Space and Place in "Paradise Lost"

Space and Place in "Paradise Lost"
Author(s): John Gillies

Source: ELH, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Spring, 2007), pp. 27-57
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029545
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SPACEAND PLACE IN PARADISELOST

BYJOHN GILLIES
My aim in this paperis to exploreJohnMilton'swayof imagining-of construingandconstructing-placesandspacesin Paradise

Lost.Thetaskis less idlethanit mayseemforthe reasonthatjustto
haveimaginedplacein relationto spacein thecontextof a philosophicalandcosmicepicshouldhaveposedacuteproblemsto a conspicuouslyeducatedmid-seventeenth-century
poet suchas Milton.Thisis
S.
in
his
TheFateof Place,andas
(as
because Edmund Caseyargues
we shallshortlysee) spaceandplacehaddecisivelypartedcompanyin
scientificandphilosophical
discourseof the period,withplacebeing
from
and
alikebyspace.1Yet,granting
supplanted physics metaphysics
Casey'spropositionprovisionally,
whyshouldthe eclipseof placein
in fiction
these rarifieddomainspose a problemfor its construction
andpoetry?Place,one mightthink,is hardlyin needof philosophical
in
warrant,simplyby virtueof the self-evidenceof ouremplacement
the worldas sentientcreatures.Moreover,placewouldhardlypose
a problemfor the eighteenth-century
novel,by whichtime (after
IsaacNewton)its eclipsefromscienceandphilosophy
wasevenmore
here
of
One
thinks
remark
Samuel
aboutthe
complete.
Johnson's
of
scientific
cast
Milton's
emphatically
pedagogy:
Thetruthis, thatthe knowledgeof externalnature,andof the sciences
whichthatknowledgerequiresor includes,is notthe greator frequent
business of the human mind. Whetherwe provide for action or
conversation
... we areperpetually
moralists,
butwe aregeometricians
onlyby chance.Ourintercoursewithintellectualnatureis necessary;
our speculationsupon matterarevoluntary,and at leisure."
for Milton
Mycontention,however,is thatplacewasproblematic
and was so for variousreasons.To begin with, as StephenFallon
has argued,Miltonwas seriouslyengagedwith the scientificand
fermentof his time.3Secondly,Miltondid not thinkof
philosophical
himselfas writingfictionin ParadiseLost and did not feel himself
licensedto lie in the carefullydelimitedsense that PhilipSidney's
Apologyfor Poetryhad madelegitimate.ThoughMiltonhad been
contentto employconventional
poeticfictionsin earlypoemssuchas
ELH 74 (2007) 27-57 2007 by The JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress
27
Lycidasand Comus,he felt himself tied to a higher standardof truth

in ParadiseLost. Not only was the latter a higher type of poem than
the former two-epic ratherthan pastoralor masque, and closer to
prophecythanto traditionalepic-but it came afterEikonoklastes,the
polemic in which Miltonhad attackedhis royalistopponentsprecisely
for blurringthe line between poetic fictionand historicaltruthin their
mythologizationof Charles as royal martyr.4Such a commitmentto
truthfulness,then, had to pose a dilemma for a poet whose project
requirednot only the depiction of cosmic spaces but also the depiction of concrete places (heaven,hell, the ocean of chaos, the sun, the
limboof vanities)nested somewherewithinor beside an extramundane
cosmos of radicallyuncertainstructureandontology.Suchnestingwas
becoming awkwardeven in the more plausibleamongthe traditional
sites, such as the subterraneanlocationof hell. If Galileowas rash in
undertakingto map the topographyof Dante's hell very early in his
career,John Donne was franklyskepticalin 1612. Remarkingon the
sheer mass of some of the earth'smountains,and the unlikelinessof
the earth being a perfect sphere, he asks:
If underall, a Vaultinfernallbee,
(Whichsureis spacious,exceptthatwe
Inventanothertorment,thatthere must
Millionsinto a straighthot roomebe thrust)
Then solidnesse,and roundnessehaveno place.
Arethese but warts,andpock-holesin the face
Of th'earth?5
Until the adventof what Donne called "newphilosophy"(a com-
pound of cartography, atomism, magnetism, Copernicanism, and

Galileo's telescopic discoveries of 1610), the projection of place into the
cosmos would have been unproblematic.6 Like Dante, whose cosmic
epic runs a progress through hell (and thus the bowels of the earth),
purgatory (rising from the earth's surface up a mountain on the sum-
mit of which is the earthlyparadise),and heaven (risingsuccessively

throughthe circles of the celestial spheres to the outermostprimum
mobile), Miltonwould have found a cosmos fitted, by over a millennium of cosmographicand hexaemeralliterature,to earthlyconcerns
and a sense of place that was earthlyby definition.Afterthe Sidereus
nuncius (Venice, 1610), however,in which Galileo documented his
view of a craggyandpatentlyuncelestialmoonthrougha telescope,the
microcosmic/macrocosmic
equationbetween Earthand its environing
cosmos began to lose cogency.' The argument of Donne's First An-
28
Space and Place in Paradise Lost
niversaryaccordinglyturns on the want of correspondencebetween

heaven and earth:
WhatArtistnow daresboastthathe canbring
Heavenhither,or constellateanything... ?
The artis lost, andcorrespondence
too.
For heavengiveslittle,andthe earthtakeslesse,
Andmanleastknowstheirtradeandpurposes.8
It is worth remindingourselves of some of the ways in which a

sense of place was reinforcedby the correspondencesof which Donne
speaks.In the most commonlyreceived sense, Earthwas at once the
focus,epitome (microcosm),and antithesisof the surroundingcosmos.
The most distant spheres (those of the fixed stars and the primum
mobile) were antitheticalin the sense of containingthe most purified celestial matter (ether), along with the celestial bodies and their
"intelligences"(the angelic forces by which spheres were propelled).
For all intents and purposes,the sphere of fixedstarsand/orprimum
mobilewas what Donne meant by "heaven."As Donne imaginesit in
the SecondAnniversary,this was the destined home of the purified
soul after death.9Remote and spiritualas heaven was in ontological
terms, however, it was nevertheless intimately attuned to Earth in
a moral, a figurative,and a predictive sense (that of astrology).The
types and causes of earthly things were indeed in the stars. Such
manifoldand interlocking"correspondence[s]"
reinforceda sense of
place by assertingthe importanceof Earthin the cosmos. Even if, on
a Platonizedview of Aristotelianphysics, Earth was taken to be the
receptacleof the heaviest and most impure matterin the cosmos, its
placial importanceremainedintact."'To regardEarth as the sink of
the cosmos was simplyto invertthe picture,not disturbit. Moreover,
Aristotelianphysics was placial in a quite specific sense: matterwas
where it was in the cosmos because of an innate tendency to seek its
own place. Matterwas inconceivablewithoutplace.
The new cosmology disrupted this scheme entirely. In the Copernicanhypothesis-so suddenly and profoundlyvindicatedby the
eloquence, notoriety,andvisualtechnologyof Galileo-the sun rather
than the earth was the center of the planetarysystem, and the earth
was simply another planet (literally"wanderer")ratherthan the focus of the cosmos. The moon, with its cratersand mountains,could
no longer claim to markthe threshold between celestial perfection
and sublunarimperfection.The number of the fixed stars and their
John Gillies
29
distancefrom the solar system were multipliedsuch that the idea of

