And how can the expression be justified, 35:33.304 --> 35:35.864 with wandering steps and slow? 35:35.860 --> 35:40.490 Why wandering? Erratic steps? 35:40.489 --> 35:44.649 Very improper when in the line before they were guided by 35:44.648 --> 35:47.278 providence. It goes without saying that 35:47.284 --> 35:50.094 Bentley gets everything almost consistently wrong when he talks 35:50.094 --> 35:53.274 about Milton, but you have to give him this: 35:53.268 --> 35:58.078 he's an amazingly astute reader of poetic tension and poetic 35:58.082 --> 36:00.952 contradiction. It's an awfully good question: 36:00.946 --> 36:03.946 how can it be that Adam and Eve are wandering at the same time 36:03.948 --> 36:05.768 that they're guided by Providence? 36:05.769 --> 36:09.249 Milton is able to pack into the final lines of Paradise Lost 36:09.253 --> 36:12.063 really the central question of the entire poem: 36:12.061 --> 36:14.591 how can it be that human beings are free, 36:14.590 --> 36:19.410 free to wander, if there's a providential force 36:19.410 --> 36:24.860 out there that seems to determine their movements? 36:24.860 --> 36:27.930 In other words, how can God's foreknowledge be 36:27.933 --> 36:31.893 squared or be reconciled with man's free will?This is a 36:31.894 --> 36:35.654 problem that has been gathering ground fast at our heels 36:35.650 --> 36:39.270 throughout our reading of Paradise Lost. 36:39.269 --> 36:43.939 It's here at the end that Milton makes a final attempt at 36:43.938 --> 36:48.858 resolution, a final attempt -- this is his last chance -- at 36:48.856 --> 36:52.616 reconciliation. Milton tells us that "he World 36:52.623 --> 36:56.343 was all before them, where to choose / thir place of 36:56.335 --> 36:59.505 rest…" It seems on a first reading 36:59.505 --> 37:03.585 that the guiding power of Providence will assist them in 37:03.590 --> 37:07.110 their choice of a place of rest, but of course it's more 37:07.110 --> 37:08.030 complicated than that. 37:08.030 --> 37:13.140 The word "providence" in this sentence can, 37:13.139 --> 37:19.709 I think, also be the object of the verb "to choose." 37:19.710 --> 37:23.800 Adam and Eve are not only choosing a place out of their 37:23.798 --> 37:26.868 own free will; it's also possible that they're 37:26.866 --> 37:30.156 also choosing Providence.I think this possibility, 37:30.159 --> 37:34.549 this secondary syntactical possibility, is a really daring 37:34.548 --> 37:37.318 and radical move on Milton's part. 37:37.320 --> 37:40.800 Even the most absolute certainties of divine 37:40.801 --> 37:44.201 foreknowledge, this enormous institution of 37:44.201 --> 37:48.651 God's providence -- even that can be subsumed within the 37:48.654 --> 37:54.164 all-encompassing power of the human capacity to choose freely. 37:54.159 --> 37:56.679 Adam and Eve not only have a paradise within them happier 37:56.679 --> 37:58.999 far; perhaps they also have a 37:59.004 --> 38:03.544 Providence within them, and surely that is happier far 38:03.541 --> 38:08.511 as well.You'll notice on the bottom of the handout that 38:08.507 --> 38:13.807 Bentley proposed that the last lines of Paradise Lost be 38:13.814 --> 38:18.114 rewritten. So he gives us what he assumes 38:18.112 --> 38:21.332 [laughs] must have been what Milton 38:21.333 --> 38:26.263 actually dictated but had gotten mis-transcribed. 38:26.260 --> 38:30.990 Bentley wants to do away with all of the ambiguity, 38:30.985 --> 38:35.235 and he suggests these lines as an alternative: 38:35.238 --> 38:40.908 "Then hand in hand with social steps their way / Through Eden 38:40.909 --> 38:45.159 took with heavenly comfort cheered" [laughter] 38:45.162 --> 38:48.472 You have to hand it to him. 38:48.469 --> 38:51.269 Of course, it goes without saying that he's a terrible 38:51.268 --> 38:53.748 poet, but you can see what he's trying to do. 38:53.750 --> 38:58.350 He's trying to reconcile the entire poem with a much more 38:58.354 --> 39:03.544 familiar Sunday-school image of divine providence.Bentley is 39:03.535 --> 39:07.395 just so much more orthodox than our Milton. 39:07.400 --> 39:11.330 He wants to imagine a god who's still capable of offering 39:11.334 --> 39:15.554 assistance and consolation but also punishment from above, 39:15.550 --> 39:19.710 a god who's still capable of intervening in the realm of 39:19.709 --> 39:22.199 nature. Milton, I think, 39:22.203 --> 39:25.833 wants very much to resist that. 39:25.829 --> 39:31.149 The world of Paradise Lost by the end is an almost 39:31.146 --> 39:33.516 entirely secular world. 39:33.519 --> 39:37.979 The new world order that this great religious poem has 39:37.984 --> 39:43.294 prepared us for is on some level the secular world of modernity, 39:43.290 --> 39:46.830 our world. Adam and Eve are solitary here 39:46.830 --> 39:51.630 at the end of the poem because there's no longer a personal -- 39:51.630 --> 39:56.270 an anthropomorphic deity who's in a position to intervene in 39:56.272 --> 39:59.882 their lives. Now they may drop some tears in 39:59.877 --> 40:03.017 leaving paradise, but they leave behind that 40:03.021 --> 40:07.411 shadowy type of the personal arbitrary deity from the Book of 40:07.409 --> 40:09.709 Genesis. They are free now, 40:09.708 --> 40:13.008 as Milton is free, to choose Providence -- by 40:13.005 --> 40:16.825 which I mean they can choose an alternative image of 40:16.826 --> 40:20.796 providential guidance, an alternative understanding of 40:20.798 --> 40:21.798 that.Now, Dr. 40:21.803 --> 40:25.203 Bentley also takes issue with the term "wandering" here 40:25.197 --> 40:28.907 because he assumes that the word "wandering" has to have its 40:28.905 --> 40:31.325 evil, fallen connotations, 40:31.329 --> 40:33.999 as it did for Adam in Book Ten. 40:34.000 --> 40:35.720 "Wandering steps" for Dr. 40:35.718 --> 40:39.708 Bentley are necessarily erratic steps since after the Fall, 40:39.706 --> 40:43.896 of course, the whole concept of wandering and all the freedoms 40:43.900 --> 40:47.200 that wandering implied have become suspect. 40:47.199 --> 40:52.909 But now at the end of the poem, Milton's attempting to reassert 40:52.914 --> 40:56.974 the innocent meaning of the word "wander." 40:56.969 --> 41:00.579 All of the doctrinal structures of the poem have been 41:00.580 --> 41:04.330 internalized by Adam and Eve by the end of the poem, 41:04.329 --> 41:07.809 and on some level this was the point of Michael's history 41:07.810 --> 41:11.700 lesson. It was his attempt to compel 41:11.699 --> 41:16.099 their internalization of Providence. 41:16.099 --> 41:19.619 Wandering can be seen as sanctioned now and as innocent 41:19.615 --> 41:23.195 now because wandering is predicated on something like an 41:23.196 --> 41:25.536 internalized providential guide. 41:25.539 --> 41:30.609 And we knew this had to be the case: Eve was right all along. 41:30.610 --> 41:35.210 Wandering is in the end perfectly allowable in Milton's 41:35.212 --> 41:38.222 universe. We get to the end of this 41:38.221 --> 41:43.441 biblical epic not with prophecy, but we end the poem in the mode 41:43.441 --> 41:45.431 of romance wandering. 41:45.429 --> 41:48.739 This is an ending that's not an ending at all. 41:48.739 --> 41:53.319 Milton successfully resists the drive to closure.Now, 41:53.320 --> 41:55.610 we didn't know, of course, 41:55.610 --> 42:00.320 when we started reading the poem just what Milton could have 42:00.319 --> 42:04.309 meant by his desire to assert divine providence, 42:04.310 --> 42:07.160 to assert eternal providence. 42:07.159 --> 42:11.529 "I may assert Eternal Providence, / and justify the 42:11.530 --> 42:16.600 ways of God to men," he told us in the first invocation, 42:16.599 --> 42:19.139 but the significance of this claim becomes clearer by the 42:19.135 --> 42:20.805 time we get to the end of the poem. 42:20.809 --> 42:25.259 We move from a shadowy type of the claim closer to something 42:25.255 --> 42:27.285 much more like its truth. 