John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost is long considered a masterpiece. Singer and composer Lorcán Mac Mathúna saw in the poem “the story of a war in heaven and the fall of man .. constructed as a series of dialogues perfectly set for the retelling in the narrative tradition of song.”
The poet seeks out the company of the muse to help him understand the revelations that are about to be revealed to him. The Genesis story of Man’s fall from the state of innocence and Satan’s fall from heaven are retold by Milton.
When Satan whispers to Eve, ‘that God is indeed powerful but that he is concealing the truth from her and that she could be his equal’, he is dramatising the Gnostic heresy which predates even Christianity.
The Gnostics claimed that the God who created the world was not true God but a builder, the demiurge, and that he created the world as a prison to entrap man in a material plane so that he could not be liberated to his true spiritual destiny.
The true God according to this heresy, is an indescribable being of pure spirit. According to the Gnostic mythology, this demiurge was a demon and his creation is an evil, intent on concealing the higher God and preventing man from being as God – his true purpose.
Satan, when he whispers to Eve, suggests this antithesis of God to her. Satan presents a simulacrum which through his words and deceit seems more real to her than God who created the Garden. Eve trusts the simulacrum more than the reality of God that she knows. Satan, to put it in more contemporary terms tells Eve “don’t trust your lying eyes”.
This is a radical theme from Milton, but as I examined it closely I realised we have been through many simulacrums just like this.
This idea that you create your own truth is the core folly examined in Paradise Lost. But also, more importantly is the message that truth is a hard mistress and that nature doesn’t obey man’s conceit.
I kept thinking of Milton’s central theme; of Man’s desire to build a tower to heaven and be as God. And so I engaged with the text.
“Sing heavenly muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire”
To begin a journey of revelation, the poet must invoke the clarifying guidance of a muse, who guides the author on the paths of unknown possibilities, with the gift of foreknowledge.
John Milton invokes the muse in his extraordinary retelling of the biblical story of Genesis, not just to signify the epic significance of the tale, but more saliently to set this tale constructed in such monumentally mythic language, in the form of dialogues.
And thus, Paradise Lost, the story of a war in heaven and the fall of man, is constructed as a series of dialogues perfectly set for the retelling in the narrative tradition of song.
There is a long tradition of taking the central narratives of faith traditions and weaving them into folk song. Biblical references and language with all its striking visual symbolism in strongly present in Appalachian folk music, and there are striking examples of modern songs which reach into this tradition.
Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” referencing the Day of Judgment is a great example and it inspired this production of Paradise Lost.
It is the dialogues of Paradise Lost that form the basis of this composition. The great narratives of the tale come through the retelling by the angels to Adam. Rafael speaks with Adam and tells him of Satan’s fall. But the iconic narrative is of course the temptation of Eve. Here Milton extrapolates the story with a complex set of human emotions.
Satan visits Eve in her dream and suggests the apple to her. He plucks it from the tree and offers it to her, fragrant and sensuously enticing; before snatching it away and whisking her high above the clouds. He has planted the notion of that taste in her mind as if she has willed the sin already.
Contemplate how Eve greets Adam on waking:
“O soul my perfection glad I see
Thy face this morn returned, last night I dreamed”
Compare this with her encounter with Satan in her dream. With “locks of Ambrosia”, he transfixes her with a suggestion of what might be obtained. Satan’s beauty and potency are a contrast to the beauty of the love and trust she has for Adam. Indeed Satan is compelled with a burning jealousy of the purity of their love, and this is only drives him further to ruin them through deception. It’s the classic story of a malicious interloper intent on breaking a perfect union.
This triangulation and the dialogue that unfolds between Eve and Satan, and then simultaneously between Eve and Adam is a central part of the story. A very human and relatable drama of temptation, jealousy, and betrayal, it also brings deeper themes to the fore. Is Adam; perfectly representing the innocent state of man in paradise, the dream? Satan comes in a dream, but he represents more sensuous desires. He seems more of the flesh, more profane, more real!
This puts the whole story in the context of a thorny post modern idea of cultural relativism. Which of these is real? Is it the desire she felt for what Satan offered, or the man of flesh that is Adam? Is reality an epistemological perspective – as Satan says: “the mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven out of hell a hell of heaven.” Is there any objective truth or is it all in the mind?
There is a Hegelian dialectic going on here. If Adam represents the Thesis, then surely Satan represents the antithesis, and the apple, the temptation, is the means of synthesis – the action provoked by the antithesis to destroy the old state and move towards a new dialectical reality. Temptation, corruption, and the fall from paradise is progress.
The more observant reader might have noticed that this dialectic is a dysfunctional analogue of the sacred paradigm of the Trinity. Satan and his world view reflect the ideals of God. The objective good of “The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is parodied in this dysfunctional paradigm of “Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis”. The difference being that, despite all his ingenuity, Satan cannot create he can only imitate and degrade
The more observant reader might have noticed that this dialectic is a dysfunctional analogue of the sacred paradigm of the Trinity. Satan and his world view reflect the ideals of God. The objective good of “The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is parodied in this dysfunctional paradigm of “Thesis, Anthitesis, and Synthesis”. The difference being that, despite all his ingenuity, Satan cannot create he can only imitate and degrade.
That is not a too liberal interpretation of Milton’s intent. Milton puts the most complex ideas and arguments in Satan’s mouth, and and it has often been said that “Milton is of the devils party”. Milton did not create a weak adversary. The father of lies is a skilled and eloquent speaker. Milton’s dramatisation of his ruin and his revenge is a story worth retelling again and again.
Paradise Lost is about hubris, and the desire to know all and to control all. This spirit flows from Satan, the poems chief character, who is no intellectual sop. The father of lies is represented as an intriguing and eloquent adversary. Defeated and shamed in war, Satan swears to take revenge by corrupting God’s greatest creation and so, though defeated in the great battle; he exacts his revenge through guile and deception.
After Man’s fall he repeats this pattern again and again, and the history of man is to try to make himself equal to God and fall.
Loading ...