them all orbitingthe earth every twenty-fourhours suddenlyseemed
ludicrousratherthan wonderful.Indeed, so greatwere the distances
of the fixedstarsfromeach other that the idea of their belongingto a
single region,spatialroom,or distinctcelestialstratum(a sphere)was
losingits point alongwith its plausibility.We shouldof course beware
of simplyassumingthat such argumentsmust have seemed as strong
then as theydo today.To Milton'slaycontemporaries,
the old cosmology
wouldcontinueto seem intuitivewell into the century."Miltonhimself
would assumethe validityof the old cosmographyin Comus(1634), in
which a Platonicspiritdescends from his "mansion"(dwelling,room,
region) in "the starrythresholdof Jove'scourt"in orderto shed a ray
of celestial virtue upon "thisdim spot called earth."12
Comus,however,(aswe have partlyseen) was writtento a self-consciouslyliteraryand fictionalstandard,not a scientificallyseriousstandardof truthinformedby the new cosmography.Whatwould it mean
for poetryof a ChristianHumanistcast to be so informed?As earlyas
the 1540s,Humanistcontemporariesof Copernicuswere comingto the
painfulrealizationthat accommodationbetween the two systemswas
impossible.PhilipMelanchthonhad championedastronomicalstudies
earlierin his careerin the Platonicallyinspiredbelief thata closerstudy
of the heavens would literallybring them closer to us: "Goddesires
that knowledge of these wonderfulcourses and powers should lead
us towardsknowledgeof the divine."His ardorcooled, however,with
the growingrealizationthat Copernicanastronomycould not be the
roadto spiritand was not (as he had once thought)"asappropriateto
human natureas is swimmingto a fish or singingto a nightingale."'3
The new cosmographyhad naughtto do with heaven in the sense of
the primummobile.Place itself had lost purchaseand authority.In the
words of WilliamGilbert,whose magneticdiscoveriesheld profound
ramificationsfor cosmology(as Galileo realized):"[P]laceis nothing,
To the unenchantedeye, the new
does not exist, has no strength."'14
offered
cosmology
only matter,space, and motion.
With Ren6 Descartes, the new cosmologywould be conceptually
reinforcedby the new physics, specificallyby the concept of extension. In essence matterwas to be consideredas extendedin the three
spatialdimensions.The only clear knowledge(in the sense of distinct
ideas) we can have of an object is geometric:"Thenatureof matter,
or of body consideredin general does not consist in its being a thing
that has hardnessor weight, or colour,or any other sensible property,
but simply in its being a thing that has extensionin length, breadth,
30
Space and Placein ParadiseLost
and depth."'15
Qualitativefeatures-weight, texture,color, smell, and
so on-tell us nothingabouttheobjectstrictlyspeakingbutonlyabout
the perceivingsubject,betweenwhomandthe objectis an absolute
ontologicalhiatus,thatbetweenres extensaandres cogitans.Among
the qualitativefeatures stripped from the object and now vested in
Placialoperators-up,down,high,low,inside,
the subjectis "place."
outside-do not belongin the worldof extension.Indeedthatworld
is as spatialas it is material:
The termsplace and space do not signifysomethingdifferentfrom

the bodythatis saidto be in a place;theymerelymeanits size, shape,
andpositionrelativeto otherbodies.... [N]o objecthasa permanent
of our thought.16
placeexceptby the determination
The impact of such ideas on seventeenth-centuryEnglish thought
was considerable." While Thomas Hobbes adapted Descartes towards

a thoroughgoing materialism (collapsing mind into extension), the
Cambridge Platonists accepted the notion of extension in the vain if
it withmind.Howeverinadvertently,
reconditeprojectof implicating
the victory of Cartesianism is ceded by Dr. Johnson ("Our intercourse

with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are
voluntary"). Epitomizing the fate of place at the close of the seventeenth century, Casey writes:
The ultimatereasonforthe apotheosisof spaceas sheerlyextensional

is thatby the end of the 17c.placehasbeen disempowered,deprived
of its dynamism.It has become at best an inert "part"(Newton),a
anduniversalSpace.
mere"modification"
(Locke),ora superintendent
alone
And spaceitself,serenelyvoid of place, retainsdimensionality
as an abidingstructureof its own extensiveness.All one can do with
dimensionsof height,breadthanddepthis to fillandmeasurethem,or
at leastto measurewiththem,thatis, to determinedistancesbetween
pointslocatedin a neutralfield.In thismeasuringgame,by
particular
whichNatureis mathematizeddownto its secondaryqualities,place
asdistancein regardof fixed
variation:
canfigureonlyasa subdominant
referencepoints,oraspunctiform
positionin relationto a formalnexus
of otherequallypointillisticpositions.The gridof analyticalgeometry
becomesthe gridlockof physicalspace itself. Thrustinto the limbo
of a purelypassivespace regardedas impassivebut not impassable,
placeis renderedvacuous.18
The ascendancy of space over place is registered in the very definition
of place as a subset of space. Among the dominant meanings supplied
by the OED, we find: "a material space: extension in two or three
John Gillies
31
directions,room";"aparticularpart of space of defined or undefined

extent, but of definite situation";and "the portion of space actually
occupiedby a personor thing."A subordinateand archaicmeaningis:
"the apparentposition of a heavenlybody on the celestial sphere."'9
For all this, place has not become philosophicallyobsolete. Casey
finds it freshly conceived in an essay by Immanuel Kant, in which
place is treated as a bodily (as distinct from a mental) prehension,
and thereafterin later phenomenologicalelaborationsof this insight
(principallyin EdmundHusserl).20Place is real because it is built into
the living body,which is thereforeplaciallyshaped. Thus, the placial
operatorsof orientationand direction derive from the strategically
uneven bifurcatednessof the body, its handednessand bipedal mobility.The body is literallydesigned to make room, to find direction
and declare horizon.Place is thus no longer (as in Aristotle)a matter
of passive containmentbut a mode of the body'sactive prehension
within (and purchase upon) the world. Accordingly,place is necessarily(ratherthan fallaciously)inflected with pathos, quality,energy,
and affect. Place arisesout of the body because the body itself arises
out of place.
In what followsI will suggestthat Miltonpreservesthe integrityof
place in the teeth of space, not by fightingan Aristotelianrearguard
action againstnew philosophybut by intuitingplace as a propertyof
the body.This argumentdiffers from that of previouscritics (such as
MichaelLieb or JacksonI. Cope) who assertthe importanceof place
over space in ParadiseLost in that I do not thinkof place in terms of
enclosureon the one hand and encroachmenton the other.2'Again,I
differfromMildredGutkinwho-accepting Cope'sand Lieb'svisionof
enclosedplacesthreatenedby a limitlessspatiality-recaststhe relationshipin dialecticalterms:as a relationshipbetweencompetingpositives,
an inward-turningtendency and an outward-turningtendency.22But
where Gutkinis right to note the legitimacyof the spatialmotive in
the poem, she does not possess a productivedefinitionof placiality.
In my reading, Milton does not simply pose place in opposition to
space, but mediatesthat oppositionin terms of a thirddomain:room.
No one of these domainsor masterimages can be understoodin the
absenceof the others.Place can be considereda sub-setof space only
if we are preparedto see it as a phenomenologicalexpressionof the
embodied human being'senvironing"room."Put anotherway,place
can be considered in terms of (geographicor topographic)location
only if locationitself is regardedas an effect of the "rooming"activity
of the body.The inter-linkageof these terms shouldbe borne in mind
32
Spaceand Place in ParadiseLost
in the followingdiscussion,whichprogressesfromspacethroughroom
to place, ending with a coda on body.
I. SPACE
To askhow Miltonposits places within space is also to askwhat he

makesof space and indeed of the "newphilosophy"which had caused
Donne such anxietyin the Anniversaries.In general,we can say that
Milton was completely unfazed by the new spatiality.This amounts
to more than sayingthat he was well informedabout it. While thoroughly respecting the indefinitenessof space both as region and as
object of scientificknowledge,Miltonaccommodatesit completelyto
his aesthetic purposes.There is no sense, as in Donne, of epistemic
contradictionor aesthetic embarrassment.Milton'saesthetic graspof
space is best appreciatedif attentionis paid to the modes by which
it is reported:the view points, the genres, and the persons involved
in the narration.
We first approachthe newly created cosmos in the company of
Satan. Having voyaged through the primal (uncreated) region of
chaosand glimpsedour "pendantworld"(Earth)hangingby "agolden
chain"from "empyrealheaven,"Satanalightsupon the outer rim of
the physicalcosmos, "thefirmopacousglobe / Of this roundworld.""3
Though seeming like a globe from "faroff," up close the surface is
actuallythat of "aboundlesscontinent/ Dark,waste, and wild, under
the frown of Night / Starlessexposed"(3.422-25). If Milton appears
here to have observedthe letter of the old cosmology(this cosmos is
sphericallyencased), he hardlyobservesits spirit. Instead of Dante's
shining primum mobile (or, as we shall see, Donne's "holy room")
this is a kind of ghost star suspended between heaven and chaos, a
windy desert which is destined to become the location of "allthings
transitoryand vain"(3.446). It is in fact a parodyof the old cosmology
and indeed of the Dantean or Neoplatonic ascent of purified souls
who "passthe planets seven, and pass the fixed,/ And that crystalline
sphere"(3.481-82) expectingto arrivein heaven. Somewhatlike the
cosmologythat is the object of its parody,Milton's"Paradiseof Fools"
(3.496) is an ontologicalchimera with no real cosmologicalstatus.24
What Milton is suggestingis that the furthest reach of the physical
cosmos is inherentlydelusive. In such a context a desire for certainty
begets onlydistortion.Accordingly,Satan'sdescentthroughthe cosmos
towardsParadiseis narratedwith a wealth of structuraldetail which
is yet studiouslyinconclusive as regards the precise structure and
John Gillies
33
content of the cosmos. Thus, we hear of "stars distant" that "nigh at

