The Self and the World

- Formative – Monday 23rd April (1500 words) – developed into an essay.

Milton: ‘On his Blindness’

- Man is part of a bigger entity – futile to resist?
- The order of the world exists for a purpose – questioned by post-romantic readers –
things are.
- Cannot understand Gods purpose – not for us to question it
- There is authority, order, structure, subordination – understanding Satan’s role
- The world is ordered in a particular way (vs we are changing, everything is constantly
transforming)

Schopenhauer ‘On the Suffering of the World’

- Questions Milton’s acceptance
- ‘Even if Leibniz’s demonstration that this is the best of all possible worlds, were
correct, it would still not be a vindication of divine providence. For the Creator
created not only the world, he also created possibility itself: therefore, he should
have created the possibility of a better world than this one.’
- Providence suggests God is looking out for ‘you’ if you do the right thing – crucial to
Paradise Lost – Providence behind everything
- Milton’s explanation not good enough – the world should be perfect? – echoes
Shelley’s work.

Frankenstein
- 1818 – Mary Shelley quotes Adam  ‘I didn’t ask to be made’ – the right of the
created being
- ‘Did I request thee, Maker from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from
the darkness to promote me?’ – Paradise Lost

Milton: Paradise Lost

- Wanted to write the most important poem of the world
- The idea of the ‘epic’  includes the word of God
- Poet disappears in the word of God
- Implications at the beginning – talks about what he’s going to do – discusses how
things are changing
- Dramatic dialogue
- Tone and style – difficulty of his task – divide things and earthly consciousness –
beyond comprehension
- Proof of the existence of God is that he is beyond our conception – paradox –
definition is that he himself cannot be defined – dramatizing an abstract beyond
ones comprehension
- Milton asks the Holy Spirit – the extent of his undertaking
- Creation – talks of others creativity to inspire his technique
- Most ambitious poem ever written
- Milton believed it was scripturally true
What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great-Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.
(Paradise Lost, Book 1, 1-26)
- Doesn’t offer explanation – because its true?
- Justify  explain – not trial God
- Explanation of Christian and human history – demonstration of Gods providence –
responsibilities – purpose and meaning of lives
- Encompasses everything
- History of the world up until the presence – everything that’s ever happened
- Patriarchal figure of Milton – becomes patriarchal figure of God – ominous male
figure writing male poetry
- Frankenstein writing out of this patriarchal lineage.
- Milton becomes the stern, unforgiving divinity that he dramatizes
- Blake and Frankenstein rewrite the work.

Milton’s influence – Keats

- The power of Milton’s influence
- Model of influence – potent – homage that he cannot control
- The Titan – modelled on Milton’s Satan

The poem is made up of little episodes of people falling – perpetual – the poem exists
outside of time. (Once Eve eats the Apple, time begins – before this there are no seasons,
no suffering)

- Everything happening outside of time

- God exists outside – sees everything happening endlessly
- Linear narrative – different in the way it is told in the poem
- Fall – someone is being tempted and is giving in.

Reason and the fall: The Rebel Angels

- Fallen angels lose their ability to rationalise – mirrored in Satan
- Punishment of Hell – reduction of his intellectual power
- Beyond mans intelligence – trapped from giving into temptation
- Fate is fixed – had free will – broke ‘pact’ with God – have become trapped
- After Adam and Eve have been expelled from Eden.
In discourse more sweet
(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense,)
Others apart sat on a Hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,
Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.
(Book 2, 547-62)
Satan’s Triumph
- Pride – first example of evil’s origin
- Decadence in his disobeying to God
- Temptation and rebellion destroys the self – embodiment
- Satan is the most sympathetic character at beginning of poem – tragic narrative
- Question of Milton’s fail – more interesting than God’s narrative?

God and Free Will

- Dramatizing the extract
- Unforgiving figure – 17th century ideas of God – not merciful

Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

- Logical rebellious energies
- Songs of Innocence and Experience – without contraries there are no progressions
- Contraries need to coexist

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of
Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.

- The minds forged manacles

- First romantic reader to say the satanic energies is man.
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