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John Milton - Part IV.
John Milton - Part IV.
These are the two contrasts which puzzle us at first in Milton, and which
distinguish him from other poets in our remembrance afterwards. We have a
superficial complexity in illustration and imagery and metaphor; and in
contrast with it we observe a latent simplicity of idea, an almost rude
strength of conception. The underlying thoughts are few, though the flowers on
the surface are so many. We have likewise the perpetual contrast of the soft
poetry of the memory, and the firm - as it were, fused - and glowing poetry of
the imagination. His words, we may half fancifully say, are like his
character: there is the same austerity in the real essence, the same
exquisiteness of sense, the same delicacy of form which we know that he had,
the same music which we imagine there was in his voice. In both his character
and his poetry there was an ascetic nature in a sheath of beauty.
No book, perhaps, which has ever been written is more difficult to
criticize than "Paradise Lost." The only way to criticize a work of the
imagination is, to describe its effect upon the mind of the reader, - at any
rate, of the critic; and this can only be adequately delineated by strong
illustrations, apt similes, and perhaps a little exaggeration. The task is in
its very nature not an easy one: the poet paints a picture on the fancy of the
critic, and the critic has in some sort to copy it on the paper; he must say
what it is before he can make remarks upon it. But in the case of "Paradise
Lost" we hardly like to use illustrations. The subject is one which the
imagination rather shrinks from. At any rate, it requires courage and an
effort to compel the mind to view such a subject as distinctly and vividly as
it views other subjects. Another peculiarity of "Paradise Lost" makes the
difficulty even greater. It does not profess to be a mere work of art; or
rather, it claims to be by no means that and that only. It starts with a
dogmatic aim: it avowedly intends to
"assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."
In this point of view we have always had a sympathy with the Cambridge
mathematician who has been so much abused. He said, "After all, `Paradise
Lost` proves nothing"; and various persons of poetical tastes and temperament
have been very severe on the prosaic observation. Yet, "after all," he was
right: Milton professed to prove something; he was too profound a critic -
rather, he had too profound an instinct of those eternal principles of art
which criticism tries to state - not to know that on such a subject he must
prove something. He professed to deal with the great problem of human destiny:
to show why man was created, in what kind of universe he lives, whence he came
and whither he goes. He dealt of necessity with the greatest of subjects; he
had to sketch the greatest of objects. He was concerned with infinity and
eternity even more than with time and sense: he undertook to delineate the
ways and consequently the character of Providence, as well as the conduct and
the tendencies of man. The essence of success in such an attempt is to satisfy
the religious sense of man; to bring home to our hearts what we know to be
true; to teach us what we have not seen; to awaken us to what we have
forgotten; to remove the "covering" from all people, and the "veil" that is
spread over all nations: to give us, in a word, such a conception of things
divine and human as we can accept, believe, and trust. The true doctrine of
criticism demands what Milton invites, - an examination of the degree in which
the great epic attains this aim. And if, in examining it, we find it necessary
to use unusual illustrations, and plainer words than are customary, it must be
our excuse that we do not think the subject can be made clear without them.
The defect of "Paradise Lost" is that, after all, it is founded on a
political transaction. The scene is in heaven very early in the history of the
universe, before the creation of man or the fall of Satan. We have a
description of a court [Book v.]. The angels,
"by imperial summons called,"
appear: -
"Under their hierarchs in orders bright
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced;
Standards and gonfalons `twixt van and rear
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, or orders, and degrees."
To this assemblage "th` Omnipotent" speaks: -
"Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand:
This day I have begot whom, I declare
My only Son, and on this holy hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint:
And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow
All knees in heaven, and shall confess him Lord;
Under his great vicegerent reign abide
United as one individual soul,
Forever happy. Him who disobeys,
Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day,
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Int` utter darkness, deep ingulfed, his place
Ordained without redemption, without end."
This act of patronage was not popular at court; and why should it have
been? The religious sense is against it. The worship which sinful men owe to
God is not transferable to lieutenants and vicegerents. The whole scene of the
court jars upon a true feeling; we seem to be reading about some emperor of
history, who admits his son to a share in the empire, who confers on him a
considerable jurisdiction, and requires officials, with "standards and
gonfalons," to bow before him. The orthodoxy of Milton is quite as
questionable as his accuracy; the old Athanasian creed was not made by persons
who would allow such a picture as that of Milton to stand before their
imaginations. The generation of the Son was to them a fact "before all time,"
an eternal fact. There was no question in their minds of patronage or
promotion: the Son was the Son before all time, just as the Father was the
Father before all time. Milton had in such matters a bold but not very
sensitive imagination. He accepted the inevitable materialism of Biblical (and
to some extent of all religious) language as distinct revelation. He certainly
believed, in contradiction to the old creed, that God had both "parts and
passions." He imagined that earth is
"but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to other like more than on earth is thought."^18
From some passages it would seem that he actually thought of God as
having "the members and form" of a man. Naturally, therefore, he would have
no toleration for the mysterious notions of time and eternity which are
involved in the traditional doctrine. We are not, however, now concerned with
Milton`s belief, but with his representation of his creed, - his picture, so
to say, of it in "Paradise Lost"; still, as we cannot but think, that picture
is almost irreligious, and certainly different from that which has been
generally accepted in Christendom. Such phrases as "before all time,"
"eternal generation," are doubtless very vaguely interpreted by the mass of
men; nevertheless, no sensitively orthodox man could have drawn the picture
of a generation, not to say an exaltation, in time.
We shall see this more clearly by reading what follows in the poem: -
"All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all."
One of the archangels, whose name can be guessed, decidedly disapproved,
and calls a meeting, at which he explains that
"orders and degrees
Jar not with liberty, but well consist";
but still, that the promotion of a new person, on grounds of relationship
merely, above - even infinitely above - the old angels, with imperial titles,
was a "new law," and rather tyrannical. Abdiel,
"than whom none with more zeal adored
The Deity, and divine commands obeyed,"
attempts a defense: -
"Grant it thee unjust,
That equal over equals monarch reign:
Thyself, though great and glorious, dost thou count,
Or all angelic nature joined in one,
Equal to him begotten Son? by whom
As by his Word the mighty Father made
All things, even thee, and all the spirits of heaven
By him created in their bright degrees,
Crowned them with glory, and to their glory named
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
Essential Powers; nor by his reign obscured,
But more illustrious made, since he the Head
One of our number thus reduced becomes,
His laws our laws; all honor to him done
Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage,
And tempt not these; but hasten to appease
Th` incensed Father and th` incensed Son,
While pardon may be found, in time besought."
Yet though Abdiel`s intentions were undeniably good, his argument is rather
specious. Acting as an instrument in the process of creation would scarcely
give a valid claim to the obedience of the created being. Power may be shown
in the act, no doubt; but mere power gives no true claim to the obedience of
moral beings. It is a kind of principle of all manner of idolatries and false
religions to believe that it does so. Satan, besides, takes issue on the
fact: -
"That we were formed then, say`st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferred
From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learned."
And we must say that the speech in which the new ruler is introduced to the
"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers," is hard to reconcile
with Abdiel`s exposition. "This day" he seems to have come into existence,
and could hardly have assisted at the creation of the angels, who are not
young, and who converse with one another like old acquaintances.
We have gone into this part of the subject at length, because it is the
source of the great error which pervades "Paradise Lost": Satan is made
interesting. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and even
heterodox writers against Milton. Shelley, on the other hand, has gloried in
it; and fancied, if we remember rightly, that Milton intentionally ranged
himself on the Satanic side of the universe, just as Shelley himself would
have done, and that he wished to show the falsity of the ordinary theology.
But Milton was born an age too early for such aims, and was far too sincere to
have advocated any doctrine in a form so indirect. He believed every word he
said. He was not conscious of the effect his teaching would produce in an age
like this, when skepticism is in the air, and when it is not possible to help
looking cool on his delineations. Probably in our boyhood we can recollect a
period when any solemn description of celestial events would have commanded
our respect; we should not have dared to read it intelligently, to canvass its
details and see what it meant: it was a religious book; it sounded
reverential, and that would have sufficed. Something like this was the state
of mind of the seventeenth century. Even Milton probably shared in a vague
reverence for religious language; he hardly felt the moral effect of the
pictures he was drawing. His artistic instinct, too, often hurries him away.
His Satan was to him, as to us, the hero of his poem: having commenced by
making him resist on an occasion which in an earthly kingdom would have been
excusable and proper, he probably a little sympathized with him, just as his
readers do.