hand seemed other worlds" to Satan, but "who dwelt happy there / He
stayed not to inquire" (3.566, 570-71). When Satan makes for the sun,
his route is emphatically vague: "thither his course he bends / Through
the calm firmament; but up or down / By centric or eccentric, hard to
tell, / Or longitude" (3.573-76). Alastair Fowler notes that it is "hardto
tell" because "specifying further would involve opting for a particular
astronomical system . .. a choice Milton avoids."25
Milton's cosmological tightrope-walk between the Ptolemaic and
Copernican alternatives is nowhere more delicately and elaborately
poised than in the dialogue on astronomy of book 8. As was traditional
in hexaemeral literature, an angelic account of creation is followed by
a lesson on the structure of the cosmos.26Adam's question to Raphael,
however, is untraditionally skeptical of the old cosmology and thereby
implicitly skeptical of the placial dignity or purpose of the earth whose
creation has just been related to him:
When I behold this goodlyframe,this world
Of heaven and earth consisting,and compute
Their magnitudes,this earth a spot, a grain,
An atom, with the firmamentcompared
And all her numberedstars,that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible...
merely to officiatelight
Roundthis opacousEarth,this punctualspot
One day and night;in all their vast survey
Useless besides; reasoningI oft admire,
How nature,wise and frugal,could commit
Such disproportions,with superfluoushand
So manynobler bodies to create,
while the sedentaryearth
attains
Her end without least motion, and receives,
As tributesuch a sumlessjourneybrought
Of incorporealspeed, her warmthand light;
Speed, to describewhose swiftnessnumberfails.
(8.15-20, 22-28, 32, 34-38)
While the idea of the earth as a mere point in relation to the cosmos
was ancient as well as Copernican, it is significant that Adam should
voice it with Copernican doubt rather than ancient wonder.27 The
34
languageclinicallyexposes the mathematicalabsurditiesinvolved in

believing that so vast and distanta body as the primummobile could
orbitthe earthdaily.Adamequallydrawsattentionto the natural-philosophicalclumsinessof preferringan elaboratelyineleganthypothesis
to the comparativelyelegantandefficientCopernicanalternative.Why
indeed should the heavens behave so irrationally?
Beneaththe Copernicansurface,however,lurksa subtextto which
Raphealdirectshis response,one whichwe mustgraspin orderto fully
understandthat response.Adam'smoderndoubt is accompaniedby a
much older disdainof Earthin relationto the cosmos. The Latinism
"thispunctualspot"mighthavebeen lifted straightfrom Senecawho,
as we have seen, derides Earth as "hoc punctum.""8
Effectivelytwo
formsof contemptof place are present here: the ancientPlatonicversion and the modern Cartesianversion that A. N. Whiteheadwould
Once Earth is
finally describe as the fallacy of "simple location.""29
reducedto a mere point (its true size in comparisonwith the cosmos),
then it is not merely reduced in size but also reduced to the realm
of extensionwhere placialidentitydisappearsinto geometrymuch as
a line disappearsinto a point. The feeling tone of Adam'squestion,
however, is not merely contemptuous.Along with the contempt of
place goes a feeling that we might describe as the "raptureof space."
This, too, has a simultaneouslyancient and moderncharacter.While
the ancient version of this (Scipio'sPlatonicraptureto the heavens)
differsfromthe earlymodem version(the headyskepticismof Donne's
Anniversaries),they cohabitwell enough in Adam'squestion. It is to
this emotionalsubtextthat Raphaelprimarilyreplies.
Though it has been read as scientificallyreactionary,Raphael'sanswer is a masterpieceof scientificawareness,epistemologicalsubtlety,
and rhetoricalnuance.30Raphaelbegins by applaudingthe spirit of
free inquiry:"Toask or search I blame thee not.., whether heaven
move or earth,/ Importsnot, if thou reckonright"(8.66, 70-71). What
looks like an evasion(it doesn'tmatterwhich cosmologicalhypothesis
is right)is in fact a Baconianregardfor methodologicalrigor("ifthou
reckon right"):the answeris less importantthan the integrityof the
question and the methods used to pursue it. What is to be avoidedis
not audacioushypothesisbut the kindof cosmologicalmodel-spinning
that is founded on conjecture.As others have noted, this conjectural
cosmologylooksfar more old thannew: the Ptolemaiccosmologythat
contrived"to save appearances"(8.82) by addingever more baroque
variationsto planetarymovement,girdingthe sphere"withcentricand
eccentric scribbledo'er,/ Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb"(8.83-84).31
John Gillies
35
Havingdone the science,Raphaeladdresseshimselfto the issueof
value implicit within Adam's Copernican challenge:

considerfirst,that great
Or brightinfers not excellence:the earth
Though,in comparisonof heaven, so small,
Nor glistering,may of solid good contain
More plenty than the sun that barrenshines,
Whose virtue on itself worksno effect,
But in the fruitfulearth....
Yet not to earth are those brightluminaries

Officious,but to thee earth'shabitant.
(8.90-96, 98-99)
Again, this is surprisingly audacious. The idea that "great [o]r bright
infers not excellence" appears a direct contradiction of Beatrice's
words in Paradiso:
the materialspheresarelargeor smallaccordingas moreor lessvirtue
is diffusedthroughalltheirparts.Createrexcellencemustmakegreater
blessedness;greaterblessednesstakesa greaterbody."3
Alan Gilbert suggests, moreover, an echo of Galileo's Dialogue con-
cerningthe two chiefworldsystems,Ptolemaicand Copernican(1632),

where Simplicio (representing the old cosmology) "holds that the celestial bodies, as a sign of their perfection, are unalterable, and hence
without generation," to which his Copernican interlocutor (Sagredo)
responds, "that it would add to their perfection if they produced
In both Milton and Galileo, the old cosmology is turned
something."""33
on its head. Instead of representing corruption in comparison with
celestial perfection, the earth is now fruitful where the heavens are
barren, and-considered as man's abode-the earth has a right to be
valued as equally excellent as far as man is concerned. Again, as far as
man is concerned, the point of the vastness of space is "that man may
know he dwells not in his own / An edifice too large for him to fill, /
Lodg'd in a small partition" (8.103-5). By "partition," Milton would
have meant "room" rather than Earth or place as such: the niche occupied by the place occupied by man.
Raphael resumes with an astronomical tour de force, a set of new
philosophical hypotheses to make the head spin: What if the sun be
center to the world? What if the earth be a seventh planet, rotating on
its own axis and about the sun? What if the earth and moon illuminate
36
each other with reflected light from the sun? What if the moon and
starsbe inhabited?Whyshould"suchvast roomin nature"be "unpossessed" (8.153)? The questions lead to two conclusions,one explicit
and the other implicit.The explicitconclusionis whathas strucksome
critics as scientificallyreactionary:
Solicitnot thythoughtswithmattershid;
Leavethemto Godabove,himserveandfear;
joy thou
In whathe givesto thee,thisParadise[;]
heavenis forthee too high
Toknowwhatpassesthere;be lowlywise:
Thinkonlywhatconcernsthee andthybeing;
Dreamnot of otherworlds,whatcreaturesthere
Live,in whatstate,conditionor degree.
(8.167-68,170-76)
But the realpoint is surelythatwhat mattersto manconcernshis own
being, his own place, and, indeed, place ratherthan space. Raphael's
paradeof spatialconjectureis more than just a displayof rhetorical
irony leading up to a deflatingconclusion. His hospitalityto the notion of a pluralityof worldssuggeststhat space itself might be placial,
or full of inhabitedworlds. It is worth pausingover Milton'senthusiasm for this notion. The idea of a pluralityof inhabitedworldswas
notoriousnot just because its chief renaissanceproponent,Giordano
Bruno, had gone to the stake for it, but because it was potentially
heretical. Had the Fall happened on Mars,and, if so, did Christdie
on Marsto redeem the Martians?Milton'senthusiasmin the face of
this theologicaldifficulty,I wouldsuggest,is placial.Havingdone away
with the old cosmographicassumptionof an ontologicalsplitbetween
the sublunarand celestial spheres, Milton was fully preparedto entertain his own version of the Galileanalternative:the universewas
If place made sense on Earth,
ontologicallyconsistent throughout.34
then it must also make sense-or potential sense-throughout the
cosmos. The reasonman is enjoinedto "[d]reamnot of other worlds"
is not that they are not there, but simplythat in the absence of space
travel they are none of his immediate business;they are not-so to
speak-furnished as his unique room.Raphaelcouldwell be imagined
givingthe same adviceto Martians.Don't worryabout Earth,just get
on with life on spaceship Mars. Don't worryabout their theological
problems,just your own.
John Gillies
37
The real question, then, is not so much the nature of space or the
cosmos (the hexaemeral literature erred in supposing that such a topic
was pertinent to revelation) but the role of man within the cosmos,
or his corner of it: Earth.35The dialogue on astronomy resoundingly
asserts the importance of place over space. Adam admits his need of
such advice by owning up to a taste for new philosophy. There is, he
suggests, an elective affinity between the human mind and "wandering thoughts, and notions vain," for "apt the mind or fancy is to rove /
Unchecked, and of her roving is no end" (8.187-89). This is as much
to say that there is an affinity between the mind and the nebulous
of space("wandering,"
exaltations
as we havenoted,is wordplayfor
has
the
Eve,too,
"planet").
spatialbug.The dreamthatSatanplants
in her mind seems a version of Scipio's:
Forthwithup to the clouds

With him I flew, and underneathbeheld
The earth outstretch'dimmense, a prospectwide
And various:wonderingat my flight and change
To this high exaltation....
(5.86-90)
Eve's words also recall a topos of early modern world maps whereby
the reader is enjoined to imagine himself soaring above the earth to
survey it from the God's-eye view enjoyed by Scipio. Accordingly, the
Typus Orbis Terrarum in Ortelius's atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
(1570)-the most famous of all early modern world maps-cites Scipio's
rapture in a cartouche over the body of the map.36Paradise Lost of
course is full of cartographic vistas. But Milton is always careful to associate them with superhuman beings such as God, the angels, Satan,
and the "heavenly muse," rather than with human beings as such (3.19).
Thus Adam'sview of the whole hemisphere from the mountain in book
11 requires him to undertake extensive visual surgery to render him
capable of seeing the vistas that Michael wants to show him. There
is, then, a disconnect between the spatial predilection of the human
mind (its ungroundedness, its tendency to wander endlessly) and the
limitations of human vision and movement. The body should remind
man that he is the creature of place rather than the master of space.
II. ROOM
Unlike Donne ("the space man" in William Empson's witty phrase)

who deplacializes and etiolates his lovers in the process of expanding
them to cosmic proportions or collapsing the cosmos into them, Milton
38
is profoundlycorporealand correspondinglyplacial.37A key index of
of the one andthe plathe differencebetweenthe spatialimagination

other
is
their
use
the
of
cialimagination
differing of the word"room."
In Donne, the room is typicallytreated as a spatial microcosmof a
or cosmographically
explodedworld.Speakingof "the
geographically
peculiarpower of rooms in Donne'spoetry,"Lisa Gortonnotes how:
His charactersinhabit peculiarlysimplifiedlocations and spatial

a townundersiege;a "littleroome";a "prettyroome";
arrangements:
a roomencircledby the outsideworld,by spies,bypilgrims,by cosmic
spheresor the sun;centresandcircles.38
Yet it should be stressed that there is another kind of "room" in
Donne, located at the more macrocosmic end of the traditional cosmic
analogy. This corresponds to "that holy room" to which Donne imagines himself ascending at his death in "A Hymn to God my God in
my Sickness," and also the "room" at which the departed soul arrives
after its spherical ascent in Of The Progress Of The Soul. The Second
Anniversary.39This room is the polar opposite of the microcosmic room
and corresponds to the "camera stellata" (star room or chamber), a
term used by John Case to denote the celestial sphere in the cosmic
diagram prefacing his Sphaera Civitatis.40Something like this refined
celestial region-this "room"-is what Melanchthon had hoped to access by means of astronomy. It is where Dante expected to be lodged
in Paradise.4' Even this celestial room, however, is inflected by an
intriguing ambiguity. As the soul reaches the outer sphere:
Heaven is as neare, and present to her face,
As colours are, and objects, in a roome
Where darknessewas before, when Taperscome.42
In phenomenological (rather than merely figurative) terms we might
say the great room of heaven is experienced with the intimacy and
familiarity of a little room on Earth. There is a shock, an uncanniness,
of the kind a modern reader might associate with the room at the end
of hyperspace in Stanley Kubrick's2001: A Space Odyssey. The image
is brilliantly placial, recovering place at the very extreme of spatial
rapture, and, as it were, restoring body to soul. The uncanniness aside,
it anticipates something of the placial imagination of Milton.
In Paradise Lost, room features rarelyin Donne's microcosmic sense
and never in his specifically macrocosmic sense (we will come to an
instance of the former in due course). These senses aside, the word
is used some six times to suggest a kind of virtual environmental or
John Gillies
39
evolutionaryniche in the spatio-temporalstructureof creation.The

Miltonic room is an environmentwith built-in predispositionsthat
are alternatelycosmic, physical,metaphysical,moral,emotional,and
spiritual.It is the sum of possibilitieswithin which a given life form
(humanor angelic or demonic) might thriveor wither.In a curiously
Darwinianway,the Miltonicniche can be activelyhostile to the species which occupies it, challengingthat species to adapt or perish.
Unlike in Darwin, the Miltonic environmentresponds ontologically
to the spiritualcharacterof its guest species: it knows its occupant.
In view of what Fallon calls the "ontologicalmobility"of Milton's
angels and prelapsarianhumans,we might indeed think of Lamarck
ratherthan Darwin.43Before the coming of death into the world,it is
possible for substantialspiritualevolutionto occur at the level of the
individualratherthan the species. And because such evolutionoccurs
in symbiosiswith the materialenvironment-itself a living, spiritual
entity-the environment,too, would evolve.44Not all environments
work in this way. Hell is devolutionary.Heaven, however,appearsto
offer evolutionarypossibilitiesto the lesser angels. It is in the middle
of the spectrum-the cosmos, Earth,andparadise-that the possibilities for change are greatest:either downwardor upward.
In the beginning, when the possibilities for upward change are
predominant,the whole physicalcosmos is a "room"of heaven. It is,
in the firstplace, a "purlieu,"or suburb,of heaven:
a placeforetold
and,by concurring
signs,ere now
Created,vastandround,a placeof bliss
In the purlieusof heaven,andthereinplaced
A raceof upstartcreatures,to supply
Perhapsourvacantroom,thoughmoreremoved,
Lestheavensurcharged
withpotentmultitude
Mighthapto movenewbroils.
(2.830-37)
More importantly,the cosmos is identicalwith heaven in teleological
and quasi-ontologicalways. Earth'spurposeis equivalentto heaven's:
the happiness and further spiritualevolution of beings formed in
God'simage, the diffusionof God'sgoodnessthroughthe universeof
time and space:
Gloryandpraise,whosewisdomhadordained
Good out of evil to create, in stead

Of spiritsmaligna better race to bring
40
Into their vacantroom, and thence diffuse

His good to worldsand ages infinite.
(7.187-91)
Thereareothertopographic
signsof thisplacialaffinitybesidesmere
neighborhood: the golden chain linking heaven and the cosmos. Again,
the allegorical figure of Chaos informs Satan that Earth is created "on
that side of Heaven whence your legions fell" (2.1006).
The creation of the cosmos is thus a way of "making room" in the
quite literal sense of filling the gap in the ontological fabric of heaven
left by the fall of a full thirdof all the angels.God is quiteexplicit

about this. Satan, he tells us:
trustedto have seiz'd and into fraud

Drew many,whom their place knowshere no more:
Yet far the greaterpart have kept, I see,
Their station;Heaven, yet populous,retains
Number sufficientto possess her realms
Thoughwide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeriesdue, and solemn rites:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Alreadydone, to have dispeopledHeaven,
My damagefondlydeem'd, I can repair
That detriment,if such it be to lose
Self-lost;and in a momentwill create
Anotherworld, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable,there to dwell,
Not here, till, by degrees of merit raised,
They open to themselvesat length the way
Up hither,under long obedience tried;
And earth be chang'dto heaven, and heaven to earth
Mean while inhabitlax,ye powers of heaven.
(7.143-60, 162)
Paradise's status as a room of heaven means that place has a different
value before the Fall as compared with after it. There are various signatures of prelapsarian placiality in this passage. Heaven is described
as actively refusing to "know" its former occupants, a reversal of the
Cartesian equation in which "knowing" would be a property of the
subjects (the fallen angels) rather than of the place. As we shall see, the
idea of places knowing their occupants is something of a motif in the
poem. Another signature word is "frequent."Milton uses this word in a
placial sense which is now obsolete, namely, "of persons" or "assembled
in greatnumbers,crowded,full,"as distinctfromthe morecommon

JohnGillies
41
sense of temporal frequency.45Milton's usage additionally suggests not

merely occupancy of a place but positive engagement with it or public
acknowledgement of it. As we shall see, "frequent" suggests the way
in which "room"is formally taken up or made into a domain or world.
The word "station" (a kind of standing in place) also has a peculiarly
positive inflection, recalling the concluding motto of the sonnet "When
I Consider How My Light is Spent": "They also serve who only stand
and wait."'46
Finally, the disparity of location-men will dwell "there ...
not here"-is consonant with a substantive identity of "room." After
a probationary period, Earth will be "chang'd to heaven, and heaven
to earth." Meanwhile, the remaining angels are enjoined to "inhabit
lax," that is, to spread out or to take "ample room" in heaven.47God's
protestations notwithstanding, the creation of Earth and the anticipated
population explosion of "men innumerable" clearly complement the
depopulation of heaven (Milton's angels do not reproduce).48In terms
of the divine plan, Earth, or more specifically paradise, is now where
the real action is.49Thus, seated on the tree of life, Satan views
To all delight of humansense exposed
In narrowroom nature'swhole wealth,yea more,
A heaven on earth, for blissfulParadise
Of God the gardenwas....
(4.206-9)
Unusually, Milton here uses "room"in something of the microcosmic
sense we have seen in Donne.50 However, the microcosm is neither
figurative nor perspectival. Paradise is substantially heaven, not merely
a room of heaven but (certainly in a teleological sense) the room. The
word "nature" here embraces the entire material universe, celestial,
infernal, and earthly. It is both created and creating (natura naturata
and natura naturans), both an object and a purposive force in the
sense of natural law or God's contract with his creation.51
By the same token, Earth has the potential to become a room or
suburb of hell. The physical linkage between heaven and Earth is
damaged by the Fall. Moreover, in a counterpart of the golden chain,
Sin and Death build a road over chaos from hell to the earth. Satan
foresees as much from his first moments in Paradise. Lamenting the
advancement of other creatures "into our room of bliss" (4.359), he
predicts how
hell shall unfold,
To entertainyou two, her widest gates,
there will be room,
42
Not likethesenarrowlimits,to receive,

Yournumerousoffspring....
(4.381-85)
The image of hell'sgates "unfold[ing]"suggestsanotherfacet of Miltonic placiality:this time anticipatingthe postlapsarian"unfold[ing]"
by Michael of Old Testamenthistory to Adam from the Mount of
Paradise ("How comes it thus? Unfold celestial guide" [11.785]).
What Michael unfolds to Adam is an evolving sequence of human
times and places that are typologicallyfolded within each other. Just
so, this Satanicimage-equally postlapsarianin character-suggests
an eventual unfolding of hell's gates over the gulf of chaos and out
into the world,the room of man. The corollaryis that the potentialof
a place-no less than its occupant-is folded within itself, such that
the room can be thought of as the mutualfolding of a place with its
occupantand the consequentevolution(unfolding)of that place. The
distinctionbetween folded and unfoldedplaces roughlyequateswith
that between prelapsarianand postlapsarianconceptions of place in
the poem. Before the Fall, man'srelationwith his place is intimately
folded:paradiseis his "mansion"and is eternallydestined to be so in
the sense that Earthitself is destinedto evolveinto paradiseas Adam's
offspringbecome too numerousfor the originalsite. After the Fall,
as we have partlyseen, the intimacyof this placialtie is broken.Like
Cain, man is now destinedto "wander"througha successionof places
and also throughtime. The covenantbetween God and man is thus no
longer directlyplacialbut symbolizedin a successionof increasingly
mobile and existentialsymbols:the arksof Noah and the Covenant,
the church, the holy spirit, the "uprightheart and pure" (1.18). The
change of emphasisis suggestedwhen the Son is exhortedto "be ...
in Adam'sroom"(3.285), which means both "be thy self man among
men on earth"(3.283) and also fulfillAdam'soriginalrole in creation:
supplythe room of the fallen angels, repairthe ontologicaldeficit in
heaven.Redemptionmustworkdirectlywith beings andbodies rather
than places.
The dissolutionof the directlyplacialcovenantis starklyillustrated
by the fate of the originalgarden.Afterthe Fall,a wobbleis introduced
into the earth'ssolarorbit so as to create climaticvariationand make
paradise(with its perpetualspring)impossible.Then, after the flood,
paradiseis "moved/ Out of his place"to wash
Downthe greatriverto the openinggulf,
Andtheretakerootan islandsaltandbare,
John Gillies
43
Thehauntof sealsandores,andsea-mews'clang.
Toteachthee thatGodattributes
to place
No sanctity,if nonebe thitherbrought
By menwhotherefrequent,or thereindwell.
(11.830-31, 833-38)
The unfrequentedplace is a nonsense, and this particularparadiseis

defined by human "sanctity"as well as by human frequency.When
these are lacking,paradiseis liquidated.Ultimately,in a quasi-phenomenologicalway, Miltonic place arises primordiallyfrom and for
specific beings. So absolute is this primordialfit that it is unsettled
from the moment of paradise'sinfiltrationby Satan:
There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, firstwroughtthe change,
Where Tigrisat the foot of paradise
Into a gulf shot under ground,till part
Rose up a fountainby the tree of life;
In with the riversunk, and with it rose
Sataninvolvedin risingmist, then sought
Where to lie hid....
(9.69-76)
The sense of pollution is compounded by the liquid aspect of this

image, which is then multipliedin the sea-imageryof Satan'sglobal
searchfor a hidingplace in the immediately-following
lines."5If man's
sin is responsiblefor the eventualobliterationof Eden, the viabilityof
Eden is compromisedfromthis very moment.Satan's"involve[ment]"
with the waters of life signifiesthat this place of places is no longer
unproblematicallyfolded into mankind-as his unique room-from
this point on.
Why therefore should man be expelled from paradise given its
own frailtyor susceptibilityto infection?God seems inconsistentin
speaking of the intolerance of paradise's"pureimmortalelements"
for man's"inharmoniousmixturefoul" (11.50, 51). The answer lies
partlyin the fact that whereasAdamwas made for the garden(andit
for him), he was made from ordinary,unimprovedEarth. Hence he
is to be sent "fromthe garden forth to till / The groundwhence he
was taken, fitter soil" (11.96-97). Fowler'snote to these lines cites a
scholastic distinction"betweenthe donum supernaturaleof Adam's
superadded'originalrighteousness'andthe pura naturaliaor ordinary
propertiesof human natureper se."53In retrospect,however,God's
choice of the word "elements"is precise;a place is more than its ele44
ments,moreeven thantheirsum:it is an ontologicalpartnership.Were

man to remainin paradise,he might misuse potent elements such as
the water of life. On the other hand, paradisemust not be allowedto
become "a receptacle...
/...
to spirits foul" (11.122-23). Again, the
word-choiceis precise:"receptacle"suggestsa neutralformof accommodationstoppingwell short of the primordialagency of places that

