I've Got The World on a String

Milton continues to confuse me with his winding staircase sentences that lead to nowhere. I love the language and creativity he has, but just write a simple sentence once in a while to get your point across, you know? I do like where the story is headed though, and I wish we had time to trip over the words in all ten of the books, but my end of semester brain thanks Dr.MB for only making us tackle two.

All seems to be well in hell. We've now taken a look around and in addition to the expected molten fire, we've also found a surprising frozen tundra. Satan has asked his little devils to keep house and tidy things up to make hell a more suitable place to live. And now, because no good story begins and ends by staying in one place where you've been banished, Satan has taken it upon himself to go exploring. He journeys to the gates of hell, which I am actually surprised exist/he is not in charge of them. Part of me has always pictured Satan having some sort of docking station upon a lake of skulls or fire and only he has access to let people in or out. Anyway, he comes across two figures by these gates: a half woman-serpent and something shapeless and terrible. We find out that this woman is Sin and that her son, who Satan is the father of is death. Interesting, right? Sin and Satan have worked together to produce death.

I really like this theory behind the existence of death. Whenever someone dies from an illness, suddenly or just too soon, people are so quick to say something like, "How could God let such a terrible thing happen to such an innocent soul?" But is it God? If death was produced by satan and sin, it isn't really God at all. The embodiment of rule-breaking and cruelty has teamed up with a fallen angel that wanted God's powers. We don't know why death exists, but it's more of a chain of events than something God just thought up. If Satan had never betrayed God and fallen, then maybe death wouldn't exist. But then again, God knew that Satan would do this and it would eventually result in death. Beyond this, Satan actually bribes death and sin and says Hey, if you let me out of this gate, I'll let you roam earth with me. Satan literally brings death and sin to earth.

The chaos part confuses me, which I guess it should. I really thought chaos would be one with the earth, but I guess its more of a messy limbo. Chaos is described as a potpourri of miscellaneous tasks and objects that Satan must get through and I think that might be symbolic of the chaos a person on earth would have to go through to get either to heaven or to hell. Chaos sparks people to make decisions that can lean in either a positive or a negative way, but we have to make it through the chaos to make a decision. I also like that Satan sees earth is dangling from heaven by a string. In fact, I think that's my favorite symbol so far. We are dangling from a single tie to heaven. It's so much easier to fall into the depths of chaos or hell, but heaven is barely holding on to us and seems so out of grasp. The ties between heaven and earth are slim and few, showing that maybe good is not as common on earth and that if the earth is truly all evil, it would be quite easy to cut the string and let it all fall to chaos.

Sin plus Disobedience and Satan equals Death? Finally.

So to begin, I’d like to point out how awesomely cheesy it is that “Sin” is the one to open the gates, thus letting sin into the world.  And the fact that she is Satan’s offspring.  I also find it interesting that Sin is a woman, considering this is technically a prequel to the events that unfolded between Satan, Adam, and Eve. I feel like Milton should’ve considered that, at the time this is set, the world wouldn’t know that a woman committed the first sin yet. (Perhaps he was too caught up in those presumptuous sentences.) In fact, all of this presumably happens before “Man” is actually created. 

When I finished this, I had some impressive (impressive to me, at least) revelations about who Sin and Death are in this story.  First, what I found utterly stupid is that fact that Satan doesn’t even remember reproducing.  After all, his disobedience was a way to “stick it” to God, right? I mean, technically Satan CREATED sin.  So why would he not remember the creation of the ultimate revenge on God? He must’ve hit his head way too hard when he landed in hell. 

I find it interesting that Sin is attractive, yet ugly at the same time.  Perhaps this is Milton’s warning of the attractive temptation of real sin—that we should not fall victim to it, despite its appealing nature.  Satan’s daughter is the ultimate personification of original sin.  And maybe the fact that she is a woman is necessary, because women are also considered to be great tempters (at least during Milton’s time, and even today, on some levels).