The interest of Satan`s character is at its height in the first two
books. Coleridge justly compared it to that of Napoleon. There is the same
pride, the same Satanic ability, the same will, the same egotism. His
character seems to grow with his position. He is far finer after his fall, in
misery and suffering, with scarcely any resource except in himself, than he
was originally in heaven; at least, if Raphael`s description of him can be
trusted. No portrait which imagination or history has drawn of a revolutionary
anarch is nearly so perfect; there is all the grandeur of the greatest human
mind, and a certain infinitude in his circumstances which humanity must ever
want. Few Englishman feel a profound reverence for Napoleon I.; there was no
French alliance in his time; we have most of us some tradition of antipathy to
him. Yet hardly any Englishmen can read the account of the campaign of 1814
without feeling his interest in the Emperor to be strong, and without perhaps
being conscious of a latent wish that he may succeed. Our opinion is against
him, our serious wish is of course for England; but the imagination has a
sympathy of its own, and will not give place. We read about the great general,
- never greater than in that last emergency, - showing resources of genius
that seem almost infinite, and that assuredly have never been surpassed, yet
vanquished, yielding to the power of circumstances, to the combined force of
adversaries each of whom singly he outmatches in strength, and all of whom
together he surpasses in majesty and in mind. Something of the same sort of
interest belongs to the Satan of the first two books of "Paradise Lost." We
know that he will be vanquished; his name is not a recommendation. Still, we
do not imagine distinctly the minds by which he is to be vanquished; we do not
take the same interest in them that we do in him; our sympathies, our fancy,
are on his side.
Perhaps much of this was inevitable; yet what a defect it is! especially
what a defect in Milton`s own view, and looked at with the stern realism with
which he regarded it! Suppose that the author of evil in the universe were the
most attractive being in it; suppose that the source of all sin were the
origin of all interest to us! We need not dwell upon this.
As we have said, much of this was difficult to avoid, if indeed it could
be avoided in dealing with such a theme. Even Milton shrank, in some measure,
from delineating the Divine character. His imagination evidently halts when it
is required to perform that task. The more delicate imagination of our modern
world would shrink still more. Any person who will consider what such an
attempt must end in, will finds his nerves quiver. But by a curiously fatal
error, Milton has selected for delineation exactly that part of the Divine
nature which is most beyond the reach of the human faculties, and which is
also, when we try to describe our fancy of it, the least effective to our
minds. He has made God argue. Now, the procedure of the Divine mind from truth
to truth must ever be incomprehensible to us; the notion, indeed, of his
proceeding at all is a contradiction: to some extent, at least, it is
inevitable that we should use such language, but we know it is in reality
inapplicable. A long train of reasoning in such a connection is so out of
place is to be painful; and yet Milton has many. He relates a series of family
prayers in heaven, with sermons afterwards, which are very tedious. Even Pope
was shocked at the notion of Providence talking like a "school-divine."^19
And there is the still worse error, that if you once attribute reasoning to
him, subsequent logicians may discover that he does not reason very well.
[Footnote 19: Imitation of Horace`s Epistle to Augustus, Book ii., Ep. i.]
Another way in which Milton has contrived to strengthen our interest in
Satan is the number and insipidity of the good angels. There are old rules as
to the necessity of a supernatural machinery for an epic poem, worth some
fraction of the paper on which they are written, and derived from the practice
of Homer, who believed his gods and goddesses to be real beings, and would
have been rather harsh with a critic who called them machinery. These rules
had probably an influence with Milton, and induced him to manipulate these
serious angels more than he would have done otherwise. They appear to be
excellent administrators with very little to do; a kind of grand chamberlains
with wings, who fly down to earth and communicate information to Adam and Eve.
They have no character: they are essentially messengers, - merely conductors,
so to say, of the Providential will; no one fancies that they have an
independent power of action; they seem scarcely to have minds of their own. No
effect can be more unfortunate. If the struggle of Satan had been with Deity
directly, the natural instincts of religion would have been awakened; but when
an angel possessed of mind is contrasted with angels possessed only of wings,
we sympathize with the former.
In the first two books, therefore, our sympathy with Milton`s Satan is
great; we had almost said unqualified. The speeches he delivers are of well -
known excellence. Lord Brougham, no contemptible judge of emphatic oratory,
has laid down that if a person had not an opportunity of access to the great
Attic masterpieces, he had better choose these for a model. What is to be
regretted about the orator is, that he scarcely acts up to his sentiments.
"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven," is at any rate an audacious
declaration; but he has no room for exhibiting similar audacity in action. His
offensive career is limited; in the nature of the subject, there was scarcely
any opportunity for the fallen archangel to display in the detail of his
operations the surpassing intellect with which Milton has endowed him. He goes
across chaos, gets into a few physical difficulties; but these are not much.
