Chapter Themes of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

with pain of longing pines."

(IV.508-11)

The fallen angels are marked from those who remain loyal to God, by their inability to satisfy their rapacious sexual desires. This, like their transformation into serpents, is one of God’s punishments for their rebellion and continued disobedience.

John Milton and Paradise Lost

One of the characteristics of the traditional epic above is the objectivity of the poet. In Milton's case, one would be hard pressed to argue that he was able to uphold poetical objectivity. However W.G. Riggs has attempted to do so:

"It should be clear that for Milton it is the poet's submission to the voice of his muse, to divine inspiration, which ultimately distinguishes the soaring creation of Paradise Lost from an act of blasphemous pride. Milton does not, however, present the invocation of a heavenly muse as his only defense against presuming too much. Through the narrative he remains sensitive to the relationship between himself as poet and his subject; he examines every implication of his creative act with a care which suggests a fear of self- delusion. While he insists on the pious intentions of what he undertakes, he never neglects to expose the satanic aspect of his poetic posture."

E.M.W. Tillyard has a much different reaction to the poet in Paradise Lost. In remarking on emotion in Milton's poetry, Tillyard comments, regarding Raphael's speeches,

"this is indeed angelic speech, and through it Milton conveys without strain or reservation his entire belief in the unity of creation and the informing power of God that both makes and preserves it. . . . Whatever we may think about Milton's direct descriptions of God, he does when writing of God's works make us feel, as no other English poet could, their glorious diversity, their order, their dependence on their creator who made and fosters them by the constant pressure of his inexhaustible power."

Surely this is not a description of an objective poet. A. Stein is perhaps even more forceful in his comments regarding the Milton in the poem:

"The poet we may see in the poem at this point is the figure of himself Milton could hardly have concealed had he wished to: that of the author whose representation includes his judgment. . . . The figure of the poet does not obtrude but still is present substantially, answerable to the literary and philosophical questions addressed first to the dramatized character who speaks, and through him to the 'living intellect' who creates and guides. . . . Throughout we know that behind the narrator there is a man with a personal history, which also enters the poem."

C. S. Lewis puts it another way: