A reminder to myself
Posted on 2006-11-14 at 21:40
Beaten back. Beaten down.
Busted body scraped the ground.
Cut and crushed, wounded cries,
A bloody face with daring eyes.
I'll rise again on trembling knee.
You can't beat the Will from me.
Sometimes, the reason needn't be deeper than spite.
Tivo is dead. Long live Tivo.
Posted on 2006-09-13 at 07:08
I've ordered my Tivo Series 3. Have you ordered yours? I requested Next Day Air, because I must have this before the weekend hits. Following is my epic "Ode to Tivo":
Roses are red.
My devotion is spastic.
My Series One is dead,
But Series Three is fantastic.
I should submit that masterwork to the American Poetry Review.
Freenet, Liberty, and Obscurity
Posted on 2006-04-06 at 07:30
The Freenet Project has released Freenet version 0.7 Alpha 1. To quote their own release notes:
Freenet 0.7 represents a major new approach to peer-to-peer network design. To protect the network, and the user's anonymity, Freenet users will now have the ability to connect directly to other people that they know and trust, together forming a "global darknet" making it extremely difficult for any third party, whether a government or another powerful organisation, to determine that a user is participating in Freenet, let alone what they are doing with it.
It's as I said on slashdot, though: I'd rather be free by liberty and than free by obscurity. To quote Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost:
This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat
Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt
From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league
Banded against his throne, but to remain
In strictest bondage, though thus far removed,
Under th' inevitable curb, reserved
His captive multitude.
Paradise Lost, Book II, Lines 317-323
Fighting from our dark places isn't really going to win this battle for Freedom. I appreciate what Freenet is doing. It's securing our fallback position. We need that, but we need more a willingness on the part of our citizenry to take the fight to the day-lit streets of the Mall in Washington D.C.
Edith Sitwell - Still Falls the Rain
Posted on 2006-01-25 at 09:05
The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn.
Still falls the Rain---
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.
Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet
On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain
In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.
Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us---
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.
Still falls the Rain---
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side:
He bears in His Heart all wounds,---those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear---
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.
Still falls the Rain---
Then--- O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune---
See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree
Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,---dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown.
Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lain---
"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."
My untitled happy snippet
Posted on 2006-01-16 at 10:15
Now peep the wild things from their dark places.
The light of the sun shines bright on their faces.
Milton's Mythological Restructuring Of The Fall
Posted on 2006-01-09 at 15:33
Abstract
Concerning Milton's poetic license in his recasting of the myth of Genesis and the Fall of Man.
Paper
Milton's work, Paradise Lost, retells the story of the Garden of Eden as found in Genesis, the first book in the canon of Hebrew Scriptures known as the Torah or Bible. This story relates the tale of the fall from grace which anthropos, the original man, supposedly had early on in human history. Due to the popularity of the story, it is not surprising that Milton, an educated man and poet, chose it as the subject for one of his works. What is worthy of note, however, is the multitude of ways in which he deviated from the original story. For example, while it is true that many are under the misunderstanding that Satan plays an important role in the Genesis story of the Fall, he does not. He is, in fact, not mentioned even once in the Book of Genesis and yet Milton confers on him a large role. Milton was a man educated in the Hebrew Bible and language from a young age by a tutor his father had hired, Thomas Young (c.f., Hutchinson 8ff.) and so it was unlikely that Milton was unaware of his discrepancies. It seems that for the reader to fully understand Milton's theology of the Fall, one must understand first what was changed in the story from the original and second what theological significance the change has.
The original story of the fall of man is presented in Genesis 3:1-7 and is abbreviated below:
[T]he serpent said to the woman, "You will not die [for eating fruit from the tree which God has said not to eat from]; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." ... [S]he took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:4-6)
In this story, as presented in Genesis, the two are tempted by the forbidden fruit at the prompting of a serpent who is later punished for his role in the affair. Thus they fall from grace and are cast from Eden to "toil" (Genesis 3:17) for all their days until death, which after the fall is now an eminent reality in their lives (Genesis 3:19). Before any detailed exegesis is begun, one must consider the work being dealt with. Genesis is not an historical work designed to describe accurately the early world and its origins. Genesis is a mythological work which is designed to describe accurately the relationship of God to his earthly creation and more precisely the relationship of God to his chosen people---the Jews. The exegesis of genesis, then, should account for a mythological framework and allow for the historical inaccuracies typically found in mythological works.