And speaking of Sin, I found the incestuous offspring between Satan and his daughter to be really weird.  I mean, what??? (Again I ask, HOW could he not remember this?) But then again, it’s kind of interesting because Death is the offspring of Sin and Satan, who is the ultimate symbol of disobedience.  So here’s the equation:

SIN      +          DISOBEDIENCE       =          DEATH

The end of Book II is a warning—that Death is not a natural occurrence, but rather, the ultimate result of disobedience toward God.  Woah! If only it was that simple in real life, eh?

            Right now, Satan doesn’t seem so awesome anymore! Obviously I can’t come to an accurate conclusion, considering we’re not reading the rest of Paradise Lost.  But I no longer feel bad for him, considering this odd chain of events that unfolds at the end of Book II.  Now he’s the god ol’ manipulative Satan we all know and love!

Paradise Lost or Found... Also what's up with Satan?

I figured that I would start my post with this lovely picture.

I'm not sure if I sympathize with Satan or not. Yes, I feel bad that he was banned from Heaven but it was his fault. He turned against God and even though banishment is a pretty extreme punishment, I can understand why it was necessary given what had happened. I found it interesting that Milton felt the need to specify that the fall from Heaven into Hell took 9 days and nights.  To me that alone shows how much thought Milton put into this piece of literature.

I do sympathize with the angels that fell with Lucifer. Lucifer lost the battle against God and his followers.So the angels such as Mephistopheles picked the wrong side. I guess in some ways they deserve the same punishment for the same crime only they did not lead. 

As a history major, I really enjoyed talking about Puritanism during class last Thursday. Religion was a big part of life for society at that time.England was going through a time of religious change. A few years ago I memorized the order of the British rulers after the Tudor Dynasty ended, (James I, Charles I, Olive Cromwell (when Milton was writing Paradise Lost), Charles II, James II, and William and Mary) in case anyone was wondering.

 I find it interesting that predestination  misconstrued in public memory. Milton believed that God could predict people's actions from the time they were born. But people have free-will, which I've noticed is a reoccurring theme in this course. I am really curious to see where Milton goes with this theme throughout book II and how big a role free-will plays. 

I think reading Paradise Lost would be easier if any (or preferably all) of the dialogue was in quotes.  Shorter sentences would be nice as well but I suppose that might be asking too much. Basic quotation marks would be really helpful for knowing when characters end their speeches. At some point it tends to say something along the lines of "so spake" or "h' Arch-Fiend replied" and that makes finding the start of speech a bit easier. They just are so wordy (I mean so far that's mostly all Satan) that it can be hard to figure out where they stop speaking. 

That being said  I do really like this translation or update or edition or whatever the proper term is for it. Not only are the notes pretty helpful but the words themselves are easier to process (as many of them as there may be). Just based on that factor this has been the easiest text for me to read up until this point in the semester. So thanks to whoever did the editing. I do think it's interesting how some sentences are ten-plus lines long while others are seven words long. I know a variation in sentence structure makes the reading more interesting but that is one hell of a variation. 

There was a  old man I grew up with, named Guy Waterman, who died when I was six. Guy was a professional jazz pianist , a speech writer for three presidents (including Nixon), and the author of four books. This may seem like a really weird tangent but Guy was a huge Milton fan with obsessive compulsive tendencies. So Guy memorized Paradise Lost. Not just a few lines, not just Book I, but the entirety of Paradise Lost.  In terms of sheer accomplishment I put Guy pretty high up on the list of bad-asses. I imagine the list of people who memorized Paradise Lost consists of Milton, Guy, and a few others who really need to find another source of amusement. 

But whatever, tangent aside. I find myself really liking Satan. Not because he's any pillar of society, I think it's pretty clear that he's not, but because he's pretty optimistic about this hell thing. Like Dr. MB said in class, "Satan's a glass half full kind of guy." And maybe it's because he's got it better than anyone else who fell with him, but I like his optimism. I'm not sure if the other devils/demons/fallen angels are quite such big fans of the "Better to reign in hell than to serve in Heaven" theme but that's probably just because they're stuck serving in Heaven and Hell. I think it will be interesting to see how everything pans out.