Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:46:22.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

2 - Typology and Milton's Masterplot

Thomas Festa
Affiliation:
State University of New York
Kevin J. Donovan
Affiliation:
Middle Tennessee State University
Get access

Summary

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.

Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”

The sixteen-line opening sentence of Paradise Lost runs through a series of biblical scenes. The four prepositions modifying the main verb condense providential history and situate the narrative of the poem within that larger arch: “Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden, till one greater man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, / Sing heavenly muse.” The passage compresses biblical history and the 10,565 lines of Paradise Lost to a six-line summary while prefiguring the paradigmatic structure of the epic. The “man” of the first line recurs in the fourth to produce an analogy between the two. The parallel between the disobedient man and the “greater man,” mirrors the association of Eden, in the fourth line, with the “blissful seat” of the fifth. Rather than a return to Eden, the “blissful seat” suggests the post-Revelation heavenly kingdom and the “living temples,” of the redeemed Christian heart (12.527). Adam is not subsumed to Christ, the “Greater Man,” just as Eden is not sublated to the “Blissful seat.” Rather, the relationship between them is typological: that of type to antitype. The figures represent successive scenes in God's master-narrative, aligned to represent history as a purposeful succession of analogous figures and situations. These lines both condense Milton's justification of providence and indicate the poem's principal form of organization: typology.

The invocation of the Holy Spirit, Milton's “heavenly Muse,” connects the inspiration of the Pentateuch to the composition of Paradise Lost. Milton's muse is Mosaic, the same “that on the secret top / Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire / That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed / In the beginning how the heavens and earth / Rose out of chaos” (1.6–10). He connects Moses’ inspired writing during the forty-day fast on Sinai and the education of the Israelites to his own epic intentions. Set apart on the “secret top,” sacer, the primal scene of Judeo-Christian holy teaching is figural for Milton. It anticipates subsequent scenes of divine guidance, including the Pagan muses’ perversion of the “divine afflatus” (noted in Fowler, 58).

Type
Chapter
Information
Scholarly Milton , pp. 41 - 60
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×