As any mythology, the book of Genesis makes heavy use of a complex symbol system which the early Jews would have invested with particular meaning. The fact that this symbol system is not immediately at hand for the average modern reader has caused some problems. Many of these problems arise as a result of the unusual nature of the characters in the story. The characters associated with The Fall are Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Some investigation reveals that the Hebrew word Adam---which means man---is intentionally similar to the Hebrew word Adamah---which means earth, dust, or ground. Also, the character of Adam was used early in the work to refer to all men. It was not until later editors of the story began adding new parts that Adam became an individual rather than collective man. The original concept of the character of Adam, then, was meant to represent the race of men as a whole and their relation to the ground which is God's other creation. Genesis, for these reasons, is notoriously ambiguous about Adam's status. Eve, on the other hand, seems less entangled by conflicting portrayals. Her name, which is similar the Hebrew word for life, shows that she is quite literally "the mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20), but moreover, she is also blamed and punished by God harsher than Adam for her apparently more significant role in The Fall. Though Adam was there with her with she was tempted, and though he did nothing to stop it, he is still punished less severely than her. The third character, the serpent, has been the primary point of confusion and misunderstanding in the story. Nowhere does it say that this serpent is Satan. Satan does not appear in the Torah (The first 5 books of the Bible also known as the Law) at all. It is not until the Kethuvim (The collection of Hebrew books known also as the Writings---as distinct from the Torah [law] and the Nebi'im [prophets]), in 1 Chronicles 21:1, that his name is uttered. Yet, for all this, most modern readers see the serpent as Satan in serpent form. The cause of this is likely the much later references to Satan as being analogous to a serpent or dragon. Though later Jews made this symbolic connection, the writers and editors of Genesis did not. The serpent's mythological meaning must be found elsewhere. Many scholars now believe that rather than a symbol of whole evil, the serpent may have been a symbol of life. It is known that many, if not most, primitive peoples associate the serpent or snake with life and rebirth because of its ability to shed its own skin seasonally and begin anew. If the ancient writers of Genesis were also working under this mythological symbology, then the story of The Fall takes on new meaning. Rather than the serpent representing that which is purely evil, it begins to represent that which is a synthesis of good and evil. Genesis becomes a story of man's inevitable entrance into life which has its temptations and its shortcomings, but also its joys and its invaluable experiences. Through it all, the Fall tells us that though we may stray in life, God is ever-present and ever-protective when needed (c.f. Genesis 3:21 & 4:15). Thus the myth of the Fall establishes an understanding of the nature of God's relationship to us from the beginning as one of unconditional concern for His creations.
Milton, as he attempts to recast the myth for a later audience, brings with him certain assumptions---primarily from his Puritanical background---which color his interpretation of the story. It is apparent from reading Paradise Lost that Milton was trying to convey the same truths that were presented there. He recognized that these truths were not present in the objects of the story but rather in the meaning and symbology of the story:
"The claim for the truth of events is absolute: these things happened; for the truth of images---the poem's places and personages---less absolute, but still insistent that the qualities and potencies bodied forth in them are real" (qtd. in Madsen 18)
It was not apparent accuracy in objects he strove for, but symbolic accuracy in meaning. Milton foreshadows the dynamics of The Fall as early as the creation story when Adam and Eve are first shown to be distinct in their inclinations. Eve, upon her creation, is transfixed by her own mirror image (c.f. Paradise Lost IV:443 ff) in a pool of water nearby---reminiscent of the story of Narcissus--- while Adam, in Book VIII:277ff, begins his life mindful of God's role in this event. Interestingly, this prelapsarian relationship between Adam, Eve, and God is not a mirror image of the one presented in Genesis. Instead of an equal and non-hierarchical relationship between Adam and Eve, Milton begins with Adam as the dominant partner as established by Eve's remark concerning Adam:
... O thou for whom
And from whom I was formd flesh of thy flesh,
And without whom am to no end, my Guide
And Head ... (Paradise Lost IV:440-443)
This can be contrasted with Genesis' understanding of their relationship as equal until after the Fall when God pronounced that man "shall rule over" woman (Genesis 3:16) as punishment for her sin whereas in the prelapsarian state, they were equal (c.f. Genesis 1:27-28 & 3:18-23).
To his defense, Milton had the difficult task of presenting an Adam and Eve who seemed believable, poetic, and yet not superficial or lofty. They are the archetypal civilized savages---an oxymoron which can only sustain existence in theory. Portraying their roles and relationships as presented in the book of Genesis is flatly impossible. They are ripe with contradiction partly as a result of their own ambiguity and partly as a result of the brevity of their roles in that earlier story. Genesis gave no substantial dialogue and thus avoided Milton's pitfall. Still, it seems that Milton was aware of this problem. Only in a few places does the dialogue become too philosophical for a savage or too savage for a philosopher. And yet this tension does exist. Whereas in the prelapsarian state of Genesis they are sinless and full of God's glory, the prelapsarian state of Paradise Lost shows them to be inescapably drawn toward the Fall. As Waldock put it in his work Paradise Lost And Its Critics, "[t]here was no way for Milton of making [sic] the transition from sinlessness to sin perfectly intelligible" (Waldock 61). As mentioned earlier, Eve spends her opening scene transfixed by her vanity, but it cannot be ignored that Adam is no saint either. Shortly after his creation Adam, not content with what he has been given, asks for more:
Thou hast provided all things: but with mee
I see not who partakes. In solitude
What happiness, who can enjoy alone,
Or all enjoying, what contentment find? (Paradise Lost VIII:663-666)
Later, in talking with Raphael, the Angel, he begins to slander even the helpmate which he'd asked for by first telling of his weakness for Eve's "Transported touch" and rather than accepting blame for his weakness he blames either the Maker (God) or Eve herself as a temptress:
... but here
Farr otherwise, transported I behold,
Transported touch; here passion first I felt,
Commotion strange, in all enjoyments else
Superiour and unmov'd, here onely weake
Against the charm of Beauties powerful glance.
