[Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less

[David Ainsworth]

I've always found some humor in other unexpected places in the poem, 
too.  Students seem to appreciate my tracing the discussion of astronomy 
from Eve's question and Adam's answer, to the dream, to Adam's question 
to Raphael and his extended "need to know" answer, though perhaps they 
most appreciate the Raphael-as-academic association.  I find something 
both funny and sweet about Adam answering Eve's question with assurance 
in Book 4 and then pumping Raphael for more information in book 8.  (One 
wonders, too, how students would respond to an educational system which 
intermixes digressions with caresses...)

Certain moments in the poem also invite us to imagine some humor 
implicit in the situation.  Chaos' reaction upon discovering that by 
letting Satan pass he's also allowed for the construction of a 
superhighway through the middle of his realm amuses me, for instance, 
and I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I find parts of Books 11 and 12 
funnier and funnier every time I read the poem.  (Michael's teaching 
style, in particular, invites a certain amount of ironic introspection.)

There's a few other moments which contain humor under specific 
circumstances--on staging Eve's temptation in Book 9, one of my classes 
discovered some real humor built into the suspense involved as Eve 
decides to eat the fruit.  From the moment she decides to the moment she 
tastes takes quite a while, especially if you have someone reading the 
poem aloud while an actor-as-serpent/Satan reacts.  In our eventual 
performance, the class brought a student from the audience up to play 
the part of the tree and dangle the apple in Eve's face--he naturally 
played the part with attitude initially, but was showing the effort in 
holding his arms up by the time Eve actually plucked the fruit.  It is, 
I think, a beautiful example of the sort of humor generated by nervous 
anticipation, and if we'd figured out a way to stage an earthquake I 
think the sudden bursting of that humorous bubble would have been 
everything Milton (or a horror director) might have desired.

David

Schwartz, Louis wrote:
> Michael,
> 
> It's really interesting to me that you bring up this moment.  It's a very important one for my understanding of the epic, and when I've written about it, I've tended to stick to the serious side of it, and even more to its terrible pathos, but it's also true that whenever I've taught it, I've always worked with what I also find funny in it (although funny in a way that's inseperable from the seriousness and pathoa in a manner that's I think distinctly Miltonic).  For me the humor has been more about how quickly Eve goes from the idea of abstinence, which she frames with real pathos, to suicide. The speed of her thinking from one extreme to the other is a measure of just how unthinkable it is for her at this moment to pine with vain desire in the presence of the lover she's just gotten back.  But the speed itself and the extremities of her thought are so fast and so extreme that they never fail to make me smile, too.  You're right that Adam's response is also funny in its o
wn!
>   way, althought it has, in its own ways an even greater pathos than Eve's suggestion.
> 
> There are a number of similarly serio-comic moments in PL, although that's an awkward term for them.  I'm thinking, for example, about the silence that greets God's request for a volunteer in Book III--one imagines the angels all looking down at the glowing pavements--or the exchange between about human and angelic sex at the end of Book VIII.  Both of these are very serious and yet also funny in peculiar ways.  It would be interesting to think more about these sorts of moments nd how and why they work.
> 
> Louis
> 
> ________________________________
> From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Bryson [michael.bryson at csun.edu]
> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 2:59 PM
> To: John Milton Discussion List
> Subject: RE: [Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less
> 
> Yes, I think he does. I think the passage from 10.1010-46 is an excellent example of Milton's humor. Adam's great theological inspiration, the one in which he anticipates the "Christian" re-reading of the Serpent and the threat Yahweh makes against it in Genesis 3:15, is brought on--at least in part--as a reaction to Eve's suggestion that they either 1) go without sex for the rest of their lives (930 years in the case of the Biblical Adam...rather a long time, methinks...), or 2) kill themselves. It has long struck me as both a serious and a funny moment. Adam's ingenuity appears to stem from a desire not to be celibate for 900+ years (and not to commit suicide...though this is the less comic of the two motivations). I suspect Milton is having a bit of a wry joke here about the rather basic motivations that underlie some (much?) "higher" achievement and innovation.
> 
> Michael Bryson
> (avoiding grading finals like his life depended on the avoidance...)
> 
> ---- Original message ----
> Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 13:31:45 -0500
> From: "Dr. Larry Gorman" <larry at eastwest.edu>
> Subject: RE: [Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less
> To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
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> You think he means to be?
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> ________________________________
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> From:
> milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu
> [mailto:milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On
> Behalf Of Michael Bryson
> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 1:20 PM
> To: John Milton Discussion List
> Subject: RE: [Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25
> words or less
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> 
> The reference to Mel Brooks was deliberate...can't help myself...the
> 1968 "Springtime for Hitler" remains the single funniest thing I have
> ever seen.
> 
> And of course, the cringing is Satan and Gabriel accusing each other of
> toadying ("You were!" "No, you were!") at the end of book
> 4. That has always struck me as a comic moment...thus, back to Mel Brooks...and
> what I often see as a faintly (to be grossly anachronistic) Busby Berkeley
> quality to some of the heaven scenes in PL and PR. Milton is sometimes very
> funny...
> 
> Michael