[Milton-L] (no subject)

[Marlene Edelstein]

It certainly does appear that the path is made clear for Satan to complete the mission, as indeed William Empson pointed out decades ago. But - isn't it a question of genre, with or without Milton's intention? perhaps we should sometimes quit regarding PL as a doctrinal web and its characters as real or quasi-real people, and think about it as a shaped narrative. After all, the plot is announced in the first few lines of Book I; everything subsequent expands this outline. It's as necessary for Satan to find his way to the newly created world, leap over the fence around Eden and when the time comes 'know' the forbidden tree as it is for Darcy to walk in when Elizabeth Bennett is touring Pemberley. 
      How can these things be explained rationally? True events transcend their context, which is another way of talking about God, the transcendent Other. In the case of a work of fiction, the author is God. 
 
                Marlene

believe everything, believe nothing

--- On Fri, 7/11/08, Michael Bryson <michael.bryson at csun.edu> wrote:

From: Michael Bryson <michael.bryson at csun.edu>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] (no subject)
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Date: Friday, 7 November, 2008, 5:00 PM


As Margaret Thickstun wrote in response to Christy's earlier question about how Satan knew which was the forbidden tree: 
I must
protest strenuously against Marlene's suggestion that God wants
Satan to do what he does.  That seems to me to undermine the entire
argument of the poem, that God is not responsible/liable for human and
angelic disobedience, that all the created beings are "sufficient to
have stood, though free to fall." 
This is certainly the argument of the character called the Father, both claims being prominently featured in his speeches in Book 3. I do not think, however, that it is the "entire argument of the poem." A great deal of evidence in the poem points away from the Father's rather defensive--even self-exculpatory--claims in Book 3. A few examples: Satan is securely locked away in Hell, and yet there is, not only a gate, but a key to that gate (a prison sealed up in the fashion of the end of Cask of Amontillado would have been rather more secure, I think). The keeper of the key is located (by the Father, at that) inside the gate, and is the one figure in the poem who is (by her own admission) most likely to be loyal to Satan rather than the Father. Surprise, surprise...Satan gets out of Hell.

Next, Satan hasn't the foggiest notion how to get from the gates of Hell to Adam and Eve. But at every step, there are guides (Chaos, Uriel) and/or roadsigns or roads (the stairway leading down from heaven and the corresponding stairway leading up that meets it). Even upon being "arrested" in Eden by Gabriel, Ithuriel, and Zephon (whose name always makes me think of the tune "Werewolves of London"...but that's just me...), Satan is let go: the scales that appear in the sky weigh the sequel each of parting and of fight, and come down in favor of parting. Who lets a wolf go once it has been caught in the sheepfold? Who does such a thing?

Someone who does not intend the wolf to fail.

An alternate view, to be sure, Christy, but there it is...

Michael Bryson
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