"know"theiroccupants.Miltonis systematicin resistinganysuggestion
of paradiseas passivelycontaining.Accordingly,paradiseseems not to
wantto "know"the firstcouple once they havefallen,perhapssuggesting the postlapsariancondition generally.Thus Eve ruefullynotices
how their last morningin paradise"allunconcernedwith our unrest,
begins / Her rosyprogresssmiling"(11.173-74); and Adamanxiously
anticipatesa world in which "allplaces else / Inhospitableappearand
desolate,/ Nor knowingus nor known"(11.305-7).
To summarize:"room"predominantlysuggestsnot so much a given
physicalplace but the physicaland metaphysicalroot of that place in
the creation,and therebyin the redemptivescheme of thingsworking
to repairthe ontologicaldamageto the primalplace (heaven)wrought
by the Fall of the angels. Creaturesare tied to their rooms not just
by dint of occupationbut by a kind of active symbiosisor co-option.
While room can be thought of as a spiritualmediationbetween body
and space, it becomes independentof place in the postlapsarianorder
of things.
III. PLACE
Place, then, is an epiphenomenonof room, less a permanentdatum of naturethan the face reflected by physicalnature in response
to human inhabitance.Adam literallyimagines paradiseas the face
of God, lamentingthat "departinghence, / As from his face I shallbe
hid, deprived/ His blessed countenance"(11.315-17). Again,in the
postlapsarianvisions of book 11, Adam "looked,and saw the face of
thingsquite changed"(11.712) as a scene of "luxuryand riot"succeeds
one of warfare(11.715).Thoughsuggestingtransitorinesshere, "face"
is a bodily and spiritualimage and thus not negativelyweighted in
general. One thinksof the "humanface divine"which the blind poet
longs to see amid the smilingface of naturein the inductionto book
3 (3.44). Place is, so to speak, the face that gazes back at mankind
from nature'smirror.
Placesevolve-they areborn,live, anddie-along withpeople. Had
mannever fallen,paradisewould have evolvedin the sense of expandJohn Gillies
45
ing to fill the earth and becoming more like heaven. After the Fall,
paradise(like all other places) is obliteratedby the flood, and place is
no longer a primaryexpressionof human being-in-the-world.God's
covenant with man is non-placialand expressed in mobile symbols
reflectiveof the wanderingfate of Cain. A particularreason for the
"visionsof God"shown by Michaelin book 11 (we may imagine) is
to change Adam'splace-boundconcept of worship(11.376). Initially,
Adamis unable to comprehendworshipin the context of places that
mean nothingto him. Hence his wish to remainin paradise:
hereI couldfrequent,
Withworship,placeby placewherehe vouchsafed
Presencedivine,andto mysonsrelate;
Onthismounthe appeared;
underthistree
Stoodvisible,amongthesepineshisvoice
I heard,herewithhimat thisfountaintalked:
So manygratefulaltarsI wouldrear
Of grassyturf,andpile up everystone
Of lusterfromthe brook,in memory,
Ormonumentto ages,andthereon
Offersweetsmellinggumsandfruitsandflowers:
In yondernetherworldwhereshallI seek
or footsteptrace?
Hisbrightapprearances,
(11.317-29)
Reminiscent of the shrine-worshipand pilgrimagesof the old religion, Adam'sshrine-goingis backwardlookingand solipsistic:his own
private version of what Samuel Edgerton has called the "omphalos
syndrome"of early medievalworld maps centered on Jerusalemand
obsessed with the location of paradise.54What, in contrast,the "visions of god" reveal to Adam is a bewilderingvarietyof places and
behaviorsin which permanenthabitation-the idea of a "capitalseat"
pointlesssequenceofwandering,
(11.343)-giveswayto anapparently
sojourn,and removal.
The devaluationof place afterthe Fall begs variousquestions.Why
does placeneverthelessexertsucha gripon Milton'simagination?Why,
particularlyin view of Milton'sliteracyin the place-scorning"newphilosophy"of scientistssuch as WilliamGilbert,does he not followin the
poetic steps of Donne? Why-given that postlapsarianplace is less a
factof naturethana factorof subjectivity-is Miltonnot a Cartesian?55
A large part of the answerlies in Milton'sdepictionof hell.
A. J. A. Waldockfound Milton'shell imaginativelyhybrid to the
point of contradiction:
46
hastoserveadoubleduty:itisaplaceofperpetual
Hell... asalocality
andunceasing
in theory;andit is also,in the practice
punishment,
of the poem,an assembly
area,a baseforfuture
ground,a military
do
not
well
The
two
conceptions
very agree.
operations.
Notwithstandingthe heat, Waldockwaspishlyobserves, "organized
The contradiction,then, is between a Danfield sportsare possible."56
tean prison-houseand a kindof miscellaneousactivitiescenter,with a
readinggroupto the right,athleticsto the left, excursionsat the door.
Waldock'sdissatisfaction,I suggest, can be taken as a way into the
supreme originalityof Milton'shell. Milton begins with the Dantean
model of a place that absolutelydominatesthe body, trappingit in
space, condemningit to repetitionin time, and overwhelmingit with
pain. Such a place would bespeak the fundamentallogic of Milton's
heaven (and to a lesser extent his paradise)in the sense of being designed with one purpose in mind:that of hosting its occupantsin an
intimatelyoverdeterminedway.But (as the argumentto book 1 makes
clear) a Dantean hell as such-"in the centre"of the earth-is ruled
out, "forheaven and earth maybe supposedas not yet made"(1.arg).
More interestingly,a hell on the Dantean model is merely a point of
departurefor Miltoninto somethingmore modernand more relative,
where devils escape their absolutefixity(chainedto the burninglake)
in orderto regroup,dispute,engagein buildingprojects,and generally
come to terms with where they are. Milton'shell, then, while proving extremelyunpleasantfor its new occupants,does permit them an
importantlevel of counter-agency.Accordingly,they seek to mediate
the effects of place, to disempower,relativize,nullify,and escape it.
Though the devils appearto have some success in this, the place will
eventuallyclaimthem ("know"them) in subtlerways.The topographic
ambiguityof hell-part prison, part sea, part plain, part frozen and
parttorrid,part"continent,"and partconcave-provides a setting for
a debate about the body'srelationshipto place.
It is worth inquiringmore closely into the various strategies for
mitigatingor denyingthe claimsof place. Musicprovesto be of some
help, with its power
to mitigateandswage,
Withsolemntouches,troubledthoughts,andchase
Anguishanddoubtandfearandsorrowandpain
Frommortalandimmortalminds....
(1.556-59)
John Gillies
47
"Breathingunitedforcewith fixedthought,"the devilsthus"movedon

in silence to soft pipes that charmed/ Their painfulsteps"(1.560-2).
Rhetoricand argumentare also helpful. These, however,will require
a civic setting (a "spacioushall"),which in turn involves a physical
assault on hell: the mining of its raw materialsand the building of
Pandemonium(1.762). This amountsto the use of place as raw material for a denaturing"productionof space."'7The projectis at least
plausibleto the degree that the geology of hell is effectivelyidentical
with that of heaven and Earth (gold and other necessarymineralsare
found in all). Again, the mining engineer (Mammon)has worked in
heaven, assessingthe "theriches of heaven'spavement,troddengold"
(1.687). Mammonwill later inspire mining on Earth (see 1.685-88).
The architect(Mulciber),too, has "builtin heavenhigh towers"(1.749)
and-as Greek myth testifies-will go on to set an architecturalstandard on Earth.The music, the mining,and the engineeringhere are
all echoed in Adam'sthirdvision:that of the tents of Cain'soffspring,
includingJubal(inventorof music) and Tubalcain(founderof metalwork) (see 11.556-73).
If this sequence suggests a close approximationof hellish to postlapsarianearthlyexperience,thereis an obviousdifference(in addition,
of course, to the fact that Earthis never as inhospitableas hell). This
is that the devils,who are representedas so numerousthat Pandemonium's"spacioushall"is made to seem a "narrowroom,"are obliged
to shrinkthemselves to the size of "smallestdwarfs"in order to get
in (1.780). Meanwhile,"farwithin/ And in their own dimensionslike
themselves,"a thousandleaders "in close recess and secret conclave
sat... / Frequent and full" (1.792-93, 795, 797). (Interestingly,the
devilsdo not so much"frequent"
hell as they"frequent"
Pandemonium:
their own spatialmodificationof hell.) Why does Miltoninsist on the
slightlyabsurdand inconsistentlyappliedidea of diabolicshrinkage?
Why is it beyondhis devilsto build a civic space big enoughto accommodate the diabolicrankand file without miniaturizingthem-while
the top brassare able to fit "intheir own dimensionslike themselves"?
The answer,I suggest, is that he needed to dramatizethe manipulativeness of spatialtechnology.By denaturinghell-collapsing a place
into the plasticityof space-the devils indiscriminatelyplasticizeand
relativizetheir own bodies. The irony,however,is that the more space
is produced and place reduced to a datumof thought,the more the
emplacementof the diabolicalbody is insisted upon.
Apart from outrightescape, the most potent way of denying the
claimsof hell is to escape it mentally.We have alreadyfounda connec48
andspatiality
in Eve'sdream
tionbetweenthinking,ungroundedness,
and
andAdam'spredilectionfor"wandering
thoughts, notionsvain."
in
sceneof book2 when
the
council
Wefinda similarassociation
early
would
lose
/
full
of
Belialasks,"[W]ho
Though
pain,thisintellectual
being,/ These thoughtsthatwanderthrougheternity?"(2.146-48).
Belialenjoysthe sameluxuryin hell thatAdamenjoys
Interestingly,
in paradise:
thatof unfetteredspeculation.
Againwe areremindedof
the amenities(the civilizedquality)of Milton'shell.The starknessof
the contrastbetweenmentalfreedomandthe moretraditional
idea
of bodilytortureis shortlypickedup by a seriesof Danteanalternativesthatwouldmakefree thoughtimpossible:enchainmenton the
the sportandprey/ Of
burninglakeor "eachon his rocktransfix'd,
/
for
ever
sunk
Under
or
yonboilingocean,wrapt
rackingwhirlwinds;
in chains"(2.181-83).It is extremebondageof this sort-the kind
thatmanaclesthe mind-that the devilsriskincurringby the frontal
assaultthatMolochcallsfor.Belialgoeson to advisethatif the devils
refrainfromprovokingGodfurther,his angermayabateand"these
theirangelicbodragingfires/ Willslacken"(2.213-14).Meanwhile,
ies may,"tothe placeconformed
/ In temperandin nature,"adapt
so as to "receive/ Familiarthe fierceheat"(2.217-19).The argument
is furtherdevelopedby Mammonwho-rather anticipating
Samuel
Smiles'sself-helpcredo-suggests the devils"seek/ Ourown good
fromourselves"
(2.252-53),andso "inwhatplaceso e'er/ Thriveunderevil,andworkease out of pain/ Throughlabourandendurance"
(2.260-62). Given a will to work and the right materials to work with,
hell can be transformed into a Las Vegas theme-park version of heaven
of space").
(theultimategoalof Mammon's
"production
While similar in some respects, Satan'sstrategy for transcending hell

is more radical. Like any other place, hell can be nullified by sheer
force of character and strength of mind:
Infernalworld, and thou profoundesthell
Receive thy new possessor:one who brings
A mind not to be changedby place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matterwhere, if I be still the same ...?
(1.251-56)
If the secondhalfof the argument("[t]hemindis its ownplace")is
Cartesianin its absoluteseparationbetween mindand matter,the first
is Stoic,oddlyappropriating
the
part("[a]mindnot to be changed")
Stoic Platonismof Comus:
John Cillies
49
Virtuecouldsee to do whatVirtuewould
By herownradiantlight,thoughsunandmoon
Werein the flatsea sunk....
He thathasclearlightwithinhis ownclearbreast
Maysit i'thecentre,andenjoybrightday,
Buthe thathidesa darksoul,andfoulthoughts
Benightedwalksunderthe middaysun;
Himselfis his owndungeon."58
The sentiment is of course misappropriatedif for no other reason
than that Platoniccosmologyis effectivelydisempoweredin Paradise
Lost (in Comus,virtue'sself-sufficientlight comes from the primum
mobile ratherthan "the middaysun").Ironically,Satandoes not discover the hollowness of his boast until he is physicallyout of hell.
Thus approachingthe new world,he finds that "withinhim hell / He
brings... nor from hell / One step no more than from himself can
fly/ By change of place" (4.20-23). In this subjectivesense, indeed
hell suddenlyseems spatiallyinfinite:"Whichway I fly is Hell; myself
am Hell;/ And in the lowest deep, a lower deep / Still threateningto
devour me opens wide" (4.75-77). Spatiality-the ungroundedness
of thought-takes on a nightmarishquality.Yet hell is nowhere more
hellish for Satanthan when confrontedby the wedded bliss of Adam
and Eve in paradise:
thusthesetwo,
Sighthateful,sighttormenting!
in one another's
arms,
Imparadised
ThehappierEden,shallenjoytheirfill
Of blisson bliss,whileI to Hellamthrust
(4.505-8)
It is not simplythe extremeantithesisof placeswhich makeshell most

hellish, but the embodied happinessof Adamand Eve: that which is
the entire focus and raison d' tre of paradise.The deliberatenessof
the phrase "[i]mparadisedin one another'sarms"emerges when we
compareit with the third line of canto 28 of the Paradiso:"she that
Pointimparadisesmy mind"("quellache'mparadisala mia mente").59
edly unlike Dante'scelestial paradise,Milton'sparadiseis earthly.It
is a place for the erotic body ratherthan the disembodiedmind and
a place that arisesin respect of the body ratherthan in respect of the
crystallinesphereto which Dante is admittedby "shethatimparadises
my mind."
We mayconcludethissectionby notingthathell offersan interesting
half-wayhouse between the primordialplacialityof paradiseand the
50
Space and Placein ParadiseLost
more dispersed and technologizedcondition of postlapsarianEarth.

Like paradise,hell makes an immediate claim on the body, which,
though commutablein technologicaland philosophicalways, returns
in the form of an undeniableand permanentclaim on the mind. Like
postlapsarianEarth(andin some senses fashionedin its image),hell is
receptiveto culture,technology,and spatialremodeling.While Milton
plainly disapprovesof spatialityin both its hellish and postlapsarian
earthly manifestations,he is posed a problem by the sheer fact that
his most deeply placial domain (paradise)is by definition obsolete.
Because place is no longerpartof man'scovenantin the postlapsarian
world, there seems no deeper logic to Milton'sattachmentto place
and disapprovalof spatiality.
IV.CODA:BLINDNESS AND THE BODY
Why then-in spite of his sophisticatedunderstandingof the "new

philosophy"and his zest for spatialeffects (zooms, fades, montages,
vistas,sharpchangesof scale) remarkedupon by the cinematographer
Sergei Eisensteinandthe criticDavid Masson(whois reportedas saying that "Shakespearelived in a worldof time, Miltonin a universeof
A philosophicalanswermightlay
space")-is Miltona "placeman"?60
stresson his theology,in which the body is privilegedas the very stuff
of spiritualbeing. Milton'stheologywas peculiarlyphilosophical:what
Fallon describesas an "animistmaterialism"steeringa middlecourse
between Hobbesianmaterialismon one side and the spiritualismof
the CambridgePlatonistson the other.61Because Miltondid not think
of the soul in abstractionfrom the body,he refused to believe that it
survivedthe body at death, thus subscribing(amonghis variousother
The placial implicationsof this body-based
heresies) to mortalism.62
most
theology emerge
clearlyin the motif of room, via which, as we
have seen, places, beings, and bodies are intimatelyfused. This is,
then, partof the answerbut not the whole answer.Man'sroom, as we
have also seen, loses its placialcharacterafter the Fall. There is, we
must imagine,no particularvirtue in placiality.If placialitynevertheless marksthe imaginationof ParadiseLost as a whole, it must then
be in a primordialsense. Our originalniche (paradise)was placial,
our ultimate destiny-heaven or hell-will also be placial, and our
time in this Earth will be spent in travelingtowardseither of these
all-encompassingplaces.
There is, however,another-and moreimmediatelybodily-ground
of this primordialplacialityin the poem: Milton'sown blindness. Famouslyandsomewhatpuzzlingly,Miltoninsertsa longautobiographical
John Gillies
51
to lightatthestartof book
passageon hisblindnessintotheinvocation
In
of
view
the
sheer
emotional
and
3.
power
beautyof thispassage,
the reader may well not feel the need for an excuse. Yet we must ask:
to what extent is the intense emotional investment of this passage
extraneous or part of the design? Initially, the theme of blindness
is so deftly embedded within epic convention as not to seem out of
place. Like Dante, Milton emerges in the company of his muse from
a figurative sojourn in the underworld and greets the light:
Thee I revisitnow with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygianpool....
Taughtby the heavenlyMuse to venture down
The darkdescent, and up to reascend,
Though hardand rare:Thee I revisitsafe,
And feel thy sovereignvital lamp....
(3.13-14,19-22)
Milton feels the light but cannot see it. However decorously inscribed
into the structure of the poem, the shock of the following description
is profound: "but thou / Revisitst not these eyes, that roll in vain / To
find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; / So thick a drop serene hath
quenched their orbs, / Or dim suffusion veiled" (3.22-26). The image
of orbs rolling "in vain" and in darkness is irresistibly cosmic, like dark
stars or dead moons ("serene") spinning homelessly in the void. There
follow two powerfully placial passages: the ghostly evocation of nightly
visits to the haunt of the muses-"Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny
hill" (3.28)-and the rending evocation of the mundane world:
Thus with the year
Seasonsreturn,but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approachof even or morn,
Or sight of vernalbloom, or summer'srose,
Or flocks,or herds, or humanface divine;
But cloud instead,and ever-duringdark
Surroundsme, from the cheerfulways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledgefair
Presentedwith a universalblank
Of nature'sworksto me expungedand razed,
And wisdom at one entrancequite shut out.
(3.40-50)
So deep is the despair that Milton momentarily forgets that the light
which is denied him is physical light ("bright effluence") not the essential light ("bright essence increate") with which he identifies God
52
(3.6).To be sure,the passageon blindnessculminatesin Milton'sprayer

