[Milton-L] Milton and Gardens: queries
on JM's aesthetics
Michael Bryson
michael.bryson at csun.edu
Mon Jun 22 13:31:38 EDT 2009
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As one who has been accused of making too-large
leaps myself, I'd like to chime in on behalf of both
leap-making, and the idea of associating the garden
walls with both restriction (for Adam and Eve) and
focus (perhaps for Adam and Eve, but definitely for
Satan).
It is true that not all of the boundaries in the
epic are equivalent, but that is a truth not
particularly revelatory. What would be more to the
point, I think, is to argue for/against a
construction of which boundaries *are* equivalent,
or at least functionally similar. The walls of Hell
and the walls of Eden are--at least to this
reader--similar in a crucial way. They *seem*
designed to keep inhabitants (temporarily) inside,
but neither does in the end. In each case, an
encounter with Sin and/or sin leads to moving
outside the walls. In fact, in each case, the
boundaries have the effect of bringing the potential
sinner in contact with the object of, and
opportunity for sin. Almost an arranged marriage of
sin and sinner, it seems...at the very least, a
nicely set up blind date. Without the walls, Satan
may never be reunited with that touching little
family of his (and without the family, he never
would have managed to get outside the walls), and
without the walls of Eden, Satan would, at the very
least, have had to expend more time and effort to
find and tempt Adam and Eve (can't have one's
intended victims simply wandering all about, now can
one?).
And coming to a richer knowledge of creation through
horticultural tasks? That is one of the loveliest
euphemisms for manual labor I've encountered in the
years since I have been fortunate enough not to have
to support myself by sweating in the noonday sun. It
is also a lovely euphemism for the Near Middle
Eastern mythic motif of humans being created as
agricultural worker drones, labor-saving devices for
the gods. In the epic Atrahasis, man is created
specifically as a servant or beast of burden: "So
that he may bear the yoke... / So that he may bear
the yoke, the work of Ellil, / Let man bear the load
of the gods!"
The Genesis accounts include agricultural labor, but
do not cast that labor as something done to ease the
divine workload. They do, however, offer conflicting
perspectives on the significance, location, and
division of the labor--The El/Elohim creation story
in Genesis 1 has man (both male and female) subduing
the *entire* earth (no mean feat, that), while the
Yahweh creation story of Genesis 2-3 has man (Adam)
tending the garden of Eden only, and then Adam and
Eve tossed out of the garden into the wider world,
where hard agricultural labor awaits Adam and hard
pregnancy labor awaits Eve. Milton, as so often,
seems to be attempting to mix these two perspectives
from Genesis, with Adam *and* Eve sharing the
"horticultural" labor in the garden, and dividing
their "labors" after their expulsion therefrom.
It has been a while since I read Richard Strier's
article, but I remember quite clearly the Newberry
Library Milton Seminar presentation he gave based on
the material therein, and the sense I had was that
he was arguing at least as much from a "criticizing
Milton's Heaven" perspective as anything else (and
that seemed to rile up certain audience members
rather nicely--an object lesson in the value of
certain kinds of contrarian arguments).
And Raphael has always seemed to me to be a bit of a
joke, though one that is important to the plot.
"Here's the knowledge! Here's the knowledge!...now,
now...don't be *too* curious..." Much of Satan's
temptation--in terms of technique, items of appeal,
and even specific arguments, has its source in
Raphael's garrulous nature (his big mouth). Satan
never even gets the chance to "excite their minds /
With more desire to know" (4.522-23), because
Raphael beats him to it. Withholding astronomical
knowledge is, by that point, another in a series of
gestures that suggest the idea that Adam and Eve
will have to "open to themselves" (7.158), not only
"the way / Up hither" but the way to all knowledge,
and that the opening to themselves is going to
require the experience of transgression, taking
something that is forbidden, crossing a boundary.
After that--after the transgression, after the
taking, after the crossing--*then* repentance,
contrition, obedience will bring "Fruits of more
pleasing savour [...] / than those / Which, his own
hand manuring, all the trees / Of Paradise could
have produced, ere fallen / From innocence"
(11.26-30). But not before.
Michael Bryson
---- Original message ----
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:39:26 -0400
From: "Jeffrey Theis" <jtheis at salemstate.edu>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Milton and Gardens:
queries on JM's aesthetics
To: "John Milton Discussion List"
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
>I would strongly agree with Jeffery Hodges that
Alexandra Dimakos is
>making too big a leap in associating the garden
walls with Raphael's
>warning Adam off from astronomical knowledge.
There are many boundaries
>in this epic, and they are not all equivalent. As
Hodges correctly
>notes, Adam and Eve would have populated the
entire earth, not just
>Eden. Thus prohibition of knowledge of the rest
of the earth does not
>seem a compelling argument here. I also think of
Richard Strier's
>argument that Eden is better than heaven as a
nice reminder that staying
>in Eden is no punishment--it is world and
pleasure enough.
>
>I do think that it helps to think of boundaries
not only as markers of
>control or power (though they often serve that
function); rather, they
>also have a means of focusing one's attention. If
we remember that Adam
>and Eve are charged to till and keep nature, it
is a more feasible
>occupation if the two of them do not have to take
on the entire planet
>right away. The walls allow for a kind of focus
that does not really
>keep out knowledge or keep Adam and Eve ignorant.
Instead, the walls
>focus their attention so that they are a) near
the interdicted tree (as
>Jeffery nicely argues), and b) come to a richer
knowledge of creation
>itself as they engage in their horticultural
tasks.
>
>Stella's advice to look at John Evelyn is also a
very good idea. I'd
>recommend Douglas Chambers' *The Planters of the
English Landscape
>Garden: Botony, Trees, and the Georgics.* Yale
UP, 1993. Also look at
>Chambers' essay, “‘Wild Pastorall
Encounter’: John Evelyn, John
>Beale and the Renegotiation of Pastoral in the
Mid-Seventeenth
>Century.” In Culture and Cultivation in Early
Modern England:
>Writing and the Land, edited by Michael Leslie
and Timothy Raylor,
>173-94. Beale and Evelyn engaged in an
interesting discussion of adding
>wildness/wilderness to English gardens. Beale is
a bit more radical in
>his reform ideas than is Evelyn.
>
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Jeffrey S. Theis
>Assistant Professor; Department of English
>233 Meier Hall
>Mailing Address:
> Salem State College
> 352 Lafayette Street
> Salem, MA 01970-5353
>Phone:(978) 542-6845
>E-Mail: jtheis at salemstate.edu
>SSC Web Profile:
https://www.salemstate.edu/profile/jtheis/
>Home Page: http://www.salemstate.edu/~jtheis/
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>>>> Horace Jeffery Hodges
<jefferyhodges at yahoo.com> 6/19/2009 6:07 PM
>>>>
>Alexandra Dimakos suggests that "the walls are
meant to keep a curious
>Adam from exploring the outside world," and she
cites Raphael's words to
>Adam in Book VIII:
>
>Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there
>Live, in what state, condition or degree,
>Contented that thus far hath been reveal'd
>Not of Earth only but of highest Heav'n.
(8:175-78)
>
>>From the context, however, Adam and Raphael
would seem to be speaking
>of astronomy and worlds beyond the earth. I don't
yet see strong
>evidence that this also includes the "outside
world" beyond the Garden's
>walls.
>
>I do agree that Adam and Eve are expected to
remain within the Garden,
>for they have work to do there. Eventually,
however, they would be able
>to leave, for with their offspring borne to
populate the earth, the
>Garden would one day grow too restricted.
Presumably, their work in the
>Garden would have prepared them for making a
garden of the entire earth
>. . . though they would ultimately (perhaps) have
sublimated their
>grossly corporeal bodies into subtler spirit (or
some such wording).
>
>The walls also serve to keep the two within range
of the provoking
>object, that interdicted, testing tree.
>
>On keeping Satan out . . . well, the walls of
Hell were intended to
>keep Satan in but give him an out if he should
choose to defy God's
>limits anyway. By leaving Satan free to escape
Hell and break into
>Paradise, God leaves open Satan's path toward
greater damnation -- a
>puzzling economy of damnation that seems less
than economical, but it
>appears to be part of Milton's great argument.
>
>Jeffery Hodges
>
>
>--- On Fri, 6/19/09, Alexandra Dimakos
<adimakos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>From: Alexandra Dimakos <adimakos at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Milton and Gardens:
queries on JM's aesthetics
>To: "John Milton Discussion List"
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
>Date: Friday, June 19, 2009, 4:01 PM
>
>
>Hi Susan,
>
>Your statement "I am not certain of the roots but
"Paradise" might come
>from 'walled garden.' " sparked my curiosity as I
have been recently
>researching and writing about this idea.
>
>I've found that in Michael Lieb's article "'Holy
Place': A Reading of
>Paradise Lost" that "the Renaissance
understanding of the 'paradise'
>itself -- pairidaeza formed on pairi ('around')
and diz ('to mould,'
>''to form') -- not only as a 'park' or 'pleasure
ground' but also,
>significantly, as an 'enclosure' or a 'place
walled in''" (135).
>
>I also wanted to address Michael's idea or
question: "As to why the
>whole Garden needs to be fenced off from the rest
of the world."
>
>Although there are many theories, it seems to me
that Eden is fenced
>off because it is meant from keeping Adam and Eve
from leaving. I
>understand that many will say that the wall is
meant to keep Satan out
>of the garden. But, does it work? Satan doesn't
have much trouble
>"jumping the fence" and entering into Eden. If
the walls are there to
>protect Adam and Eve, they do not serve them
well.
>
>In contrast, the walls are meant to keep a
curious Adam from exploring
>the outside world. Raphael tells Adam in Book
IIX:
>
>
>
>
>
>Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there
>Live, in what state, condition or degree,
>Contented that thus far hath been reveal’d Not
of Earth only but of
>highest Heav’n. (8:166-78)
>
>
>The walls may also serve this purpose: to keep
Adam from exploring the
>"other Worlds" that lay beyond Eden. Also there
is only one Gate that
>leads in and out of Eden, but Adam and Eve are
only allowed to cross
>that threshold when they are expelled from their
home. They are never
>told they can freely enter and exit Eden at their
leisure. There is a
>great sense of control that stems from these
walls and this one gate.
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Susan Allison
<jbase484 at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>
>I am not certain of the roots but "Paradise"
might come from "walled
>garden." Of course that is not the only reason
but "Paradise" may have
>retained that meaning.
>Susan
>
>
>
>
>
>As to why the whole Garden needs to be fenced off
from the rest of the
>world, that’s an interesting question.
>
>Michael
>
>
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