Concerning literary theory, this thesis promotes the view that Milton acceeded to the idea that in literature there exists a hierarchy of forms (ranging in order of value from the epic to the tragedy, from the tragedy to the comedy, and from the comedy to the lyric). The principal consideration throughout the work is whether the epic or the tragedy is the highest of all literary forms. Milton's debt to Plato and Aristotle is discussed, and his disagreement or agreement with Aristotle's evaluation of tragedy as superior to the epic is debated. This argument gives rise to an even wider problem, that of the relative merits and influences of Platonism and Aristotelianism and how those two forces, sometimes complementary, sometimes opposed, influenced Milton and the sixteenth-century Italian critics whom Milton acknowledges as worthy critics for a poet to follow, A further chapter is devoted to a fundamental point in literary theory which arises out of the previous considerations the proper place of the concepts of the general and the particular in poetry and in art generally. Milton's own attitude to particularization and generalization is, of course, the object of the speculation. The argument of the thesis, following upon this lead, devotes itself for a chapter to the manner and result of Milton's attitude, as it is shown by the construction of Paradise host. The consideration of his construction thence leads to what is probably the key to the understanding of the epic as a wholes the unequalled accomplishment of the most complete time-scheme found anywhere in poetry. The core of the thesis is presented in the consideration of Book IX of Paradise Lost, which is recognized as the tragedy within the whole epic, self-contained, and offering therefore itself as the answer to those (like Aristotle) who object to the lack of concentration and the overly diffuse nature of epics in general, The final chapter of the thesis points in a new direction. This question is asked: What is the value of Paradise Lost? And several of the emotional tests of value are considered, because of its integration with the thesis as a whole, there has been added a consideration of Samson Agonistes, with special reference to Aristotle, in the form of an Appendix. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Renaissance England was a period of tremendous flux; ideas about science, gender and knowledge or how we come to knowledge come under examination. These areas of flux intersect with the text examined here in their relationship to the key concept of nature. In John Milton’s, Paradise Lost, nature appears in various forms over sixty times. By first examining the word nature in relation to the ideas in flux during the period and next examining Milton’s use of the word in the epic, an overlooked yet significant aspect of his epic emerges. Milton uses the mutability of nature to further “justify the ways of God to man.” How his use of nature develops an association between nature and Eve is of even greater significance. In a carnivalesque inversion of the convention of the period, Milton’s development of nature in the poem and his development of the association of Eve with nature reveal an association of Eve with human nature.

The object of this study will be to call attention to the gradually developing interest in the poem and the varying interpretations of it.

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In this essay, I argue that the angel Raphael introduces a poetic sensibility into Paradise in order to provide Adam and Eve with “equipment for living” after the Fall. Unlike other critics who have interpreted Raphael as a poet, I focus on the implications of Raphael’s poetic teaching for postlapsarian life. I also call attention to the dangerous effects of Raphael’s “song,” which awakens Adam’s insatiable curiosity about forbidden subjects even as Raphael cautions him to practice temperance and “be lowly wise.” Raphael aims to both “delight and instruct” his audience through poetic discourse, but Milton shows him struggling as Adam’s delight interferes with the angel’s efforts to instruct him. I discuss Raphael’s attempts to mitigate Adam’s enthrallment at his words through disclaimers that remind him to remain temperate in his pursuit of knowledge and to resist subjection to beauty and pleasure—including the charm of “song.” Through Raphael’s meditations on the challenges of poetic representation, Milton reflects on the double-sided nature of his own craft. My essay seeks to reconcile the beneficial purpose of Raphael’s visit with its troubling effects. By reading Raphael’s careful efforts to temper and reorient Adam’s curiosity alongside Milton’s statements on the value of literature in Areopagitica, I explore Milton’s sense of how pleasure, doubt, and even temptation—if rightly tempered—can aid fallen humans in the cultivation of faithful obedience. / text

There have been many studies of keywords in Paradise Lost. Over the last fifty or so years words such as �wander�, �lapse�, �error�, �fruit�, �balmy�, �fall�, �hands�, among others, have attracted critics� attention. The present enquiry brings under scrutiny three linked keywords which have up to now escaped notice. These are the words �bliss�, �delight�, and �pleasure�. The fundamental proposition of the thesis is that Milton does not use these words haphazardly or interchangeably in his epic poem (though in other of his poetic productions he is by no means as fastidious). On the contrary, he self-consciously distinguishes among the three terms, assigning to each its own particular �theatre of operations�. Meant by this is that each keyword is selectively referred to a separate structural division of the epic, thus, �bliss� has reference specifically to Heaven (or to the earthly paradise viewed as a simulacrum of Heaven), �delight� to the earthly paradise in Eden and to the prelapsarian condition nourished by it; while �pleasure�, whose signification is ambiguous, refers in its favourable sense (which is but little removed from �delight�) to the Garden and the sensations associated with it, and in its unfavourable one to postlapsarian sensations and to the fallen characters. Insofar as the three structural divisions taken into account (Hell is not) are hierarchically organized in the epic, so too are the three keywords that answer to them. Moreover, in relating keywords to considerations of structure, the thesis breaks new ground in Paradise Lost studies.

