Paradise, Liberty and Dictatorship

[Alexiev]

For several centuries, Milton's Paradise Lost was considered the great epic of the English language. It is not read as widely today because modern readers have lost a taste for long, difficult poetry. Nonetheless, its influence continues.

Thomas Jefferson admired both the poem and some of Milton's political treatises. MIlton was a supporter of Cromwell and an anti-royalist. His political sympathies were revealed in his poetry, in which Satan is often portrayed as a noble rebel who refused to abide dictatorship.

William Blake (another Milton admirer) wrote that, "Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of angels and God and at liberty when of Devils and Hell because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." Perhaps the author of "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" was on to something.

Another Milton fan was Wordsworth, who in his "Prelude" wrote of the French Revolution: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!" Other romantic poets were also fans. IN "Frankenstein" Mary Shelley has the monster read Paradise Lost. The monster resembles both Adam and Satan -- like Adam who disobeys God because he cannot bear the thought of losing Eve, the monster turns on the doctor when Dr. Frankenstein refuses to give him a wife.

Of course there is not only nobility in Milton's Satan, but cruelty and avarice. Slaves (perhaps) do not seek liberty for all, but wish to become slave owners. Revolutionaries like Lenin and Stalin and Castro have followed the same path. In Wordsworth's day, Napoleon was an example.

Are revolutions doomed to fail? Will their perpetrators -- like Lucifer -- inevitably wish to replace the king instead of abolishing the kingdom? Can heaven be a utopia if it is ruled by a dictator? Shouldn't freedom be mandatory for utopias?

[promethean75]

The good guy bad guy role reversal we see in these narratives is what happens when deep thinkers examine the world and see what a shit job god has done. The Satan character then becomes the symbol of the recognition that god is a slob and the act of rebellion and contempt against him. This interpretation makes god the bad guy (through 'his' incompetence, sadism, hypocrisy, etc) and Satan the good guy who defies the putz.

That's how that fantasy develops. It's the logical outcome of the anthropomorphic interpretation created by the abrahamic religions. If you are paying attention and have any sense, you will see Lucifer as the genuine champion and hero of men from the very moment of his inception when he demonstrates the hypocrisy of god when being told to prostrate himself before inferior beings (humans), something god himself would never do.

Lucifer here represents keeping the natural order of rank, respecting it and taking it seriously, god represents the wanton abuse of power and whimsically playing with the ranks as if they are toys. God betrayed Lucifer, not the other way around. Ya'll need to read that joint (bible) esoterically fer real.

[Alexiev]

The good guy bad guy role reversal we see in these narratives is what happens when deep thinkers examine the world and see what a shit job god has done. The Satan character then becomes the symbol of the recognition that god is a slob and the act of rebellion and contempt against him. This interpretation makes god the bad guy (through 'his' incompetence, sadism, hypocrisy, etc) and Satan the good guy who defies the putz.

That's how that fantasy develops. It's the logical outcome of the anthropomorphic interpretation created by the abrahamic religions. If you are paying attention and have any sense, you will see Lucifer as the genuine champion and hero of men from the very moment of his inception when he demonstrates the hypocrisy of god when being told to prostrate himself before inferior beings (humans), something god himself would never do.

Lucifer here represents keeping the natural order of rank, respecting it and taking it seriously, god represents the wanton abuse of power and whimsically playing with the ranks as if they are toys. God betrayed Lucifer, not the other way around. Ya'll need to read that joint (bible) esoterically fer real.

Lucifer definitely felt betrayed when God made Jesus the Lord of the Angels. My interest in Paradise Lost was revived this Christmas when someone gave me What in Me is Dark by Orlando Reade. It's about Milton's influence on later generations. I"ve already mentioned the chapters on Jefferson and Wordsworth. The other chapters I've read are about George Eliot, the Haitian slave rebellion, abolitionists in the U.S. who were inspired by Paradise Lost and (paradoxically) a group of New Orleans Jim Crow Mardi Gras revelers. I have yet to get to Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, Malcom X, and U.S. prisoners (to whom REade taught literature for several years).

The book is excellent. Darwin (I learned) carried a copy of the great epic to the Galapagos. Creation in Milton's poem resembles evolution more than in some other depictions. When the land appears out of the water, at first it is barren, but then trees grow and animals appear. Creation does not occur suddenly, as if someone turned on a light.

The book also reminded me of some excellent sections of the poem. When Adam asks Raphael how angels procreate, Raphael blushes and then says:

Easier than air with air, if Spirits embrace,
Total they mix, union of pure with pure
Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need,
As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.

Woo, woo! Pretty hot stuff! (Eve also leaves Adam to question Raphael, preferring to hear what the angel said while enjoying Adam's "conjugal embrace")

I'm halfway through the book and will post again when I get to interesting chapters. .

[bahman]

Paradise=Fantasy!

[Alexiev]

Paradise=Fantasy!

Perhaps. But that may not be the lesson of Paradise Lost. When Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden (Paradise), Eve says,

"In me is no delay with thee to go..."

An angel leads Adam and Eve by their hands out of Eden.

"They looked back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat..."

The gates of Eden were closing to them, and Eden becoming a desert. But Milton ends his epic with these brilliant lines:

Some natural tears they shed, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.


Adam has renounced Eden to stay with Eve. For him, (and for Eve who wished no delay) that was Paradise enough.