April 24th, 2008
C. Ross Hughes
ENG 685
Hindsight, as the old adage goes, is twenty-twenty. For a man without sight, one can only imagine how deep Milton’s hindsight was. The tumult of the English Civil War, which threw off the yoke of the monarchy, had turned to tyranny under Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. This had led to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Seven years later, Milton published Paradise Lost, an epic whose main goal was to “justify the ways of God to men,” by explaining the fall of man as depicted in the first books of Genesis. That fall was brought about by Satan, and the poet does not mince words about it. Yet Satan is at turns a pitiable character, even human in his emotions. But in the end, he remains the loathsome serpent which destroys man’s innocence. He is the liberator who fights against what he considers to be a despotic God, but he is also the ensnarer and enslaver of man through original sin.
Yet the epic is not merely a tract of theology, it is also an allegory to explain the political changes which occurred in England in Milton’s time. Milton lived in a monarchy, where the king ruled almost unopposed. But Charles I, who became regent in 1625, attempted to steer the course of the Anglican Church, meeting much resistance from the Puritans and other groups, who feared a return to a quasi-Catholic church. The persecutions under Archbishop Laud only changed the conflict into a full-blown civil war (Bevis 14-15). Milton was a firm believer in Parliament, which was created to check the power of the king. But up to this time, it had been merely called on certain occasions and had no real power. However, with the outbreak of Civil War in 1642 and the subsequent defeat and beheading of Charles I in 1649, a new paradigm prevailed. As Bevis explains:
A new revolutionary spirit was expressed by those who opposed the King in that they emphasized the right of man to have a government that would be answerable to its own subjects. Blind loyalty towards tradition and custom had been decisively rejected by those who fought on the side of Parliament: they fought Charles’s army for the freedom
to hold their own consciences in religious matters, for a Parliament that would be able to make its own laws, and for a Church free of the Episcopal structure that epitomized authoritarian rule (16).
Among the supporters of the new Commonwealth was John Milton, a Puritan who had long advocated for the right of men to make their own decisions based upon their consciences, and a governmental structure that would allow men to live in a state of true liberty.
Likewise, Raphael describes the beginnings of the revolt in Heaven in Paradise Lost. It all begins when God announces that He will make His son equal to Him, a king over all the angelic hosts. God says:
Hear all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand.
This day I have begot whom I declare
My only Son…
…your head I him appoint,
And by myself have sworn to him shall bow
All knees in Heaven and confess him Lord (V. 600-04; 606-08).
God, in His role as the king of heaven, has appointed His Son to become co-regent with him. And all must swear fealty to him, lest they be sent to hell for their lack of obedience. In this passage, God sounds tyrannical, imposing upon the angels what seem to some to be an odious edict.
Satan, however, will not stand to grovel before the Son. He echoes many of the same sentiments that those who opposed the monarchy espoused. His appeal strikes a chord with us, because we as readers find him more reasonable, with his championing of free will and freedom. Satan asks an assembly of angels:
With what may be devised of honors new
Receive him coming to receive from us
Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile,
Too much to one, but how double endured,
To one and his image now proclaimed? (V.780-84)
He has had enough of even praising God, and considers it insufferable to prostrate before one newly-raised to equality with the God that he loathes. Then, Satan turns his argument towards an exhortation:
Will ye submit your necks and choose to bend
The supple knee? Ye will not, if I trust
To know ye right, or if ye know yourselves
Natives and sons of Heaven possessed before
By none, and, if not equal all, yet free,
Equally free; for orders and degrees
Jar not with liberty but well consist.
Who can in reason, then, or right assume
Monarchy over such as live by right
His equals if, in power and splendor less,
In freedom equal? (V.787-97)
The future prince of darkness delivers an enlightening speech, though flawed. He, like Milton, opposed monarchy, and believed that men should have equal rights to follow their conscience. But Satan makes a grave error: the angels are not equal with God, but rather were created by Him to live in Heaven, created by Him. Satan’s falsehoods prove seductive, both for the angels and for the reader, who may sympathize with him.
So for John Milton, the newly-created Commonwealth proved seductive, though inevitably disheartening. Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Independent faction of Parliament, was made Lord Protector and Milton became his Secretary for Foreign Languages. In this role, Milton would write many works of propaganda defending the Commonwealth as well as the execution of Charles I (Bevis 18). But this idealism was not to last. As Richard Bradford explains:
The Cromwellian republic was founded upon the principle that the nation, not the king,
would organize itself, with the assistance of its wisest servants, according to its own
conception of God’s will. Sadly, and evidently to Milton, this ideal was falling apart…
Cromwell, himself, who had begun his political and military career as the representative
of a collective endeavour, was becoming a dictator. Gone was the plain black suit and
hat, to be replaced by thick purple robes and the ornaments of magisterial high office…
(Bradford 45)
In 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, and was replaced as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. However, he proved to be inept for the position as factionalism plagued the government. Tired of their bold experiment gone awry, the English people welcomed Charles II as king, thus restoring the monarchy (Bevis 18-19).
In much the same way as Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders went astray, so does Satan and his legions. At last banished from Heaven, they descend to hell, where they are met with myriad sufferings, cut off from the light of God. Yet here, Satan’s true nature comes to the fore: like a dictator or a king, he is made the ruler of hell. Milton describes the scene:
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Hormuz and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence…(II. 1-6)
Note there that he was raise by his own merits to his seat of power, not by being of divine substance, like God and His Son. Rather, he has become the leader of the fallen through their consent, and through their consent made their potentate. This seems like the experiment of a democracy gone terribly wrong. When the demons confer as to the best way to continue their war against God, it is through Satan’s influence that they decide on destroying man through sin. Although Beelzebub proposes, Milton says that:
Thus Beelzebub
Pleaded his devilish counsel, first devised
By Satan and in part proposed: from whence,
But from the author of ill could spring
So deep a malice…(II. 378-82)
With the debate stifled, Satan takes on an even more frightening visage: that of the tempter of man. Through Satan in the guise of a serpent, humanity will taste original sin, falling from the grace of God.
But Milton’s epic does not promote a pro-royalist position, brought on by his long years of meditation on tumultuous political changes that at times centered around him. Rather, it is an admonition—humans must not be swayed, but always answer to their consciences. They should not bow down to a monarch who equates himself equal with God, or claims that his rule proceeds from the grace of God. Nor should they be seduced by a smooth politician, who appeals to their liberty and then uses his new-found power to make himself a tyrant. Instead, they should always listen to their consciences, which come to them through the grace of God, and be upright in their morals. Humans, like Adam and Eve, have the ability to stand, but also to fall. Therefore, we must make decisions based upon consciences in order not to give in to despots, but rather to imitate the Kingdom of God, which is not of this earth, thus avoiding human corruption.
Working Bibliography
Bevis, Kathryn. John Milton: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.
Bradford, Richard. The Complete Critical Guide to John Milton. London: Routledge, 2001.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost, ed. David Kastan. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company,
Inc., 2005.
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