There exists a wide divergence of opinion as to whether Milton is an orthodox Christian. This thesis argues that upon examination Milton's alleged heresies come out quite clearly as transpositions of orthodox belief rather than as departures from it, and that Milton as the author of Paradise Lost emerges as an outstanding Christian apologist because he soared in his singing robes to present the orthodox Christian story of redemption with unsurpassed beauty and eloquence. This re-examination of the problem of Milton's relationship to orthodoxy centers upon Paradise Lost and The Christian Doctrine, in which there is doctrinal consistency. According to the poet's own terms of reference the appeal to Scripture as described in the Westminster Confession is the true criterion for orthodoxy. In the face of mainstream Christianity's claim that Milton's beliefs must be measured against the creedal statements, Milton holds that not only his beliefs but the creeds themselves must be weighed in the balance of Scripture. Milton's deviation from the established norm of the early creedal statements is seen to be negligible, but when he unequivocally disagrees with the Nicaean Creed which states definitively the Trinitarian position, he has been thought to put himself outside orthodoxy's circle. However, this thesis argues that Milton can only be charged with heresy if the question of his relationship to the Nicaean Creed is superficially regarded or grossly oversimplified. Accordingly, Milton's alleged heresies--his anti-Trinitarianism, materialism, and mortalism--are examined against the background not only of the content of the classical statements regarding these subjects but also of the fundamental conceptions that the statements of Athanasius, Augustine and others were intended radically to emphasize. Ultimately, the argument for Milton's orthodox imagination and intention depends upon a demonstration of the fact that Milton's theological deviations are not the result of the omission of any of creedal orthodoxy's vital elements but rather the result of emphasis of certain points. This proposition finds its crucial test in Milton's attitude toward the doctrine of the atonement. In Paradise Lost Milton uses several transpositions of orthodox belief rather than heresies and employs them to forward his poetic purposes. The process of selection and manipulation is seen to be governed not only by a powerful and positive religious sensibility, but also by an unerring sense of what is artistically appropriate. How Milton, the Puritan, achieved expression in the form of the epic is, in simple terms, the account of how his emphasis on will provides the momentum of the great argument, and how the elements of traditional Christianity are emphasized, subordinated, or transposed to suit the poet's driving purpose. Milton's announced purpose of justifying the ways of God to men is fulfilled in a strange but revealing manner. A God who is ipso facto beyond comprehension is subjected to rational analysis within the confines of epic convention. Some low moments and absurdities result. Yet, in spite of some logical impasses, Milton succeeds magnificently. Not all Adam's questions are answered but he experiences a Paradise within him, happier far. The consumation of Milton's argument and the resolution of the reader's doubt come with the realization, O goodness infinite, goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce, And evil turn to good; more wonderful Then that which by creation first brought forth Light out of darkness! (XII, 469-73) This ultimate triumph, so Miltonic and yet so entirely orthodox, so imaginatively satisfying and so in keeping with the whole structure of the poem, is the final proof that, doctrinally as well as poetically, we have here "nothing but well and fair". / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This is a preliminary investigation of the empirical and formal conditions necessary to provide a full description of the metrical structure of Paradise Lost. My study is immediately concerned with the scansion of a corpus of 2018 lines of the poem. The centre of the study is the specification of a generative model set to provide structural descriptions, i.e., scansions. Some anomalies of this model are considered in the final chapter. A scansion is recorded for each line in the corpus. I provide an impressionistic survey of lexical and syntactic phenomena in the corpus, an analysis of equivalence-substitution metrical analysis, a taxonomy of elision by apocope in the corpus, a brief investigation of elision by syncope and a speculative analysis of caesura. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis concerns questions of being in good relation, with others and the created world, in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which shows interdependent and positive self-other relationships in Eden, as well as a mutual, constructive, and enduring relationship between God and humanity. Working with Lee Morrissey’s suggestion that “subjectivity requires difference, not, as Adam had assumed, similarity” (“Eve’s Otherness” 340), my thesis not only suggests that Milton’s poem esteems relationships that recognize others as welcome additions to the self – hence, Milton’s “other self” (8.450, 10.128) – rather than subtractions or even self-absorptions, but also explores what specific differences emerge across relationships (e.g., God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit versus Satan, Sin, and Death) and how they might fulfill or, conversely, upend God’s plan for His original created good to continue as such. I argue that within Paradise Lost, both earthly and divine self-identity develops and becomes fully realized only through relationships with others. And further, because the good in the created world of Paradise Lost comes from humanity’s relationship with God, this relationship is the basis of all relationships that are good. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation studies relationships in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a poem that shows interdependent and positive self-relationships in Eden, as well as a mutual, beneficial, and enduring relationship between God and humanity. My thesis not only suggests that Milton’s poem extols relationships that recognize others as welcome additions to the self rather than subtractions or even self-absorptions, but also explores what specific differences emerge across relationships (e.g., God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit versus Satan, Sin, and Death) and how they might help or impede God’s plan for His original created good to continue for all time. I argue that within Paradise Lost, both earthly and divine self-identity develops and becomes fully realized only through relationships with others. Further, because the good in the created world of Paradise Lost comes from humanity’s relationship with God, this relationship is the basis of all relationships that are good.