His grand aim is the conquest of our first parents; and we are at once struck
with the enormous inequality of the conflict. Two beings just created, without
experience, without guile, without knowledge of good and evil, are expected to
contend with a being on the delineation of whose powers every resource of art
and imagination, every subtle suggestion, every emphatic simile, has been
lavished. The idea in every reader`s mind is, and must be, not surprise that
our first parents should yield, but wonder that Satan should not think it
beneath him to attack them. It is as if an army should invest a cottage.
We have spoken more of theology than we intended; and we need not say how
much the monstrous inequalities attributed to the combatants affect our
estimate of the results of the conflict. The state of man is what it is,
because the defenseless Adam and Eve of Milton`s imagination yielded to the
nearly all-powerful Satan whom he has delineated. Milton has in some sense
invented this difficulty; for in the book of Genesis there is no such
inequality. The serpent may be subtler than any beast of the field; but he is
not necessarily subtler or cleverer than man. So far from Milton having
justified the ways of God to man, he has loaded the common theology with a new
encumbrance.
We may need refreshment after this discussion; and we cannot find it
better than in reading a few remarks of Eve: -
"That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed
Under a shade on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence hither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread
Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved
Pure as th` expanse of heaven; I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appeared,
Bending to look on me. I started back,
It started back: but pleased I soon returned;
Pleased it returned, as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me: - `What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
With thee it came and goes; but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces; he
Whose image thou art, him thou shalt enjoy
Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called
Mother of human race.` What could I do
But follow straight, invisibly thus led?
Till I espied three, fair indeed and tall,
Under a platan; yet methought less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth watery image. Back I turned;
Thou following criedst aloud, `Return, fair Eve;
Whom fly`st thou?`"^20
[Footnote 20: Book iv.]
Eve`s character, indeed, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the human
imagination. She is a kind of abstract woman; essentially a typical being; an
official "mother of all living." Yet she is a real interesting woman, not
only full of delicacy and sweetness, but with all the undefinable fascination,
the charm of personality, which such typical characters hardly ever have. By
what consummate miracle of wit this charm of individuality is preserved,
without impairing the general idea which is ever present to us, we cannot
explain, for we do not know.
Adam is far less successful. He has good hair, - "hyacinthine locks" that
"from his parted forelock manly hung"; a "fair large front" and "eye sublime":
but he has little else that we care for. There is, in truth, no opportunity of
displaying manly virtues, even if he possessed them. He has only to yield to
his wife`s solicitations, which he does. Nor are we sure that he does it well:
he is very tedious. He indulges in sermons which are good; but most men cannot
but fear that so delightful a being as Eve must have found him tiresome. She
steps away, however, and goes to sleep at some of the worst points.
Dr. Johnson remarked that, after all, "Paradise Lost" was one of the
books which no one wished longer: we fear, in this irreverent generation, some
wish it shorter. Hardly any reader would be sorry if some portions of the
latter books had been spared him. Coleridge, indeed, discovered profound
mysteries in the last; but in what could not Coleridge find a mystery if he
wished? Dryden more wisely remarked that Milton became tedious when he entered
upon a "track of Scripture."^21 Nor is it surprising that such is the case.
The style of many parts of Scripture is such that it will not bear addition or
subtraction. A word less or an idea more, and the effect upon the mind is the
same no longer. Nothing can be more tiresome than a sermonic amplification of
such passages. It is almost too much when, as from the pulpit, a paraphrastic
commentary is prepared for our spiritual improvement. In deference to the
intention, we bear it, but we bear it unwillingly; and we cannot endure it at
all when, as in poems, the object is to awaken our fancy rather than to
improve our conduct. The account of the creation in the book of Genesis is one
of the compositions from which no sensitive imagination would subtract an
iota, to which it could not bear to add a word. Milton`s paraphrase is alike
copious and ineffective. The universe is, in railway phrase, "opened," but not
created; no green earth springs in a moment from the indefinite void. Instead,
too, of the simple loneliness of the Old Testament, several angelic officials
are in attendance, who help in nothing, but indicate that heaven must be
plentifully supplied with tame creatures.
[Footnote 21: "Essay on Satire."]
There is no difficulty in writing such criticisms, and indeed other
unfavorable criticisms, on "Paradise Lost." There is scarcely any book in the
world which is open to a greater number, or which a reader who allows plain
words to produce a due effect will be less satisfied with. Yet what book is
really greater? In the best parts the words have a magic in them; even in the
inferior passages you are hardly sensible of their inferiority till you
translate them into your own language. Perhaps no style ever written by man
expressed so adequately the conceptions of a mind so strong and so peculiar; a
manly strength, a haunting atmosphere of enhancing suggestions, a firm
continuous music, are only some of its excellences. To comprehend the whole of
the others, you must take the volume down and read it, - the best defense of
Milton, as has been said most truly, against all objections.
