Notes on Professor Strier's Paradise Lost lecture

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bx72IV85g.

  • starts with some lively classical to music to get you in the mood
  • when asked why the poem rhymes not, “i am recovering the heroic poem from the modern bondage of rhyming”, Milton thinks in grand terms like this about everything.
  • will discuss: the narrator, satan, eden, the fall, the ending
  • Unlike Homer and Virgil, Milton is closely identified with his narrator, and provides much information about himself. He does this in books 1, 3, 7, 9 – why skip 5?
  • Unlike traditional epics, PL begins not with an individual hero, but with man in general. Beginning “Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit” begins with ambiguity, fruit as positive consequence? Is this the story of a good thing or a bad thing? Hard to tell, right from the beginning. Asks the muse for help with the poem, the composition of the poem itself is the adventure. HIs muse will be the spirit who inspired the bible, so what is M doing? superseding the bible? a prequel? not just help with a poem a story but an argument, the theodical aspect.
  • Why begin with Satan enchained? The reason for that doesn’t happen til book 5/6? Satan’s is the first voice we hear in the poem other than the narrator’s. Why not tell the story in linear order? We begin with Satan’s loss, why does Satan think he lost? Not because God is good and he’s bad, it’s because God is just stronger, force/tyranny wins. Satan appears heroic here, unconquerable will, power of the mind over circumstances. “The mind is its own place and can make a heaven of hell”, we are meant to question this. Is there a version of service that is not demeaning, that someone with self-respect can still evince?
  • Eden: one remarkable thing is how much time we get in Eden prior to the man. In Genesis, the fall happens very early, book 3, takes basically a page and a half. Almost no account of this in the bible, one of the biggest blanks Milton fills in. Satan in eden “Saw undelighted all delight” book 4, Satan cannot take pleasure, taking such pleasure/delight is positive. Adam and Eve are happily having sex all the time, enjoying it. Milton was the first person to say this, discussions amongst medieval theologians discuss whether they might have done this if they had stayed in Eden long enough. Books 5-8 are Raphael telling Adam all kind of things, is it really the case that they are deprived of knowledge in Eden? It is dynamic, intellectually stimulating. Is the disagreement about division of labour the real fall, the prefiguration of the fall? Strier thinks no, spirited disagreement in Eden is fine. Why does Satan’s temptation work? Eve is smart, she has been warned by Satan, why does it work, what is his best argument? Believe what you see “do not believe… look on me”. I’m a talking snake, amazing! Not sure about Strier’s argument here, he suggests Eve is tempted by the prospect of new intellectual powers, the possible pleasure of superiority. Eve falls for empiricism, temptation, adam falls for love of Eve. Adam submits to what seemed remedyless.
  • the end, is it a tragedy? Strier thinks no, history is a disaster, we can only look forward to its end. Providence is now their god, no longer an angel. It is a loss, but human relationships are possible.