<p> Recent scholarship has added to our knowledge about the court masque, reinforcing its significance for the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Milton's Comus has profited from such re-assessment so that its high valuation as dramatic literature need no longer be regarded as incompatible with its success as a court masque. The new seriousness of approach to the court masque in general and Milton's Comus in particular provides the impetus for an examination of the rest of Milton's poetic output for the purpose of tracing there the influence of his experience with the complimentary court entertainment.</p> <p> The court entertainment was encomiastic in intent, this encomium being patterned according to certain conventions. Paradise Lost, which praises God, uses a number of these conventions. Contrary to usual epic practice, Milton does not immortalize worldly conquests and compliment the statesmanship of his nation's leaders. Early notions of a British epic, to use the Arthurian or other indigenous material, were abandoned in favour of a work to celebrate the heavenly king and the spiritual kingdom. In the finished poem epic structures are interpreted in ways suggestive of the influence of court pageantry. Encomium of the heavenly king is expressed in the God-centred structure of Paradise Lost. The whole action of the poem focusses on the throne of the omniscient viewer. The angels sing and dance about this throne as the court danced before royalty in the court entertainment, and even creation is the setting for "a Race of Worshippers" (VII.630). A foil to the glory of Heaven, provided in the parodic activities of the fallen angels in Hell, suggests the conventions of the antimasque and the comedy of misrule. The victorious reign of Christ is celebrated, as many a pageant celebrated the reign of a seventeenth-century king, in a tournament. A mock battle in which no one is maimed, this culminates in the triumphal entry of Christ himself in a pageant chariot, symbolically banishing, rather than waging battle with, the forces of evil. In Satan's pilgrimage to earth even the traditional epic wanderings are transformed into an allegoric progress. The devices of the court entertainment inform the action of the poem, which is made up of processions, ceremonies and masques. The scenic spectacle, too, is influenced by the theatrical effects and iconography of royal pageantry.</p> <p> One might expect Heaven and Hell to be presented in terms of allegoric theatre, but in Paradise Lost even the garden itself is a golden world which works according to the pastoral conventions that so often informed court entertainments. Adam and Eve are the poem's legendary rulers. As he describes the pomp of the prelapsarian kingdom, Milton relies on a knowledge of contemporary pageantry. Here such pageantry expresses the perfection of the most perfect earthly kingdom of all. Referring to a legend often used to glorify the British court, Milton says of Paradise: "Hesperian Fables true, / If true, here only" (IV.250-51). To see Paradise Lost in the context of the contemporary pageantry and masque theatre is to see it not as history reconstructed, but as historic incident transmuted through the use of a series of literary devices into encomiastic fiction. The fictional world of the poem is designed to justify the workings of God's creation; it glorifies the providence of the omnipotent creator.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

