26
votes
Accepted
Was Paradise Lost the first major work of literature to give "sympathy for the devil"?
As asked, the question is difficult to answer. Several premises are open to question:
What constitutes a "major work"?
What is your definition of "sympathy" in this context?
...
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16
votes
What is an epic and why is there “only one epic in English Language so far”?
Since Milton is often discussed in the context of Renaissance literature, I'll quote the definition of "epic" from The Renaissance (edited by Marion Wynne-Davies, Bloomsbury Guides to ...
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9
votes
Accepted
"That Christ deny’d divorce to his own", what does Milton mean here in this phrase from "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
By his own, Milton means the apostles. The context of both Matthew and Mark makes this clear. The Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce. Jesus replies that given what Moses said, divorce cannot be ...
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9
votes
Accepted
What might Milton mean by "the work of male and female" in his "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
By “the work of male and female”, Milton means procreation (the generation of children), and by association, sexual intercourse. In this passage Milton explains that an advocate of divorce must expect ...
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8
votes
Why aren't God's pronouns capitalized in Paradise Lost?
Reverential capitalization has never been a constant in English language works, and it's newer than you think. John Milton, born as the final touches were being made on the King James Version, may not ...
- 1,759
8
votes
Accepted
Satan's motivation in Paradise Lost
Milton says a couple of times that Satan’s motives were envy (of Jesus, whom God nepotistically promoted above him) and pride:
Th’infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and ...
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7
votes
Accepted
What passage of the Book of Malachi does Milton refer to in chapter VI, book I of "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
Malachi is a short book, and there is only one passage which is directly about divorce, 2:13-16, with 2:16 being the key text here. Milton cites John Calvin's translation, given in his commentary on ...
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7
votes
Is Keats' swan with "neck of arched snow" an allusion to Milton's "swan with arched neck"?
Keats’ debt to Milton in these lines was well observed. But Keats was not the only poet to borrow from Milton’s description of the swan!
Borrowing from Milton
Phil Robinson discussed Milton’s swan and ...
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6
votes
In "Paradise Lost", how can a fleet of ships "hang in the clouds"?
Wordsworth thought that the phrase was a leap of pure imagination:
Here is the full strength of the imagination involved in the word, hangs, and exerted upon the whole image: First, the Fleet, an ...
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5
votes
Accepted
What do these two segments mean in Milton's "On Shakespeare"?
First question: the meaning of "what".
"What" used in the sense of "why" or "for what" was not unusual in Early Modern English. E. A. Abbott gives several ...
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5
votes
Accepted
What is the "manhood of a Roman recovery" in John Milton's Areopagitica?
"Areopagitica" (1644) was written to argue against the Licensing Order of the previous year, which required that works had to be pre-approved by a censor before they could be printed. Some ...
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5
votes
Which traits of Milton's Lucifer from "Paradise Lost" did Neil Gaiman carry to "The Sandman"?
Neil Gaiman described his concept for Season of Mists, the Sandman story which introduces Lucifer as a major character, in these terms:
The story was inspired loosely by something the Abbé Mugnier ...
- 51
5
votes
Source of Milton's idea that God tilted the Earth's axis after the fall of man
The notion is that in the Garden of Eden, the original pre-Lapsarian world, there were no seasons but an eternal springtime. Then at a later date, God introduced the seasons as part of a general ...
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4
votes
Accepted
What is meant by "the crotchet of the law" in chapter VIII of Milton's "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
Milton is saying that it is legitimate for a true believer to divorce an unbeliever, whether or not the unbeliever tries to seduce the true believer away from the true faith. There are three possible ...
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4
votes
What do these two segments mean in Milton's "On Shakespeare"?
Tsundoku in the other answer suggests that “bereaving” might be used in the sense “spoiling, impairing”, based on this entry in Onions:
bereave (the commonest use is ‘to deprive’ a person of a thing, ...
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4
votes
What is an epic and why is there “only one epic in English Language so far”?
There are many epics in English besides Paradise Lost. Technically speaking, the "epic" is a narrative mode rather than a genre. What makes a narrative "epic" is a distinction ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Is John Milton's Lucifer a tragic hero?
In his introductory essay to the John Milton volume of 'Bloom's Critical Views' Harold Bloom called this question
the most famous and vexing of critical problems concerning
Paradise Lost, the Satanic ...
- 760
4
votes
Meaning of "beauty stands in the admiration only of weak minds led captive" in "Paradise Regained"
The passage exploits multiple meanings of various words to make its statement that the power of beauty is dependent on the admiration of those it captivates.
Stands means is held upright, in the usual ...
- 22.1k
3
votes
Paradise Lost pagan gods
Related: Is John Milton's Lucifer a tragic hero?
One interesting feature of Paradise Lost is that the demons are presented as multi-dimensional, complicated characters - likely even more so than ...
3
votes
Accepted
What can be meant by "an image of earth and fleam" in chapter V of Milton's "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
I think Milton expresses the same emotional pattern of thought in Tetrachordon (1645) where, commenting on Matthew 5:32, he says (my emphasis):
[His Wife. ] This word is not to be idle here, a meere ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Did Satan feel genuine remorse for his actions and compassion for his subordinates?
Milton is using a couple of these attributes in senses that are now archaic. In “considerate Pride”, I think that it works best if we take “considerate” in the sense
considerate, adj. 1. Marked by ...
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2
votes
Accepted
What "unsinning weaknesses" are meant by Milton in chapter V of "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
This is indeed a very difficult sentence to parse. Milton is enumerating the various reasons why a Christian law permitting divorce is necessary. He says that if a man is married to an uncongenial ...
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2
votes
Accepted
What "easie curbs" of the flesh are meant by Milton in chapter IIII of "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
Milton is arguing here that the true burning that drives human beings to marry is not lust but loneliness. He presents sexual desire as an excess: that which the plenteous body would joyfully give ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Did John Milton ever mention Martin Luther directly or indirectly?
Milton commented on Luther's influence on him (from English Opinion of Luther, quoting Milton's An apology for Smectymnuus):
John Milton confesses that he "had not examined through" Luther'...
- 1,759
1
vote
Satan's motivation in Paradise Lost
Here's the relevant transcript from the Yale Milton Course. I guess Satan suffered from a sense of unfairness/injustice from the meritocratic breakdown of the Son's exultation (or maybe from loss of ...
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