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That no serious student of Milton considers Satan the hero of Paradise Lost is no longer a debatable proposition. Milton's concept of heroic man, however, remains the subject of much critical discussion. The poet's iterated vaunts, he will sing of "deeds above heroic”, has earned him the displeasure of a host of commentators, none of whom are at all certain of Milton's final attitude concerning what is is that makes men heroes. This thesis, by focusing on Milton's Christianity, sets out to show that Milton's religious belief provided him with new and enlarged scope for the delineation of heroic virtue, to show that the new dispensation heralded by Christ made it possible, theoretically, for all men to heroes, and for men to be superior to, or better heroes than any of the worthies whose careers antedated Paradise Lost. Accepting magnanimity as the single virtue that most closely corresponds to heroic virtue, I have attempted to demonstrate that magnanimity, what I have called perfect heroism, was not fully possible for man until Christ's advent. Milton, I have contended, deliberately sets out to show the inferior condition in which men lived before the Son manifested himself. Basing my discussion on Milton's three major poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, I have tried to show how Milton reveals the inferior condition in which men lived before, the new dispensation. I have tried to show that perfect heroism is a manifest impossibility while man is innocent, while he obeys God's sole commandment. I have tried to show that man's lot after the fall and before Christ's coming similarly precludes perfect heroism, to show that man's imperfect comprehension of faith rendered him incapable of realizing his highest human potentialities. Perfect heroism, magnanimity, is revealed in only one of Milton's three great poems: Paradise Regained. Milton’s perfect hero, his exemplary model of what man can aspire to do and to be, is Christ himself. Innocent Adam's career is circumscribed. Fallen man's capacity for heroism is limited by his ignorance of God's grand design. Milton makes it very clear that the only bona fide hero is Christ, the protagonist of Milton's brief epic, a distinctively Christian hero. Milton's Christian faith permitted no real or viable alternative. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to prove that Milton was keenly interested in the process of time and made use of historical materials to demonstrate in his poetry and prose his belief that God's omnipotent will controlled human destiny. While Milton's formalized attempts at history-portrayal were confined to his Brief History of Moscovia and History of Britain, his fascination for history was also expressed in his political and social treatises as well as in the great epic poems that he wrote during the final period of his life. Milton's view of human destiny closely resembled the traditional Christian concept of history as formulated by St. Augustine in The City of God. The providential, universalistic epochal and teleological aspects of the Christian view of history were all present in Milton's concept of the destiny of man. Milton, however, did not merely reproduce these traditional ideas; he transformed them to fit his conception of God's will dynamically operating in the affairs of man. This thesis attempts to show that Milton did not reproduce historical material for its own sake. His prime concern was "to instruct and benefit" the reader. The theme which Milton wished to convey was two-fold. Firstly, he demonstrated that God's will was sovereign; nothing transpired in history apart from the controlling will of God. Secondly, Milton stressed the idea that, while God's will was an indisputable absolute, the free will of man was operative in history. There was, therefore, a direct connection between the process of history and human moral behavior. Man's chief responsibility on earth was to conform voluntarily to God's revealed will. Milton thus profusely illustrated from biblical and secular history that individuals and nations who disobeyed the will of God lapsed inevitably into political, domestic, and spiritual bondage. As far as Milton was concerned, there was no liberty apart from submission to the will of God. In this thesis an attempt has been made to apply the term "Baroque" to Milton's portrayal of human destiny. In spite of his antipathy towards Roman Catholic institutions and practices, Milton demonstrated in his poetry the sense of certainty and affirmation which characterized the Baroque painting and architecture of Italy after the Counter-Reformation. By means of panorama, spectacle, and dynamism—techniques which have been considered by many critics as particularly apparent in Baroque art— Milton portrayed his concept of the dominating, unifying, and benevolent will of God dynamically controlling and directing human destiny. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1932 C31

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1957 C87 / Master of Science

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John Milton's Christian Doctrine reveals a number of doctrinal opinions clearly in disagreement with the orthodox Christianity of his day. His four major heresies, his monism itself, his theory of creation ex Deo, his anti-Trinitarianism, and his mortalism, form a logical system, developed in accordance with his monistic conception of the cosmos.Milton's monism denies the Platonic dualism between matter and spirit. He presents a world which is a continuum in which that which is usually called material is merely further removed from God than that which is normally called spiritual. This monism serves as the basis of his concepts of the universe, God, and humanity.Since Milton sees God as the total of reality, the things of this world cannot have their source in anything outside God. They cannot be created either from a preexistent prime matter or from nothing. His monism requires that they somehow be created ex Deo, from God's own substance.Milton's monism denies the possibility of the traditional concept of the Trinity. The Son is neither coeternal, co-essential, nor co-equal with the Father. The Holy Spirit is even less important, subordinate to both Father and Son. Since Christ must also be a unity, Milton presents a unique concept of the Incarnation, in which two total persons are mysteriously combined into one new person.His monism requires that the human being also be a unity. Two heresies result: (1) Traducianism, in which the soul is generated by the parents just as is the body; (2) Thnetopsychic mortalism, in which the entire human being dies together and then is resurrected to either reward or punishment.Through a study of monism, Milton's reader can find a key to the phenomenon of John Milton. He uniquely combines his monism with a staunch Biblical literalism, presenting himself as a Christian, but a Christian with a difference-a Christian who will allow no outside authority of any kind to define his faith. As a part of Milton's general application of a monistic cosmos to all his thought, the monistic continuity of the Miltonic heresy can clearly be discovered.

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