ohn Milton (1608-1674) lived in an age marked by religious discussion. The English Civil War (1640) had one of its supporters involving religion, literary texts were composed with biblical allegories, and Milton, following the habits of his own time, created literary works with sacred influence. For this reason and for a long time, Paradise Lost has been seen under the biblical myth that served as material basis for the composition of the epic. Before the Romantics, few critics had dared to leave the comfort zone and had rehearsed an analysis that took care of other aspects besides the contributions of classical authors and literary works or the biblical myth itself. The Romantics opened up a new critical line which was concerned with the characters of Paradise Lost, in special Satan. They heard the voices that bring to life the epic narrative and they had found a model for their own age. The heroic noble Satan of the Romantics, however, does not respond to the complexity of the character. Far from being a mere embodiment of evil, an element that can be blamed for all misfortune, the Miltonic Satan has in himself traces from the anterior good. He is victimized by the understanding of his present and slaughtered with the memories of his past; the character is placed between the image of a great leader externalized to the other angels, and the doubts that overcome his thoughts. This thesis aims to counteract these two parts of the character. / John Milton (1608-1674) viveu em um período marcado pela discussão religiosa. A guerra civil inglesa (1640) tivera um de seus suportes envolvendo a religião, textos literários foram compostos com alegorias bíblicas, e Milton, seguindo os hábitos de seu tempo, criou obras com influência sacra. O Paradise Lost, por causa disso, foi, durante muito tempo, observado à luz do mito bíblico que serviu de matéria base para a composição do épico. Antes dos românticos, poucos críticos ousaram sair da zona de conforto e ensaiaram uma análise que cuidava de outros aspectos além da contribuição de autores e obras clássicas ou do mito bíblico. Com os românticos, abriu-se definitivamente uma linha crítica atenta às personagens do Paradise Lost, em especial de Satã. Eles ouviram as vozes que dão vida à narrativa épica e descobriram um modelo para o seu próprio tempo. O Satã heróico e nobre dos românticos, no entanto, não responde à complexidade da personagem. Longe de ser uma mera materialização do mal, um elemento que possa ser culpado por todo o infortúnio, o Satã de Milton abriga em si vestígios do bem anterior. Vitimado pela compreensão de seu presente e abatido com as memórias do passado, a personagem coloca-se entre a imagem de grande líder exteriorizada aos outros anjos e as dúvidas que dominam os seus pensamentos. Esta dissertação tem por objetivo contrapor essas duas partes da personagem.

On reading the biblical version of the Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis ii-iii) we find that the presentation lends itself to two possible interpretations: on the one hand, we may regard the narrative as being a mere history of two lives; or, what is more likely, we may see in the report an attempt to explain the present state of the World through an allegorical account of the entrance of evil into the mind of Man and so into the Macrocosm. [...]

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The seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost is one of the most widely studied texts in all of literary history. The work, written by John Milton, depicts Satan's fall from Heaven and subsequent deeds on Earth and in Hell. One of the more remarkable and, often, most overlooked scenes in the story involves the distinctive personification of Sin and Death. Milton depicts Sin as the daughter of Satan, with no mention of a mother, born through a process of spontaneous generation. Satan then becomes so captivated by his daughter's wickedness that he forces himself upon her, causing Sin to bear a son, Death. This illustration is striking, especially given that it also appears in the opening pages of the fourteenth-century Mirour de l'Omme (c. 1376) by John Gower. In both Milton and Gower's poems, Satan, Sin, and Death are personified as having this familial, incestuous relationship which ultimately creates the world's evils. Their depictions are not merely reminiscent of one another, but rather, often match up in nearly identical fashions. John S. P. Tatlock was the among the first to notice these similarities, but was also quick to express his hesitance to say with any sort of assurance that Milton had read Gower: "Since only one manuscript of the Mirour is known, and that was never published until seven years ago [1899], the chance is infinitesimal that Milton ever heard of the poem. But that his and Gower's sources are ultimately the same seems to me highly probable." Yet to date, no studies have been conducted to determine which shared sources could possibly lead Milton and Gower to construct such similar personifications of Sin and Death. Indeed, John Fisher notes that currently "the influence of the Mirour upon Paradise Lost remains an open question." It is upon this open question that I now attempt to help fill this century-old void in literary research / Master of Arts

This dissertation tries to locate Milton's optimistic view of man and nature as expressed in Comus, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and Paradise Lost in the long tradition of natural law that goes back to Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas.