BY THE SAME AUTHOR. John Skelton's Poetry

Surprised by Sin

BY THE SAME AUTHOR John Skelton's Poetry

Surprised by Sin: the Reader in Paradise Lost STANLEY EUGENE FISH 'Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.' LAMENTATIONS Palgrave Macmillan

ISBN 978-1-349-00148-4 ISBN 978-1-349-00146-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00146-0 Stanley Eug6n6 Fis" 1967 Softcover reprint of the hardcover ISt edition 1967 978-0-333-02109-5 Macmillan and Company Limited Little Essex Street London WC z also Bombay Calcutta Madras Melbourne T"e Macmillan Company of Canada Limited 70 Bond Street Toronto z StMartin's Press Inc I75 Fift" Avenue New York NY Iooro Library of Congress catalog card no. 67-1419I

TO MY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY

Contents PREFACE IX I Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling I 2 The Milk of the Pure Word 57 3 Man's Polluting Sin 92 4 Standing Only : Christian Heroism IS8 s The Interpretative Choice 208 6 What Cause?: Faith and Reason 241 7 So God with Man Unites 286 APPENDIX Notes on the Moral Unity of Paradise Lost 332 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES 341 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 343

Preface There are currently two strains in criticism of Paradise Lost, one concerned with providing a complete reading of the poem (in so far as that is possible), the other emphasizing a single aspect of it, or a single tradition in the light of which the whole can be better understood. Somewhat uneasily this book attempts to participate in both strains. My subject is Milton's reader, and my thesis, simply, that the uniqueness of the poem's theme- man's first disobedience and the fruit thereof- results in the reader's being simultaneously a participant in the action and a critic of his own performance. I believe Milton's intention to differ little from that of so many devotional writers, 'to discover to us our miserable and wretched estate through corruption of nature' and to 'shew how a man may come to a holy reformation and so happily recover himself'. (Richard Bernard, The Isle of Man.) In the course of the poem, I shall argue, the reader (1) is confronted with evidence of his corruption and becomes aware of his inability to respond adequately to spiritual conceptions, and ( 2) is asked to refine his perceptions so that his understanding will be once more proportionable to truth the object of it. The following chapters, then, will explore two patterns - the reader's humiliation and his education- and they will make the point that the success of the second depends on the quality of his response to the first. Whenever possible, the crises of the reading experience will be related to the crisis at the centre of the narrative, the fall of Adam and Eve. My debts and obligations are many. I owe much to the

x Preface Miltonists whose opinions are recorded in the text. They are the best of Milton's readers. I have been most influenced (as far as I am aware) by the work of Joseph Summers and A. J. A. Waldock, although it can be fairly said that everyone who has written on the poem since I 940 has improved my understanding of it. I have benefited greatly from the advice and counsel of George A. Starr and A. E. Dyson. I have learned much from Mr. Starr's excellent study, Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography (Princeton, I 96 s), which I would cite to support the tenability of my general position. Mr. Dyson provided encouragement, moral and material, when it was most needed. At different times I have profited from the cogent criticisms of Paul Alpers, John Coolidge, Norman Rabkin, Christopher Ricks, and Wayne Shumaker. Gilbert Robinson and Laurence Jacobs, my research assistants, know how much of their labours have been incorporated here. The students to whom this book is dedicated have contributed materially to it. I have made use of the insights and suggestions of Edward Pechter, Gilbert Robinson, Roger Swearingen and Beatrice Weisner. Others are no doubt represented, but unacknowledged. No measure of the debt to my wife is possible : for in addition to the laborious tasks of typing, editing, and proof-reading, she has borne the burden of the crises of confidence suffered daily by the author. The writing of this book was made possible by two grantsin-aid; one in the form of a Humanities Research Professorship awarded by the University of California at Berkeley, and the other a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Portions of Chapters I, 2, and 4 have appeared in The Critical Quarterly and The Southern Review (Australia). I am grateful for permission to reprint.

l'rejface Xl All citations to the poems of Milton are to John Milton: Complete l'oems and Major l'rose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, I 957). London September r966 S. E. F.