42:27.289 --> 42:30.779 There's a sense in which Milton's claim to assert eternal 42:30.783 --> 42:34.713 providence may find its ultimate meaning -- this is one critical 42:34.714 --> 42:38.674 conjecture, and I'm quite taken with it -- 42:38.670 --> 42:43.000 in the original, the root, sense of the word 42:42.998 --> 42:45.688 assert. The verb to assert, 42:45.694 --> 42:47.704 and you can see this from the bottom of the handout, 42:47.699 --> 42:52.169 comes from the Latin verb asserere, 42:52.174 --> 42:57.854 "to remove from service, to declare a slave free." 42:57.849 --> 43:02.979 Milton is declaring the slave, Providence, free.I'll 43:02.983 --> 43:07.283 conclude here with a consideration of what that 43:07.276 --> 43:12.776 alternative meaning of the verb assert might actually 43:12.783 --> 43:16.043 portend. There's the obvious arrogance 43:16.040 --> 43:20.280 in this assertion that Milton on some level is assuming the role 43:20.277 --> 43:23.147 of a slave-master, a slave owner placing 43:23.152 --> 43:25.592 Providence in the role of a slave. 43:25.590 --> 43:29.470 That's identifiably Miltonic, I guess, but there's another 43:29.465 --> 43:32.995 sense in which Milton can be seen as asserting divine 43:33.000 --> 43:35.430 providence, asserting eternal providence. 43:35.429 --> 43:39.839 He's liberating a conception of Providence that has been 43:39.839 --> 43:44.489 enslaved and silenced by orthodox Christian theologians. 43:44.489 --> 43:48.049 It's as if the notion of Providence had been enslaved by 43:48.047 --> 43:51.407 the literal-minded doctrinaire readers of Genesis. 43:51.409 --> 43:55.029 Milton wants us to know that it is our good fortune as readers 43:55.031 --> 43:58.951 of Paradise Lost that we have John Milton -- John Milton, 43:58.949 --> 44:03.059 like some wandering knight in a chivalric romance -- to come to 44:03.059 --> 44:06.769 the rescue.You'll remember the note on the verse that 44:06.772 --> 44:10.292 Milton had appended to a later printing of Paradise 44:10.285 --> 44:13.095 Lost, explaining why his poem 44:13.098 --> 44:15.938 didn't rhyme. Milton told us there that he 44:15.940 --> 44:19.980 was saving poetry from the troublesome and modern bondage 44:19.980 --> 44:23.850 of rhyming. Milton was liberating poetry 44:23.848 --> 44:29.768 from a type of enslavement, but Milton is trying to save us 44:29.770 --> 44:33.020 as readers, too, I think -- to save us from 44:33.020 --> 44:35.780 our enslavement, freeing us from the shackles of 44:35.780 --> 44:39.480 what he takes to be are the shackles of religious orthodoxy, 44:39.480 --> 44:42.720 from normative social and poetic conventions, 44:42.715 --> 44:46.315 and to save us from the shackles of the tyranny of 44:46.318 --> 44:48.008 literary tradition. 44:48.010 --> 44:53.140 He has attempted in Paradise Lost to free us finally from 44:53.137 --> 44:56.797 the troublesome and modern bondage of literary 44:56.800 --> 44:58.510 reading.Okay. 44:58.510 --> 45:01.850 I'm going to end the lecture on Paradise Lost there, 45:01.849 --> 45:05.019 but I have a word to say about the reading for after the 45:05.015 --> 45:06.335 Thanksgiving break. 45:06.340 --> 45:10.900 Do give yourself some time with the first two books of 45:10.900 --> 45:12.880 Paradise Regained. 45:12.880 --> 45:16.730 You won't be the first to think -- if you think this -- 45:16.730 --> 45:20.180 that Milton is writing in shackles when he writes his 45:20.183 --> 45:23.703 sequel to Paradise Lost; but you have to 45:23.702 --> 45:27.692 give yourself a little bit of time to appreciate the severity 45:27.685 --> 45:31.245 of this poem, its uncompromising aesthetic 45:31.248 --> 45:35.818 discipline, because only by doing that will you develop what 45:35.818 --> 45:40.078 I know will be your ultimate affection for its delicious 45:40.078 --> 45:41.968 peculiarities. Okay. 45:41.970 --> 45:44.000 Have a good break.