Or Nature faild in mee, and left some part
Not proof enough such Object to sustain,
Or from my side subducting, took perhaps
More then enough; at least on her bestow'd
Too much of Ornament, in outward shew
Elaborate, of inward less exact. (Paradise Lost VIII:528-539)
"[C]arnal desire is not a surprising sequel to Adam's uxoriousness" according to Kelley in her work, This Great Argument (Kelley 149). Adam and Eve, in Milton's work, already possess those errant tendencies with contribute to the occurrence of the Fall. If fact, Adam and Eve have, by the very nature of possessing these tendencies, already fallen. They were created fallen. Here Milton's theology becomes evident. The Genesis story does not parallel this sentiment. In Genesis, Adam makes no such statements about Eve, nor does he ask for more from God than he is given. God's wisdom is sufficient to account for all of their needs (c.f. Genesis 2:18). Furthermore, Adam's understanding of his own urges is moralized in Milton's work in a way that does not mimic Genesis:
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:24-25)
In the above passage man and woman specifically do not consider this a cause of a strange "[c]ommotion." Milton's Puritanical and moralistic upbringing has crept into his work.
Satan's presence in the story thrusts into it a particularly interesting dynamic. He is shown as a fallen angel full of contempt and false pride. It is he, in Paradise Lost, who tempts Eve when she wanders away from Adam. By appealing to her vanity he seduced her into partaking of the forbidden fruit. Thus some would say she was felled rather than fallen by the serpent-disguised Satan. Having left a state of grace, she appealed to Adam to join her and he, not willing to give her up, did just that by eating the fruit as well. The Fall is complete. Madsen, in his work From Shadowy Types To Truth, describes Adam's fall as follows:
When he determines to throw in his lot with Eve, he has seen his image in her, just as Satan saw his image in Sin, and he turns from God to Eve, as Eve had turned from Adam to her own shadow in the water. (Madsen 104)
The question must then turn to who or what these figures (Adam, Eve, and Satan as the serpent) are meant to represent in Milton's mythological restructuring. One theory which seems supported by the text is the idea that while Adam and Eve may be symbolic of men and women universally, the other beings---angels, demons, and specifically Satan---are physical representations of God's hand in action. Thus the Fall, which in Milton's work is inevitable and expected, becomes God's will. Satan, Raphael and others in the story act as tangible markers of God's intangible work. Through Satan, God frees man to live and learn. Through Raphael, the reader sees God's ever-present protection and help when man needs it most. As if to make this point himself, Milton includes the following passage:
... so doth the Prince of Hell
And his Adherents, that with so much ease
I suffer them to enter and possess
A place so heav'nly, ...
And [they] know not that I call'd and drew them thither
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst
With suckt and glutted offal, at one sling
Of thy victorious Arm, well-pleasing Son,
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last
Through Chaos hurld, obstruct the mouth of Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous Jawes. (Paradise Lost X:621-637)
Here God is saying that not only is it through His will that they exist, but moreover, that they exist specifically to do His bidding. As James Sims explained it in his work, The Bible In Milton's Epics, "even these horrible monsters, unknown to themselves, fulfill His purposes" (Sims 157).
Paradise Lost is a story which tells of the relationship between God and His creations. It talks of God as ever-present in the lives of men, ever-caring for them, and even in punishment giving them the gift of life. Is this so different from the story told in Genesis? Though the characters, the crimes, and the plot are utterly different, the story remains substantially unchanged. The myth and its message are brought to a new audience using images that will convey to them the symbolic meaning which the Genesis images conveyed to the early Jewish readers. Milton seems to have succeeded in his endeavor. The Genesis story is retold and his changes, upon analysis, do betray his motives. The myth is recast.
Works Cited:
Other Works Consulted:
Robert Frost...
Posted on 2005-12-19 at 08:04
...summarizes my current existential reality with just a few lines:
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Tennyson and the Charge of the Light Brigade
Posted on 2005-12-19 at 08:01
Listen to Tennyson reading his own poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It was recorded by Thomas Edison and is one of the earliest recordings of a poet reading his own work.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Not a bad poet for an American
Posted on 2005-08-15 at 08:04
We never know we go,--when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.
Why did I discuss Rhythm and Meter above?
Posted on 2005-08-05 at 08:04
Because I just had to correct someone about the distinction between the two and it seemed like something worth clarifying. Besides, the next time someone says "that poem uses iambic pentameter" you will know what they are talking about. The more you know....
Meter
Posted on 2005-08-05 at 08:03
The meter of a poem is determined by counting the feet on a single line of poetry. What is a foot? Well, a metric foot is equal to one repetition of a rhymthic pattern. So, for instance, we I to repeat the iambic rhythm five times in the same line of poetry, then I will have five metric feet. The proper names for metric feet are found below:
Monometer: 1 foot
Dimeter: 2 feet
Trimeter: 3 feet
Tetrameter: 4 feet
Pentameter: 5 feet
Hexameter: 6 feet
Heptameter: 7 feet
Octometer: 8 feet
Rhythm
Posted on 2005-08-05 at 08:02
Rhythm is, simply put, the pattern or relation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of prose or poetry. The four most common poetic rhythms found are:
Iambic: - ^ (as in "She crossed the moat, and Christabel...")
Trochee: ^ - (as in "Once upon a midnight dreary...")
Dactyl: ^ - - (as in "Canon to right of them...")
Anapest: - - ^ (as in "His cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold...")
Note that in the above examples, a "-" means an unstressed syllable and a "^" means a stressed syllable. These are hardly the only poetic rhythms. Other less common rhythms include:
Pyrrhic - -
Tribrach: - - -
Bacchius: - ^ ^
AntiBacchius: ^ ^ -
Amphimacer: ^ - ^
Ionic a Minore: - ^ -
Chiriamb: ^ - - ^
Spondee: ^ ^
Molissos: ^ ^ ^
Antispast: - ^ ^ -
First Paeon: ^ - - -
Second Paeon: - ^ - -
Third Paeon: - - ^ -
Fourth Paeon: - - - ^
You figure it out
Posted on 2005-07-19 at 08:01
Tumbling down down down. The world still spins around. Like the sequins on an evening gown say nothing of the dancer's frown.
Moon
Posted on 2005-06-07 at 08:02
Gliding o'er a simple line
and floating toward her home
The fair faced Luna, aquiline,
Has wandered thus alone.
Breathing life in every man,
from savage to savant.
With each wax and with each wan,
thy visage we avaunt.
To legend, lore and mytheme all
thy globed form gave birth.
And yet each night that form doth fall
below the lowly earth.
Joshua, in vaunted tower,
did bid thy bulk be still.
And shaken by thy mystic power
"the mariner hath his will."
In Thoth, thy son, was time thus reined.
And through thy cycling walk
was future's fortune therein gained
---Urania's tongueless talk.
Yet man now seeks to bind,
through mathematics grand,
thy ellipse path as traced behind
thy transcendental hand.
Kepler and Copernicus
have seized thy conic course
and through the beaded abacus
have bound thy boundless force
The sacred tales of midnight dance,
which science did supplant,
gave thee a giant's countenance
yet now thou seemst an ant.
Perhaps 'tis true that Thor should run
from circling blades that sciences spin,
They've deadened Luna---her form undone---
to deconstruct the myths within.
In days of yore thy wizard's spell
would earth's clear waters reprimand,
enjoining tides to sink and swell
and march unto thy stern command.
Neptune, too, then bent his ear
to hear thy waves crash louder;
The foam and strand, afar and near,
crushing rock to powder.
Lifting high my telescope
and watching as you sink,
I howl a simple hymn of hope
that man might stop to think.
For should he mull and ponder long
about these things he's done,
then he, like me, might raise a song
to lift thee o'er the sun.
For unlike us who'll fade away,
as nature runs her race,
thy corpus yet will always stay
to grant the tides their pace.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my apathy toward humanity (it was a bad semester of college!)
Showcasing my apathy
Posted on 2005-06-07 at 08:01
I've added another poem to my poetry section. This one was written a while back, when I was in college and I was not pleased with humanity...I was also on an archiac language kick. Anyway, I wrote it, so there it is.
Dendron Koinonias
Posted on 2004-10-18 at 08:03
Brought together in my mind under a tree---
the memories of a lifetime forgotten. To cross
from this world into another, floating on a river
or a flood of ancient imagery I feel a tear
form which drags its way down a sullen cheek
as I pray for an eased relief from the yoke of life.
And as the penultimate whisper of the breath of life
deserts my aged body I look up to the tree
upon which I lay, feeling my sunken cheek
with a brittle hand, I think of a cross
and a man like me, near dead, nails forcing a tear
into hands that flow blood as the Nicene river.
And like the Nicene or Jordan or Euphrates river
that blood poured over the horizon, out of our life,
leaving nothing but twelve small men and a tear.
And I ask, as I lay in the comforting shade of my tree,
Why couldn't he come down from that cross?
When they rend one, why offer the other cheek?
With thorns they strike the Son of Man on His cheek
while the ungodly cross a shallower part of this river
we call life. Easier? Yes. Yet He chose the cross?
We were made to live---not suffer through life,
hanging onto the broken branch of a Messianic tree,
staring up, watching science and the world tear
at the sinewy strands of our faith until that tear
widens to bring us crashing down, bruised cheek,
like Him. Yet some land under a Newtonian apple tree
in an easier orchard where, unlike now, the river
of man doesn't take them down difficult paths of life
and where no one expects them to bear that terrifying cross.
And yet, for my part, I bore the heavy cross
and thoughts of each separate, streaming tear
fill my mind. My pneuma, the very breath of my life,
exhales now in a drumming rhythm with the water on my cheek.
And I think. Now I know. All I ever needed was a river,
a tree,
and Christ whose blood, like a tear, was shed for my life.
My cheek now grows ever paler as my soul trails down the Nicene river.
Now I understand. He died in pain on a cross that I might die at ease under a tree.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my faith
Dendron Koinonias
Posted on 2004-10-18 at 08:02
I just added a new poem to the poetry section of my site. This one is in the form of a Sestina.
Milton's Satan - Lucifer's Symbolic Meanings in Paradise Lost
Posted on 2004-08-01 at 08:03
Abstract:
Concerning Milton's portral of Satan in his work, Paradise Lost. I wrote this paper for an English class called Milton and Spenser. It makes the argument that Milton may have been trying to offer insight into our Western understanding of Hero and Villian with the Satan figure.
Paper:
In Milton's Paradise Lost, the character of Satan plays an interesting, if sometimes, ambiguous, part in the whole of the mythos being related. He is, at once, the epitome of the struggling individual fighting against oppression, the dark figure culled from our own religious experiences, and the cynical yet almost innocuous troublemaker who seeks to betray God while inadvertently doing His bidding. The question is begged by the text: Who is Milton's Satan? Most people are somewhat familiar with the biblical Satan---the Satan character as found in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures sometimes called the Old and New Testament. In general, people also seem familiar with the later interpretations of the character as a pitchfork-wielding, horned and tailed, shoulder-sitting tempter. In fact the typical reader of Milton's work is likely to be familiar with many different and often conflicting views of the Satan character. It is this historical and literary ambiguity which helps make Satan so delightful to the Miltonic reader. Satan, in Paradise Lost, is a character whose symbolic meaning, it will be argued, is manifold. He is the portrayal of a theological concept as well as a political ideal. Gerald J. Schiffhorst, in his work John Milton, discusses Milton's propensity to assign symbolic meaning to his characters.
Spenser was Milton's principle literary mentor, as he acknowledges in Areopagitica, and the first to treat epic material allegorically. [And b]ecause [Milton's] personified characters and events stand for moral, religious, or political ideas, he was able to combine classical and Christian elements in a single poem as symbols of truths beyond the literal level of the story [sic]. (Schiffhorst 70)
Certainly Milton was capable of imbuing Satan with even more plurality of meaning, and it is likely he did so, however the above two metaphorical roles---that of a theological and a political symbology--- stand out as significant and reoccurring themes within the text.
Before a study of Satan's metaphorical or allegorical meaning is begun, it would behoove the student to first look at the simple, literary, plot driven Satan as portrayed in the actual events of the story behind Paradise Lost. In this strictly literal interpretive sense, Satan plays a huge role. Created by God, Satan, an archangel in Heaven, becomes jealous and discontent with God's rule and His Son's glory. For these reasons he chooses to revolt against God and His faithful after inciting a large group of compatriots to join him. Once defeated by an angelic army of the remaining faithful, he and his fellow revolutionaries are cast into hell---a place of unending torment. Here the plot thickens. God, upon seeing His heavenly creation marred, seeks to repair the damage done by building another world. His reasoning in this is best left to His own words:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell,
Not here; till, by degrees of merit raised,
They open to themselves at length the way
Up hither, under long obedience tried;
And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One kingdom, joy and union without end. (Paradise Lost Book VII, 150-161)
Suddenly Satan is given (or so he believes) another indignity by God. This new creation, too, will be a source for jealousy and hatred against the God from which Satan was and still is rebelling. Satan then schemes to destroy God's new creation by tainting it with the seed of doubt and hubris to which Satan himself and all his horde had already fallen. The two separate stories of Satan's fall and Man's fall become parallel. This parallelism runs its course through the work until the end when the differences appear sharply to the reader. Satan does eventually tempt Man and Man does fall, just as Satan did before Him, yet Man, unlike Satan, learns from the error. Adam and Eve, in fact, suppliantly apologize to God for their transgression against Him---a step taken by neither Satan nor his crew. The story ends not with Satan centered in the conflict but with Man, as portrayed by Adam and Eve, moving into a new life in God's service. In a literal sense, Satan is the antagonist who drives the plot with his machinations. In a non-literal sense, he is far more.
Satan is the great adversary. He is the archfiend who we are to loath for his rebellious nature. Many have argued that this negative and contemptible Satan is non-existent within the text. To justify this position, those persons often refer to Satan as the hero figure of Paradise Lost. Ralph Waterbury Condee describes this heroic Satan in his work Structure in Milton's Poetry: From the Foundation to the Pinnacles.
I propose that Satan is not the hero of Paradise Lost, but that he is in a very significant way one of the heroes; ...Satan fades and Adam emerges as a hero during the course of the poem. Underling this fading and emergence are concepts of heroism which Milton presents, juxtaposes, and brings to fruition, as he moves through the story of Adam's creation, fall, redemption, and exile. (Condee 7)
He is most certainly correct in that assessment just as are all others who proclaim the characteristics of Satan to be categorizable as the Heroic ideal. Satan is a hero figure in the vein of all great Western epics. That fact is undeniable to anyone reading the text. To suggest, however, that merely being the stereotypical Western ideal of a hero makes a character positive is to assume a universal truth that Milton is pointedly showing to be false. Milton portrays him as the adversary to a powerful and, by Satan's account, tyrannical God.
...[Satan was] aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. (Paradise Lost Book I, 38-44)
Satan fights the valiant fight against this Oppressor and yet ultimately loses to Him. Some might argue that Satan knew all along that he could not win---but he fought and that is heroic. The reader might say so, at least. Milton, it seems, had another idea of heroism in mind though he never outwardly defines it. What, then, is it?
Milton defines heroism negatively by contrasting it with what it is not. It is not, as Satan repeatedly reveals in Paradise Lost, physical valor or military adventure. The very fact that Satan is given some traditional heroic attributes reveals Milton's dissatisfaction with the heroic tradition of the epic. (Schiffhorst 70)
Milton, rather than accepting standard interpretations of the heroic figure, chooses to reinvent the ideal by first showing the flaws in the older ideal, hence he chose to portray the hero, Satan, in a traditionally villainous role---that is, working against God. Milton creates for his audience a character who is at once someone we want to appreciate as heroic and valorous and someone we desperately want to see lose. For Milton, it appears that a hero is not that which has been described in Western literature for centuries, but rather someone who would defy that stereotype for God. Milton, repeatedly throughout the text, explains his reasoning in this. This is evident, for instance, in his punishment to Adam when God proclaims that "Because [Adam] hast hearkened to the voice of [his] wife, / And eaten of the tree, concerning which / [God] charged [him], saying, Thou shalt not eat thereof," Adam was punished. Adam, in choosing to be with his wife was acting as heroic as Satan ever had, but he was reminded of his duty to God first. Likewise, Satan is acting constantly in opposition to God, when, if he were to be a Miltonic hero, he would follow God regardless of heroic inclinations. Satan acts as God's adversary and by virtue of that fact he is not a hero but rather the Satan of Old and New Testament fame used in Paradise Lost to represent the theological heroic ideal by opposition.
The character of Satan also works within the poem to achieve a politically metaphorical objective. Before discussing this Miltonic objective, it is important to be familiar with the socio-historical environment out of which Milton is coming. Milton existed in a time of civil war and internal strife in England. In essence, there was a strong movement away from English governmental loyalty towards personal freedom. The Anglicans (the official church of England) sought to impose their doctrine onto other sects such as the Puritans (of which Milton was a member) and the government itself sought to impose its authority onto the lives of its citizenry farther than many of the citizenry wished. Nobles and Kings were impeached and in some cases killed. Religious wars began cropping up, such as the first and second Bishops' Wars in 1639 and 1640. Ireland rebelled against England in 1641. English civil war began in 1642. Nowhere was safe from this unrest. Marston Moor, Newbury, Naseby, and even Oxford and London were torn apart by warfare. Milton chose sides. He wrote his anti-prelatical pamphlets in 1641-1642, shortly after the Bishops' wars, as answer to propaganda literature from the opposing side in those wars. Later, Milton would go a step further. He took an interest not only in the ecclesiastical in-fighting but in the political wars as well. His works Defensio pro Populo Anglicano and Defensio Secunda, his first and second defense of the English people, published in 1651 and 1654 respectively, defended the drastic actions of his fellow revolutionaries---specifically in the regicide of King Charles I. Clearly, Milton saw himself as a revolutionary fighting against an oppressive ruler. Thirteen years later, in 1667, Paradise Lost was published detailing a Satan figure in much the same position as Milton himself. Free will became the paramount ideal that Satan represented. It could be argued that the free will being expressed in the story is a theological concept rather than a political one, but since it is Milton's political problems which help drive the creation of Paradise Lost, it is more likely that this free will is a refutation of royal and Anglican ecclesiastical authority more than a continuation of the ages old Augustine/Palagius theological free will debate.
The groundwork for Satan as representative of the struggle for free will is laid in his opening speech.
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell... (Paradise Lost Book I, 257-262)
Satan uses such words as "free" and "choice" in the face of a God who is described here as being in charge, not because of His divine glory, but because of His divine might ("...Thunder hath made [Him] great....") G. Rostrevor Hamilton, in his work Hero or Fool: A Study of Milton's Satan, addresses the issue of free will in heaven and why Satan rebelled against God.
...we may question whether the angels ought to be quite so completely happy as they are. They are not allowed to forget the merciless doom that awaits them if they fail in the test of prompt obedience. (Hamilton 36)
How bold and ironic that Milton, a Puritanical devotee, chose to represent the Puritanical movement with its own mythology's worst villain! And yet he did. Satan is no more or less a revolutionary than Milton himself. In fact, it is Satan's character who so poignantly expresses that which Milton would have wanted the world to know of himself against the powers-that-be.
...What though the field be lost?
All is not lost--the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. (Paradise Lost Book I, 105-111)
So too does Milton express this self-same sentiment in his political pamphlets. Milton and Satan are not so different in this respect. Satan is purposefully represented as the more tangible, the more real, of the spiritual hosts. He is whom we are to identify with. Hamilton states, "[h]e wins our admiration the more firmly because he is intimately real, while the inhabitants of Heaven are remote and strange" (Hamilton 39). And it is he who preaches freedom. In his speech to the assembled fallen angels in hell, he talks of God and the punishment he dealt them.
This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat
Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt
From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league
Banded against his throne, but to remain
In strictest bondage, though thus far removed,
Under th' inevitable curb, reserved
His captive multitude. For he, to be sure,
In height or depth, still first and last will reign
Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part
By our revolt, but over Hell extend
His empire, and with iron sceptre rule
Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven.
What sit we then projecting peace and war?
War hath determined us and foiled with loss
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given
To us enslaved, but custody severe,
And stripes and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted? (Paradise Lost, Book II, 317-335)
Again certain words stand out. "Dungeon", "bondage", "captive", "rule", and "enslaved" all seem addressable to Satan's issue of freedom and free will. This pattern of diction can be followed throughout the text. Satan is Milton's ultimate rebel and that fact shapes Milton's portrayal of him.
One cannot, however, escape the inherent problems there. If Milton were trying to show Satan as an anti-hero, in some ways he would be working against his own cause. Yet it is apparent that by placing Satan in the exact same position that he and the other revolutionaries were in, he must've intended to justify his own position. Satan's character may have been able to accomplish both goals well. Truly Satan was an anti-hero. Milton may well have been in the camp of Satan the rebel, but not of Satan the rebel against God. That he could not abide and the story bears that out. John M. Steadman in his work Moral Fiction in Milton and Spenser, writes:
Milton's poem cannot be reduced to a single epic stereotype or generic formula. On the contrary, within the framework of the neoclassical tradition it comprehends a wide range of other literary traditions. (Steadman 147)
Satan is not meant to be understood in only one way. Milton deliberately, it appears, portrays several different and sometimes incompatible Satans. He includes patterns of Hebrew understandings of heroism and Greek understandings of free will with the ideals and struggles of his own rebellious time. Whenever we may think we've begun to understand Satan, we are stopped by his own inconsistencies. We are forced to consider every aspect of him. As Hamilton put it:
...Satan in imagination differs from Satan in idea. In the abstract we may conceive him, whether actual or symbolic, as wholly evil, the negation of all good, but, when we try to imagine him, it will not be surprising if all kinds of elements---foolish, virtuous, heroic, human---begin to enter in. (Hamilton 8)
He is a contridiction. His own demeanor, in places, alters even the heroic qualities we wish to prescribe him.
Satan's heroic qualities are enhanced by this strain of something approaching tenderness in his character. We see it again when he is moved towards pity, and even love, by the first sight of Adam and Eve in their unsuspecting happiness, and once more when, on the very point of tempting Eve, he is disarmed for a while by her innocence. His courage and will-power are not the expression of a nature irrevocably hardened or incapable of gentle emotion. (Hamilton 25)
So finally we ask again "Who is this Satan?" the answer is that he is all these things. He is as multifaceted as the understandings of him in the real world. He is both hero and villain. He is both a pitier of the non-free and pitiable for his lack of freedom. He is both Milton and Milton's nemesis. To limit him to a specific, single definition would not only be a bane to Satan himself, but to Milton who preached a gospel of freedom through him.
Work's Cited
Untitled Haiku
Posted on 2004-06-09 at 08:04
The strength of my youth
bends to the vengeance of age
and time poorly spent
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my current post-op condition.
Wintel
Posted on 2004-06-09 at 08:03
Plugged in. Online
Jacked up. Fucked up.
T1 line-in. Media upchuck.
Mankind. MetalSoul.
Info Blackhole.
Lord Almighty,
Flood this rathole.
Byte-sized. ArkSafe.
Hi-Tech Street Waif
Who cares anyway?
Why should I pray?
Lead in. Lead out.
Have faith. Have doubt.
Talk loud. Don't shout.
Sine wave. Crest. Bough.
Christ when? Christ now!
Windows. Intel.
Dead soul. Oh well.
Hatred and sin.
Grow weak. Grow thin.
Love to hate me.
Ricki Lake me.
Let life linger
And infestate me.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my job. Maybe I need a new one?
Thoughts of Summers Ago
Posted on 2004-06-09 at 08:02
I betray'd a fragile solace in my longing for thy love.
Tho' devotion in thee's dawning by the touch of Lord above.
Hear the Angels to thee speaking; listen closely to their song,
As our passions sing superior to songs of ages gone.
Listen to the sparrow singing; lingering on the sweetest note.
Listen to my soul beseeching; pledging love in poems wrote.
A gentle rustle and a ripple washes from the sea ashore.
And I watch in sullen silence as I often have before.
In a wild, foolish wonder I would tell thee how I feel.
All the love within me spoken, while before thee I would kneel.
But just as lips are parting to, in broken silence, speak,
A babbl'd blurting issues forth, yet not the words I seek.
My love then still remains a secret by the donning of a mask.
All the soul within me burning, begging to complete my task.
Slumbering still, I'll pray thy love awakens at my sight,
As the dawning of the morning, when the darkness fades to light.
See the world around thee blossom; for our love's ordain'd to be.
Open up thy eyes, belov'd; open up thy eyes and see!
Dost thou love me now, my darling? Would'st thou ever love me true?
Shall my love, in lonely labour, ever more than look at you?
Yet until thy answer's clear, I'll be pleas'd to stand a'nigh.
Staring at thy buttress'd heart and longing for thy open'd eye.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my wife, Denise, on the occasion of our first summer friendship
I must be getting better
Posted on 2004-06-09 at 08:01
Because I'm more active feeling and I am writing again. Damn surgery took it outta me! Anyway, Here is my latest installment of poetry.
Burning of the Houses of Parliament
Posted on 2004-05-29 at 08:03
Fires rise bringing smoke to fearful and
darkening skies which scream through choking smog
felling the highest gods in heaven with
the distorted flames of their reckless fury.
The stone bridge watches yet never judges.
Crowds pulsate in throbbing abandon of
principles of kindness. The blood red beard
of conflagration and terror rages
the collective pulsing heart of spiteful
and petty men seeking liberation
amidst Chthonic storms. "Freedom," they cry,
while red tears wash away decades of filth
and oppression. Together at last for
chaos errands and pitfall dreams; their years
of preaching love left them solitary.
The stone bridge watches yet never judges.
Yellow, orange, and bluish grays gild the
sky while sad and desperate men float on
hopes with dowsing droplets which the flames drink
haughtily. Paucities of faith and hope
and love are glaringly betrayed in the
crimson shade of an earthly apocalypse.
No trumpets blare now; only the clanging
and banging of screaming bells sound sharply
to the deaf ears of a panicked throng of
satyrs. Guilt still falls from a forgotten
firmament onto the heads of every
ordinary man among them. Drinking
from a goblet of insanity in
a feast of culpability hosted
by Mammon the dead hearted, they cry, "More!"
The stone bridge watches yet never judges.
Who among them would betray the frantic
anarchy of disaster while buzzards
of revolution brought low the glory
of ancient houses, elder families,
and ruling scepters? Who among them would
resist quitting substance for pure shadow
when the shadow seemed to promise so much?
The din of alarm is slowly replaced
by the expanding moan of funeral
chorus rising from the damned mouths of men,
supplanting the screams for more with cries
of pity, regret, and indistinct shame.
After the fires, new houses are carved
from greater stones with greater craftsmanship
for greater glory. Elder families
resurface and smoke merely mates with clouds.
The stone bridge watches yet never judges.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by the painting of the same name by Joseph Mallord William Turner
Polemical Sonnet
Posted on 2004-05-29 at 08:02
The muted muse of Talent rose to speak
To hush the critic's voice forevermore;
Yet as she bid her tongue to tell its lore---
Despite a willing heart---her tongue was weak.
And if she could find tongue to teach and speak,
Confessing poets---talentless and poor---
Would throw their pitied faces to the floor
And scream to drown the truth they seldom seek.
They shout and shout and never speak the truth,
And lies are all their lips seem to outpour.
They are content to bare a childish soul.
They age but never leave the bloom of youth,
Where talent rests in states still immature,
And blemish shines as something to extol.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by Life's Idiots
I'm feeling poetic tonight
Posted on 2004-05-29 at 08:01
So I added two poems with a little kick to them.
Poetry
Posted on 2004-03-04 at 08:03
I want to get published. I should subscribe to a poetry journal for a few months to get the feel for how it's done and what they expect. Gotta keep the brain active!