7 - God's Grammar: Milton's Parsing of the Divine
Summary
Now had th’ Almighty Father from above,
(From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High thron’d above all height) bent down his Eye,
His own Works and their Works at once to view.
About him all the Sanctities of Heav’n
Stood thick as Stars, and from his Sight received
Beatitude past utt’rance: On his right
The radiant Image of his Glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first Parents, yet the only two
Of Mankind, in the happy garden plac’d,
Reaping immortal fruits of Joy and Love;
Uninterrupted Joy, unrival’d Love
In blissful Solitude. He then surveyed
Hell and the Gulph between, and Satan there
Coasting the Wall of Heaven on this side Night,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feel
On the bare outside of this world, that seem’d
Firm land imbosom’d without firmament;
Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake. (Paradise Lost, 3.56–79)
Joseph Addison, in his famous discussion of this passage, awards extremely
high praise to Milton's sublime poetic ability:
As his Genius was wonderfully turned to the Sublime, his Subject is the noblest that could have entered into the Thoughts of Man. Every thing that is truly great and astonishing, has a place in it. The whole System of the intellectual World; the Chaos, and the Creation; Heaven, Earth and Hell; enter into the Constitution of his Poem.
In ascribing this grand, sublime view to Milton, Addison appears to be ascribing to him something approaching a divine perspective on the world, a synoptic, all-inclusive understanding that encompasses all the geographic regions of the universe. Yet, in Addison's view, even Milton's poetic sublimity ultimately must founder, and it founders against the impossible task of representing divine speech:
If Milton's Majesty forsakes him any where, it is in those Parts of his Poem, where the Divine Persons are introduced as Speakers. One may, I think, observe that the Author proceeds with a kind of Fear and Trembling, whilst he describes the Sentiments of the Almighty.
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- Information
- Scholarly Milton , pp. 145 - 162Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2019