Probably no book shows the transition which our theology has made since
the middle of the seventeenth century, at once so plainly and so fully. We do
not now compose long narratives to "justify the ways of God to men." The more
orthodox we are, the more we shrink from it, the more we hesitate at such a
task, the more we allege that we have no powers for it. Our most celebrated
defenses of established tenets are in the style of Butler, not in that of
Milton. They do not profess to show a satisfactory explanation of human
destiny: on the contrary, they hint that probably we could not understand such
an explanation if it were given us; at any rate, they allow that it is not
given us. Their course is palliative: they suggest an "analogy of
difficulties"; if our minds were greater, so they reason, we should comprehend
these doctrines, - now we cannot explain analogous facts which we see and
know. No style can be more opposite to the bold argument, the boastful
exposition of Milton. The teaching of the eighteenth century is in the very
atmosphere we breathe: we read it in the teachings of Oxford; we hear it from
the missionaries of the Vatican. The air of the theology is clarified. We know
our difficulties, at least: we are rather prone to exaggerate the weight of
some than to deny the reality of any.
We cannot continue a line of thought which would draw us on too far for
the patience of our readers. We must, however, make one more remark, and we
shall have finished our criticism on "Paradise Lost." It is analogous to that
which we have just made. The scheme of the poem is based on an offense against
positive morality. The offense of Adam was not against nature or conscience,
nor against anything of which we can see the reason or conceive the
obligation, but against an unexplained injunction of the Supreme Will. The
rebellion in heaven, as Milton describes it, was a rebellion not against known
ethics or immutable spiritual laws, but against an arbitrary selection and an
unexplained edict. We do not say that there is no such thing as positive
morality, - we do not think so; even if we did, we should not insert a
proposition so startling at the conclusion of a literary criticism. But we are
sure that wherever a positive moral edict is promulgated, it is no subject,
except perhaps under a very peculiar treatment, for literary art. By the very
nature of it, it cannot satisfy the heart and conscience. It is a difficulty;
we need not attempt to explain it away, - there are mysteries enough which
will never be explained away. But it is contrary to every principle of
criticism to state the difficulty as if it were not one; to bring forward the
puzzle, yet leave it to itself; to publish so strange a problem, and give only
an untrue solution of it: and yet such, in its bare statement, is all that
Milton has done.
Of Milton`s other writings we have left ourselves no room to speak; and
though every one of them, or almost every one of them, would well repay a
careful criticism, yet few of them seem to throw much additional light on his
character, or add much to our essential notion of his genius, though they may
exemplify and enhance it. "Comus" is the poem which does so the most.
Literature has become so much lighter than it used to be, that we can scarcely
realize the position it occupied in the light literature of our forefathers.
We have now in our own language many poems that are pleasanter in their
subject, more graceful in their execution, more flowing in their outline, more
easy to read. Dr. Johnson, though perhaps no very excellent authority on the
more intangible graces of literature, was disposed to deny to Milton the
capacity of creating the lighter literature: "Milton, madam, was a genius that
could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry
stones." And it would not be surprising if this generation, which has access
to the almost infinite quantity of lighter compositions which have been
produced since Johnson`s time, were to echo his sentence. In some degree,
perhaps, the popular taste does so. "Comus" has no longer the peculiar
exceptional popularity which it used to have: we can talk without general
odium of its defects; its characters are nothing, its sentiments are tedious,
its story is not interesting. But it is only when we have realized the
magnitude of its deficiencies that we comprehend the peculiarity of its
greatness. Its power is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it; it
is soft, without a thought of weakness; harmonious and yet strong; impressive,
as few such poems are, yet covered with a bloom of beauty and a complexity of
charm that few poems have either. We have perhaps light literature in itself
better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers more in our
memories; but we have not any, we question if there ever will be any, which
gives so true a conception of the capacity and the dignity of the mind by
which it was produced. The breath of solemnity which hovers round the music
attaches us to the writer. Every line, here as elsewhere, in Milton excites
the idea of indefinite power.
And so we must draw to a close. The subject is an infinite one, and if we
pursued it, we should lose ourselves in miscellaneous commentary, and run on
far beyond the patience of our readers. What we have said has at least a
defined intention: we have wished to state the impression which the character
of Milton and the greatest of Milton`s works are likely to produce on readers
of the present generation, - a generation different from his own almost more
than any other.
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