There have been many studies of keywords in Paradise Lost. Over the last fifty or so years words such as �wander�, �lapse�, �error�, �fruit�, �balmy�, �fall�, �hands�, among others, have attracted critics� attention. The present enquiry brings under scrutiny three linked keywords which have up to now escaped notice. These are the words �bliss�, �delight�, and �pleasure�. The fundamental proposition of the thesis is that Milton does not use these words haphazardly or interchangeably in his epic poem (though in other of his poetic productions he is by no means as fastidious). On the contrary, he self-consciously distinguishes among the three terms, assigning to each its own particular �theatre of operations�. Meant by this is that each keyword is selectively referred to a separate structural division of the epic, thus, �bliss� has reference specifically to Heaven (or to the earthly paradise viewed as a simulacrum of Heaven), �delight� to the earthly paradise in Eden and to the prelapsarian condition nourished by it; while �pleasure�, whose signification is ambiguous, refers in its favourable sense (which is but little removed from �delight�) to the Garden and the sensations associated with it, and in its unfavourable one to postlapsarian sensations and to the fallen characters. Insofar as the three structural divisions taken into account (Hell is not) are hierarchically organized in the epic, so too are the three keywords that answer to them. Moreover, in relating keywords to considerations of structure, the thesis breaks new ground in Paradise Lost studies.

In my reading of Milton criticism I have discerned what I feel to be a major deficiency, a deficiency consequent upon a too narrow approach to Paradise Lost. Whether they are anti-Miltonists who claim that Paradise Lost offers little to the twentieth-century - except the first two books; or orthodox Christian critics: who read Paradise Lost with an extreme doctrinal bias; or critics favourable to Milton and not narrowly doctrinal - the major Milton scholars, by succumbing to Milton's stated intentions when those intentions come into conflict with the impressions of the poetry, have easily adopted the traditional attitude towards the action in Eden: they accept the dictum that Adam and Eve are not human, until! the Fall. They give Milton little credit for humour, for the creation- of domestic comedy. Professor A.J.A. Waldock (Paradise Lost and Its Critics)) has correctly noticed that Milton's statements of intention do not always match his performances. By reading the poem in the light of his thesis, I have in this paper -after my first chapter on Milton criticism - attempted to show how Milton the poet has transcended Milton the doctrinaire by creating In Eden a good deal of domestic comedy. It is my belief that Adam and Eve are individuals - and human - before the Fall, and that when we view them (and Raphael) as real people acting and interacting in character, we will see that the action in Paradise is instinct with the humour of domestic comedy. In the second chapter, although I have stressed the humour in the middle books, I have not neglected the pathos that accompanies this humour. In my third chapter I have tried to show how this reading of Eden - a reading which succumbs to the poetical impressions rather than to the doctrinal statements - has its effect on the poem as a whole, how it makes the poem rather a human tragedy than a divine comedy. The final chapter is summary impart; but in the last section: I endeavour to mitigate the impression- that the thesis might have created - that Paradise Lost is merely a tragedy of two individuals - by stressing the poetical power of the element of myth In the poem. This thesis is written in the belief that any approach to Paradise Lost which stresses - favourably or unfavourably -the doctrine of the poem as against the poetical impressions (when the two clash) will have little appeal to the non-orthodox reader, and will miss the vital humanity with which Milton has invested his epic. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

My thesis is a study of the poetic origin of Milton's Satan and his significance apart from his dramatic function in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. I have tried to establish Satan's poetic origin by investigating the studies of a number of prominent critics, Milton's own prose works, such as the Eikonoklastes and his Second Defence, and also the correspondences between Satan's speeches and the words of King Charles I in his Eikon Bazilike. From these studies I have drawn the conclusion that Milton used King Charles I as he appears in the Eikon Bazilike as his model for Satan. Since Milton hated the King for his tyranny, Milton's emotional involvement and the human model resulted in the portrayal of a Satan, whose vividness and realism make him one of the most towering Satans in world literature. Satan's true significance lies in his revelation of Milton's personality. He reflects Milton's thoughts, his political and religious philosophy, his attitudes towards contemporary events, and his personality traits. Milton's development of Satan's personality reveals his unsurpassed craftsmanship as a poetic artist. As we follow Satan's career we discover a new Milton, differing enormously from the generally accepted conception of a stern Puritan. The Milton revealed in Satan's action has a keen appreciate of all that is beautiful in the universe, besides moral values. He has a sense of humour and a capacity for friendship, hitherto found incompatible with Milton's retiring character. Paradise Lost also shows us Milton's hope for the future. In man's regeneration he looks forward to an England liberated from the tyranny of kings, while his spiritual vision embraces the realization of God's initial purpose when he created man; namely, that "Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth." / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to isolate and examine aspects of Paradise lost which identify it as a myth. The problem involves two matters: how Milton's version of the creation and the fall differs from the Biblical and doctrinal accounts, and how Milton's poem reflects certain traits characteristic of mythologizing in general. The introductory first chapter establishes a working definition of "myth", based primarily upon Greek precedents. It also attempts to define the distinct kind of consciousness reflected by myths and mythic poets, a consciousness based upon an illusion of reality which is credited as accurate and factual. From this starting point, the four major figures of Paradise Lost are subsequently examined for evidence of how Milton's poem achieves a similar illusion and a clearly Puritan expression of the mysteries of life and death. Since the emphasis will be on Milton's myth and not on the development of mythologies or on Milton's place in Christian and classical traditions in English literature, discussion is limited to Paradise Lost itself, with only occasional and selected reference to the chief Greek mythic poets, Homer and Hesiod. In Chapters two through five, each of the four figures is discussed first from a logical point of view, to indicate in a negative way how they conform to the non-rational aspect typical of mythical thought. Each figure is then discussed in terms of the definition of myth laid down in chapter one to indicate how Milton adopts and expands upon non-rational and contradictory elements in order to achieve a new figure and to remake the mystery each figure embodies. The conclusion reached is that Paradise Lost is a myth in its own right, remodeled to suit Milton's particular purposes and expressive of Puritan consciousness. It is suggested that, once the key terms of Milton's myth ("Goodness," "Evil," "Disobedience," "Free Will) are understood as mysteries, not philosophical abstractions, and once it is understood how they complement and fulfill one another, the story of Paradise Lost becomes more comprehensive, valid, and pertinent. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate