![]() 8ĥ As Milton writes the scene, Adam is suddenly confronted with an Eve who has disobeyed the primary injunction given to the first human pair, not to eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Milton criticism, which Will Stockton calls “a hell of ideological conservatives” 6 is a near perfect example: with a few important exceptions, the “Milton industry” 7 has lined up on the side of God, obedience, and submission where the question of Adam’s choice is concerned, many even suggesting that Adam should have been written differently, so as to make the choice the critic confidently declares the only possible “correct” decision. As so often in the criticism we have encountered, the voice of authority can be heard loudly and clearly as it pronounces for obedience and against love. 8 Peter Herman notes that the trend of critics rewriting Milton goes all the way back to the seventee (.)Ĥ In this case, the “herd” has spent decades of scholarly and interpretive energy convincing itself that Adam’s choice in Paradise Lost, Book 9, is the “fallen” choice of a disobedient sinner and an effeminate fool.Early Modern Culture : An Electronic Seminar (.) 4 William Empson compares such criticism to the kinds of groupthink that insist “a man ought to concur with any herd in which he happens to find himself”. After all, does not Milton’s epic poem relate the “tragic” consequences of disobedience to God, representing Adam’s choice to eat the forbidden fruit along with Eve as foolish, and uxorious-the result of an excessive and misguided love for Eve over God? Such is the impression given by much of the criticism of Milton’s poem, which the English historian Christopher Hill describes as a self-confirming enterprise “whose vast output appears to be concerned less with what Milton wrote than with the views of Professor Blank on the views of Professor Schrank on the views of Professor Rank on what Milton may or may not have written”. Milton’s God (Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1961), 231.ģ At first glance, Paradise Lost might seem an odd choice with which to illustrate the primacy of human love and choice, over the imperious demands of authority that even the most arbitrary of dictates be unquestioningly obeyed. Milton and the English Revolution (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), 3. In the case of those who choose incorrectly, those who disobey, the necessary and enjoyable response for the ruler is to inflict punishment, up to and including death: ![]() Subjects without choice, without free will, or with wills so broken as to be no longer functional, offer this kind of sublimely sadistic ruler no satisfaction: what pleasure I, from such obedience paid? The pleasure is precisely in the sensation of an active and functioning will submitting to your own. Choice in the ruled, which includes by design the possibility of choosing not to obey, enhances the pleasures of power for the ruler. Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d,Ģ From this perspective, however, the key function of choice is to elicit praise-praise for one’s obedience, delivered by the authority figure who takes pleasure in being obeyed. When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice) What pleasure I, from such obedience paid, Not what they would? What praise could they receive? Where only what they needs must do appear’ d, Of true allegiance, constant Faith, or Love, Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincere
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |