Reflections of Milton in Paradise Lost and On Having Arrived
At a young age, John Milton was convinced that he was destined for
greatness. He thought that he "might perhaps leave something so written to
aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die"(Text 414). For this
reason he thought that his life was very important to himself and to others.
He often wrote directly about himself, and he used his life experiences as
roots for his literature. In Paradise Lost and in a sonnet entitled "On
His Blindness," Milton speaks indirectly and directly of his loss of vision.
Also in Paradise Lost, he uses the political situation of his time as a
base for the plot, and he incorporates elements of his own character into
the character of Satan. In "On Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three",
he speaks plainly about the course of his life.
In the latter part of his life, Milton lost his vision. This loss was
very traumatic for him because he had not yet completed his mission of
writing a memorable work of literature. Soon after, he continued his work
with the help of his daughters. He dictated to them a sonnet he called "On
His Blindness" in which he asks how God expects him to do his work blind.
Milton's ambitious side says that his writing talent is "lodged with [him]
useless"(Text 417). His religious side soon realizes that he is
"complaining" to God and he takes it back. He discovers that God will not
look down on him if he does not write a masterpiece. He granted Milton a
great talent, and he expects Milton to be happy. He has to learn to do his
work in a dark world. This poem was not the last time Milton referred to
his condition in his writing. In book one of Paradise Lost, while invoking
the Muse, Milton says "what in me is dark illumine"(Hndout 22). He asks to
be granted the power to work through his blindness. He obviously thinks of
his blindness as a major weakness. Later in the text, he describes Hell as
having "no light, but rather darkness visible"(Hndout 270). It is Milton's
way of almost subliminally implying that his condition is comparable to
Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare examines the concepts of love in the tragic play
The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1920 shows an insightful exploration of social class and the inability to change ones social class no matter how hard they attempt to. Fitzgerald was a great author in his ability to take himself out of reality in the 1920’s and write in The Great Gatsby the dangers of social climbing by comparing characters with regards to their social class. The desperation to achieve but ultimately failing the American Dream was explored through the characters of Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson. I am going to investigate the inability to change one’s social class in 1920s America.
“The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored. Such is exemplified by Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson and Tom Buchanan. Their ambitions distinctly represent their class in which Fitzgerald implies strongly about.
“Paradise Found and Lost” from Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Discoverers, embodies Columbus’ emotions, ideas, and hopes. Boorstin, a former Librarian of Congress, leads the reader through one man’s struggles as he tries to find a Western Passage to the wealth of the East. After reading “Paradise Found and Lost,” I was enlightened about Columbus’ tenacious spirit as he repeatedly fails to find the passage to Asia. Boorstin title of this essay is quite apropos because Columbus discovers a paradise but is unable to see what is before him for his vision is too jaded by his ambition.
In order to understand most anything about Milton, one must first understand Milton's world; one must understand the English Revolution and its historical roots. The revolution began in 1579 with the reformation parliament that formed under Henry VIII. Though parliament itself w...
As a result of Milton's failed political aspirations, he believes that individuals do not construct truth, or decide for themselves what the truth is; instead, individuals receive the truth directly or indirectly from God. Conversely, deception comes from Satan. In Paradise Lost, Milton sets up this idea by forcing good to result only from obedience to God's will and evil to result whenever God is disobeyed. Dr. Evans' argument that Milton's ultimate point in all this is to express a moral position that is very extreme, that no quality or action can be innately good or evil, is firmly rooted in this model. What determines the morality of anything we do is in whose service we do it. Since Raphael was sent from God, his warning is true and divine. Since Satan disobeyed God, his ideas are all false lies. Part of Milton's ideology may have come from his own life experiences. After the restorat...
Milton establishes himself as the legitimate teller of the tale – and this tale will take us beyond the mythology of the Greeks’Aonian Mount and inoculate us against Hell’s prodigiousness. He is taking us beyond mythological or explanatory pictures of ourselves, to an area where we may bask in a greater comfort:
In the opening lines of Paradise Lost, Milton wastes no time conveying to his readers what his purpose in writing the epic is. He writes in the beginning that he intends to “assert Eternal Providence, / and justifie the wayes of God to men” (I. 25-26). What exactly does this mean though? In order to be able to clearly judge and evaluate what these lines imply, it is important that one understands what exactly Milton’s thoughts we regarding “Eternal Providence” and the “wayes of God”. Stemming from this idea, it is important to also realize how the idea of free will intertwines with the omniscience of God. For Milton, God’s omniscient did not constrain the free will of Adam and Eve. However, this idea presents the reader with a paradoxical situation that Milton as an author was fully aware of. Paradise Lost presents the reader with eternal providence and free will as being part and parcel of each other, neither constrains the other, and it is these two aspects, along with that of knowledge that lay the groundwork in understanding Paradise Lost.
Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. Arthur E. Barker, b. 1875. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. 205-217.
It is thus that Books I and II of "Paradise Lost" are so unique, as is the alternative, and less-frequently explored world of the devils, is probed in such a. fascinating manner of the story. Milton uses the story of the fallen angels to open up on numerous eras, civilisations, myths and stories, allowing him to convey his own. perception of the world's history, as the reader is guided through various. points in time to be made. Before we are introduced to the individuals, Milton. depicts an enormous army of different species, each of changeable size and.
“Dream not of other worlds,” the angel Raphael warns Adam in Miltons’s Paradise Lost (VIII.175). Eve, however, dreams of another world in which she will gain knowledge and power, a wish that is superficially fulfilled when she succumbs to Satan’s temptation and eats from the Tree of Knowledge. Awakening in the Garden of Eden as though from a dream, Eve searches for her identity and her place in Paradise. Satan provides Eve with a chance to gain knowledge and to become god-like. As Eve is not an equal companion for Adam, she seeks independence from her husband. Shifting her loyalty away from God and Adam and towards Satan and the Tree of Knowledge, Eve strives to find her identity in the Garden of Eden, gain knowledge and godliness, and obtain independence from her unequal partnership with Adam.
The regularity with which Milton frequently conforms to principles of epic structure make his occasional (but nevertheless fundamental) variations on the epic tradition all the more striking by contrast. The most important departures from epic decorum--the rejection of a martial theme, and the choice of an argument that emphasizes the hero's transgression and defeat instead of celebrating his virtues and triumphs--are paradoxically conditioned by concern for the ethical and religious decorum of the epic genre. On the whole, Milton has retained the formal motifs and devices of the heroic poem but has invested them with Christian matter and meaning. In this sense his epic is . . . something of a "pseudomorph"--retaining the form of classical epic but replacing its values and contents with Judeo-Christian correlatives. (Epic and Tragic Structure . . . 20)
In conclusion, Paradise Lost can be seen through a historically contextual lens that allows us to see the parallels between Milton’s life and experiences during the reign of Charles I, and the predominant themes in his epic poem. Many of the themes in Paradise Lost, from the broader situational occurrences to the behavior of individual character’s and their attitudes toward the situations in which they find themselves can be seen as directly influenced by Milton’s time as a Parliamentarian in 17th century England.
John Milton's great epic poem, Paradise Lost, was written between the 1640's and 1665 in England, at a time of rapid change in the western world. Milton, a Puritan, clung to traditional Christian beliefs throughout his epic, but he also combined signs of the changing modern era with ancient epic style to craft a masterpiece. He chose as the subject of his great work the fall of man, from Genesis, which was a very popular story to discuss and retell at the time. His whole life had led up to the completion of this greatest work; he put over twenty years of time and almost as many years of study and travel to build a timeless classic. The success of his poem lies in the fact that he skillfully combined classic epic tradition with strongly held Puritan Christian beliefs.
Guibbory, Achsah. "Milton and English Poetry." A Companion to Milton. Thomas N. Corns, ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.