Course:
M.A (English)
Topic:
joy and sesensuality in Paradise Lost
Semester:1
Unit:
3
Roll.no:9
Paper
no.:1
Email
Id:artivadher10@gmail.com
Submitted
to : Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt:
S.B.Gardi
Joy And Sensuality in PARADISE LOST...
·
In Paradise Lost, MILTON treats sensuality as an
inherent part of human nature, celebrating the "WEDDED LOVE" of
ADAM and EVE. There are two scenes in PARADISE LOST that describe
ADAM and EVE making love and falling a sleep.The first passage describes the
prelapserian bliss of ADAM and EVE and their "NUPTIAL BED". The
second describes the lustful hunger of the pair immediately following the
eating of the "Fallacious Fruit". These seemingly similar passages
contain subtle differences that contribute to a difference in tone which best
illustrate the shift in perception due to the Fall in all of PARADISE LOST.
·
The first passage is characterized by a tone of HOLINESS,
SOLEMNITY, and SPIRITUALITY. Before retiring to their bower ADAM and EVE give
praise and thanks to GOD, creator of all. When EVE decorates their bed, "HEAVENLY
CHOIRS" sing the hymenaean, celebrating the sanctity of marriage. The poet
emphatically affirms the sanctity of "CONNUBIAL LOVE" by saying
"GOD declares[it]/Pure", and by calling it "mysterious
Law". His word choices, ündefil'd and chaste" ,"true", and
"blest" lend further support to the claim. It is also of note that
MILTON chose to use the word "pure" four times in a space of less
than twenty lines. This is love founded “In Reason, Loyal , Just, and pure"
.It stands in contrast to “Adulterous lust" and "loveless, joyless,
unindear'd,/Casual fruition".
·
The contrasts to the second passage are staggering. Adam
and Eve do not pray to God before retiring. They are misdirecting devotion to
other things. The Adam and Eve who before displayed humility, now display
arrogance and egotism in what they perceive their newfound superiority. Adam
wishes there were ten more forbidden trees, should they all bear fruit as
pleasurable; how blithely he admits he would transgress against God tenfold
should the opportunity for pleasure present itself ! one must also not
disregard the fact that Eve paid worshipful homage to the Tree of knowledge of
Good and Evil before approaching Adam, bowing to it as to a deity. Adam, conversely,
is later admonished by God: "was she thy God, that her thou didst
obey". Lovemaking in the first instance is sanctioned by God, even
endorsed by him: "God declares/[it]pure........./our Marker bids
encrease". "Saints and Patriarchs" are used as evidence, as is
LOVE, personified as an angel with purple wings. There is no such sanction in
the second passage; there is indeed no divinity present. There are only the
"fallacious fruit "and the revenous pair. The tone is one of
transgression, magnified by greedy speech of Adam about the fruit, and the two
references to the "forbidden" in consecutive lines.
·
The lovemaking in the second passage is not a
consummation of the pair's "mutual love", but “of thir mutual guilt
the Seal".. The "mutual guilt" is, of course, the transgression
of eating from the forbbiden Tree. The second sin that "seals" the
first(that is, reaffirms it; solidifies it)is the sin of lust, one of the seven
cardinal sins. One must realize that Milton is not damning sensuality in its
physical expression of mutual, spiritual love. what is opposed here is the
carnality of desire ;sex that is an expression of lust, not of love. The love
in the first passage is the familial love of 'Father, son, and Brother. It is
caritas, a holy love inherently "godly", as the love of Father and
Son (GOD AND JESUS) suggests. The second passage illustrates concupiscence, the
“adulterous lust....driven from men/ Among the bestial herds to range". "mutual
love" has turned into mutual lust:
Carnal desire inflaming; he
on EVE
Began to cast lascivious
Eyes; she him
As wantonly repaid; in
Lust they burn......
· The terms emphasizing purity
are here exchanged for ones evoking the idea of sin, such as
"lascivious" and "wantonly". These are underscored by
imagery of fire and burning ,at once evoking images both of lust, and
consequently of hell: “inflamming", "burn", ïnflame",
"fire".
· This "Carnal
desire" is also described by Milton
in terms of hunger. The pessagevis not only preceded by the eating of the
fruit, but images of consuming and eating pervade the pessage in terms like
"taste", "sever" ,"palate", "relish,
tasting", etc. The two in the sence gorge on each other until they have
"thir feel of LOVE". This motive is not evident in the first pessage
it is as if the spiritual "delicious place" (the idea of Paradise) of
the first passage had been made physical
or carnal in the second: "delicious Fare"(a tangible part of
Paradise). it must also be noted that where the first passage is situated in a
divine Paradise, the second passage mentions "Earth's softest lap"-
the fall has already debased and transformed the divine into mortal. It is
fascinating how Milton describes the pair as though they were intoxicated by
the "Follacious Fruit". the fruit has filled them with
"exhilarating vapor bland" and "unkindly fumes" which about
thir spirits had play'd. One can not help but feel that Milton's choice, also,
of the terms "blissful bower", and "inmost bower" in the
first passage and the corresponding "imbowr'd" in the second passage,
is significant. It is beffiting milton's sence of irony that the "blissful
bower", the "holiest place", has turned into "The Bower of
Bliss".
· The first passage casts lovemaking in a solemn
light referring twice to "Rites", bringing to mind holy rites and
services. Lovemaking is preceded by the decorating of the marriage bed by Eve,
the singing of hymenaean, and the prayer to God. These are followed finally by
the "Rites/ Mysterious of connubial Love". A second occurence of the
word "mysterious" supports the lovemaking as almost a divine
mystery or sacrament. The second passage is devoid of such solemnities,
instead sporting words cannotive of games, plays, and frivolities: "dalliance",
"let us play", "toy" , "disport", "amorous
play", "play'd". This kind of "Casual fruition"
admonished against in the first passage, is treated as "common".
whereas the love in the first passage of holy love, love that only occurs in
Paradise:
Hail, wedded Love, mysterious Law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise of all things common else.
· The "Commonness"
is accentuated when one remembers that in the first bed the pair were showered
in Roses, the precious flowers symbolic of love_in the second bed they lie on a
"couch”of "Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel and Hyacinth, "common
flowers all. Their cheapened love is befittingly consummated on a cheaper bed.
· The tone difference is most
plain following consummation of the physical act. Following lovemaking in the
first passage, Adam and Eve:
[L]ull'd by Nightingales imbracing slept,
And on thir naked limbs the flow'ry roof
Show'r'd Roses, which the Morn repair'd.
· Already blissful, their
lovemaking has affirmed and created more joy-lovemaking is really "the
Crown of all [their] bliss. They fall easily into sleep, a sleep they share
naked, embracing. This sleep is innocent and restful, a gift from God.
· Here lies the greatest
difference between the two passages: the joy is absent in the second passage. The
lovemaking has been "loveless, joyless, unindear'd, nor is the sleep that
follows restful. Lovemaking before the fall has equivalent to heaping bliss
upon bliss-after the Fall it is only solace, to make one, temporarily, almost
forget the guilt and the shame of sin. It is but little comfort when followed
by "dewy sleep" "grosser sleep/....with conscious dream", from
which they rise"[a]s from unrest". The sins and the Fruit have opened
Adam and Eve's eyes, and darkened their minds: in the harsh light of the dawn
of knowledge, how clear and unsparing is the truth they must face. Mystery, the
veiled innocence, has been taken away leaving the pair naked to the unrelenting
reality of their transgression.
· In the first passage the two
are united, almost like one mind and one body. Many are the references to
"both", "mutual" and “unanimous". Of lovely, tender
detail ,Milton describes how the pair lay side by side, and slept embracing. This
prelapserian pair holds hands on numerous occasions, signifying unity. It is a
significant fact when one considers that the pair let go of each other's hand
for the first time right before the fall when Eve decides to go alone. The love
shared by the prelapserian Adam and Eve isfounded “in Reason, Loyal Just and
Pure". They are reason and sense united. After the Fall, they are in
discord (as events after the second passage
prove),that is, sense and reason are unbalanced. The knowledge gained is too
potent for the two who do not know how to reconcile it, or mend the unity. That
the post-lapserian Adam must seize Eve's hand to lead her to bed is most
illuminating Whereas in the first passage the couple is naturally united, in
the second they must consciously decide to attach to each other. It is grim, infinitely
sad picture Milton paints of two people, now seprarated by a gulf, who
desperately attempt to cling together against all odds. Yet perhaps the most
important point is that they do attempt to unite again, that they do hold on. It
is due to this that the image of Adam and Eve leaving Paradise is so moving and
hopeful:
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps
and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
· The two passages are undeniably similar- it is
not rash to assume that they did not come to existence by accident, but were
part of Milton's plan. It is precisely the similarity of the passages that
makes the differences so clear and meaningful. Yet it is not the numerous
details of the passages, which could only entertain interest for a moment, but
the tone created by those selfsame details. It is the subtext, the “in-between-the-lines,
"that is fascinating. It is in these two passages that Milton, through the
treatment of sensuality before and after the Fall ,uncovers the heart and
consequences of the Fall. He describes
the joy once experienced in Paradise: a joy man no longer knows how to find or enjoy,
having lost his innocence in search for other, perhaps less important
knowledge. Paradise Lost offers sentencein the form of moral teaching,
and solas in its hopeful end. Still, it cannot but leave a note of sadness in
the knowledge that all earthly pleasure is but meager solace compared to the
bliss we have lost. Paradise Lost, itself, though impressive in multiple
ways, has maintained and will maintain its fascintion for readers exately for
that subtext-the author's voice painting a masterpiece on a canvas of human
emotion.
it seems that you are clear on your view,analysis is very well done.
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