But ah! beleeve me, there is more then so, When, in his poetry, Milton touches upon imperfection, deformity, or ugliness, the same theory lies behind his words. This is evident in the colloquy between Michael and Adam, as together they look upon the suffering and sickness that have resulted from Eve's transgression in the Garden: 'Can thus The image of God in man, created once In part, from such deformities be free, His image whom they served—a brutish vice, 1An Hymn in Honor of Beauty 64–70, 85–91. The vivid and awful picture in the Tenth Book of Paradise Lost of the devastation wrought by sin more exhaustively treats the same theme. In the Argument, the poet briefly foreshadows such great events as follow, merely saying that God 'commands his angels to make several alterations in the Heavens and Elements.' It remains for the astonished reader to find that these 'alterations' are nothing less than the wrack and upheaval-the deforming of the world. Sin and Death have arrived in Paradise, and Sin has made known her purpose to infect man's thoughts, his words, his looks, his actions: Which the Almighty seeing, From His transcendent seat the Saints among, So fair and good created, and had still And his adherents), that with so much ease I suffer them to enter and possess A place so heavenly, and, conniving, seem To gratify my scornful enemies, That laugh, as if, transported with some fit Of passion, I to them had quitted all, At random yielded up to their misrule; And know not that I called and drew them thither, My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed On what was pure; till, crammed and gorged, nigh burst Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, Both Sin and Death, and yawning Grave, at last Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. Then Heaven and Earth, renewed, shall be made pure To sanctity that shall receive no stain: Till then the Curse pronounced on both precedes."1 As the curse is executed the very heavens are changed; the sun is taught to 'affect the earth with cold and heat scarce tolerable'; the planets to exert a 'noxious efficacy,' and the fixed stars an 'influence malignant'; the winds are bidden to confound with bluster, and the thunder to roll with terror: These changes in the heavens, though slow, produced Vapor, and mist, and exhalation hot, Corrupt and pestilent. Thus began Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first, Death introduced through fierce antipathy. Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, Of Man, but fled him, or with countenance grim Sin had, indeed, done no less than deform the entire worldorder; in Milton's philosophy the substitution of an evil for a good spirit could not have resulted otherwise. Clearly Milton's concept of form related itself to all his impressions, and bore upon all his judgments. Yet his customary reliance upon it in no way dulled its suggestiveness. The concept explained and enriched life as he saw 1P. L. 10. 613-640. 'P. L. 10. 692-695, 706-714. This passage may be contrasted with descriptions of the Garden of Eden before the spirit of evil had perverted the beneficent ends of nature. it immediately about him, or contemplated it through the eyes of the past. It ennobled beauty, and furnished the touchstone for virtue; and it pitilessly laid bare crudity and affectation, and searched out pretension, hypocrisy, and guilt. In short, it so animated his deepest imagination that in his poetry, as perhaps the sagest thing he could teach, it lies at the heart of his message. At the opening of Book Three in Paradise Lost the concept receives consummate expression. Here 'form' no longer is the purpose that shapes, or the soul that inhabits, this or that particular body, but the spirit that, having its effluence from God, produces His created universe. Availing himself of the associations of Biblical usage, and probably inspired by the Neoplatonists and Dante, Milton now calls this essential spirit light, and identifies light, form, and essence. In order to understand the poetical renderings of the idea, and perhaps even in order to recognize them, the following passages from Paradise Lost, the first already mentioned as opening Book Three, the second appearing toward its close, and the last from Book Seven, cannot be too thoughtfully read: Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born! May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, The rising world of waters dark and deep, 'P. L. 3. 1-12. I saw when, at His word, the formless mass, 'Let there be light!' said God; and forthwith light Sprung from the deep.❜ To the imagination of Milton, then, light is the manifestation of the heavenly spirit, the first of things, the quintessence pure, the bright effluence of bright essence increate. Since light emanates from Divinity, it carries with it wisdom and holiness; and the progress of all forms toward perfection is made evident by their capacity to receive light. In these lines, with their vivid directness and beauty, we have the classic expression of Milton's belief in the interrelation of essential and visible condition. The appropriate words in a concordance of Milton's poetry will show how often terms relating to light and darkness appear in his verse. Yet it is not the frequency of the words that is so remarkable. Other poets have loved light, as other concordances would show; but no one else, unless it is Saint John the divine, has put his love of light quite so completely into the service of an abstract concept. On this 1P. L. 3. 708-719. 2P. L. 7. 243-245. |