for the spiritto "irradiate"
him within and "thereplant eyes.../...
that I may see and tell / Of thingsinvisibleto mortalsight"(3.53-55).
But the despair remainsin the mundane sight of what is denied to
the poet: the happiness of human emplacement within the natural
world. The same combinationof beautywith longingis felt in Satan's
despairingsight of Adam and Eve in paradise.If to SatanAdam and
Eve seem "divine,"no less so does the "humanface"--any human
face-to the blind poet. The point is not so much that the passage
resonateswith Satan'sdespairingview of paradisebut what connects
the two passages:the pathosor primordialityof place as experiencedor
imaginedfroma positionof absoluteexclusion.If paradiseis never so
paradisalas throughSatan'seyes, then the mundaneworldis paradisal
in the memoryof a blind man. Miltondid not have to strainto create
paradise.It came of its own accord, unbidden, irresistibly,from the
heart. Place worksin ParadiseLost precisely because it is despaired
of, because it can never be taken for granted.What the blind poet
most deeply conjures forth is what he best remembers but cannot
have. This is not space but place.
Universityof Essex
NOTES
'See Edmund S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: Univ.
of CaliforniaPress, 1997).
2
Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets: John Milton, in Johnson: Prose and Poetry, ed.
MonaWilson (London:RupertHart-Davis,1963), 822.
3 See Stephen M. Fallon, Milton among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in
Seventeenth-Century
England(Ithaca:Cornell Univ.Press, 1991). Fallon arguesthat
Milton'smaterialismshould be contextualizedin terms of contemporaryphilosophical debates ratherthan in the chaotic list of sources and analoguesmore commonly
proposed.
4On this, see Fallon, 160-65.
5John Donne, An Anatomy of the World. The First Anniversary, in The Poems of
John Donne, ed. Herbert J. Grierson,2 vols. (London:Oxford Univ. Press, 1966),
lines 295-301.
'Donne, The First Anniversary, line 205.
7See GalileoGalilei,Sidereusnuncius(Venetis,1610).It is translatedby E. S. Carlos
in The Sidereal Messenger (London: Rivingtons, 1880).

8Donne, The First Anniversary, lines 391-92, 396-98. In his edition of The Poems
ofJohnDonne,Griersonnotes thatsuchexplanatorymarginaliaappearsin manuscripts

from 1612 to 1621 (2:242).
9In lines 189-220 of the Second Anniversary,Donne imaginesthe purifiedsoul
ascendingfromthe earthup throughthe cosmosto the sphereof the fixedstars,which
is effectivelyheaven. However,the journeyis ratherbumpierthan this Neoplatonic
John Gillies
53
trajectorymightsuggest.The soul "stayesnot in the ayre,/ To looke"at the traditional

celestialarchitecturethroughwhich it passes, suggestingthat Donne has no real confidence in it (Of the Progressof the Soul. The SecondAnniversary,in Poemsof John
Donne, lines 189-90).
"'ConsiderMacrobius'scommentaryon Cicero'sDreamof Scipio,one of the prime
meansby whichlate Latincosmology(a PlatonicandAristotelianhybrid)wastransmitted to the middle ages:"Ofall the matterthat went into the creationof the universe,
that which was purest and clearesttook the highest positionand was called ether...
lastly,as a result of the downwardrush of matter,there was that vast, impenetrable
solid, the dregs and off-scouringsof the purifiedelements, which had settled to the
bottom,plungedin continualand oppressingchill, relegatedto the last positionin the
universe, far from the sun. Because this became so hardenedit received the name
terra"(Macrobius,Commentaryon the Dreamof Scipio,trans.anded. WilliamHarris
Stahl [New York:ColumbiaUniv.Press, 1952], 182).
" Fallon
quotes the splendidlyunlearnedimpatienceof Edward,ViscountConway
(uncleto AnneConway,the philosopher)with the Copernicansystem:"[T]hatopinion
of Copernicus,for the Eartha dull grosse body to move and the heaven and Starres
who are light to stand still is as if a Prince should upon a festivallday appointall the
old and fat men and woemen to dance and all the yonge men and woemen of sixteen
and twenty to sit still"(ViscountConway,quoted in Fallon, 165 n. 41).
12JohnMilton, Comus,in The Poemsof John Milton,ed. John Careyand Alastair
Fowler (London:Longmans,Green & Co., 1968), lines 2, 1. The image of Earth as
"thisdim spot"in relationto "the starrythresholdof Jove'scourt"echoes an ancient
commonplacecontrastingthe minutenessof Earthwith the vastnessof the heavens.
ThusSenecaspeaksof the earthas "hocpunctum"(thispoint)in relationto the heavens
(Seneca, NaturalesQuaestiones,vol. 7 of Senecain TenVolumes,ed. T. H. Corcoran
[Cambridge:HarvardUniv.Press, 1971], 6).
13
Philip Melanchthon,De Astronomiaet geographia,quotedin CharlotteMethuen,
"TheRole of the Heavensin the Thoughtof PhilipMelanchthon,"
Journalof the History of Ideas 57 (1996):401.
14WilliamGilbert,De MundoNostroSublunariPhilosophiaNova (Amsterdam,1651),
book 2, chapter8, page 144, translatedin Casey, 135. Gilbert'sremarkcomes within
a book devotedto cosmology.Chapter8 is on the positionof Earthin space:"[T]erra
non constatin loco suo, nee directionemhabetin Boream& Meridiemacoeli alicujus
systemate,aut Polo coeli aliquoaut mundi,aut gravitatealiqua"[Earthdoes not stand
in its place, nor has northerlyor southerlydirectionwithinany systemof the heavens:
nor is there any celestialpole in the world,nor gravity](book2, chapter8, page 144).
here shouldbe understoodin the Aristotelianand pre-Newtoniansense of
"Gravity"
a body'stendencyto seek its own place (see OED, compactedition, s.v. "gravitate").
The argumentof the chapteris that Earth has no naturalplace in space:"Sed non
locus in naturaquicquampotest: locus nihil est, non existit,vim non habet;potestas
omnis in corporibusipsis. Non enim Luna movetur,nee Mercurii,aut Venerisstella,
propter locum aliquem in mundo, nee stellae fixae quietae manent propterlocum"
[But there can be no place whateverin nature:place is nothing,does not exist, has
no force;all power residesin the bodies themselves.The moon is not indeed moved,
nor Mercury,nor the starof Venus,on accountof any place in the world,nor do the
fixed stars remain sedately on account of place] (book 2, chapter 8, page 144). All
translationsby Johnand PatriciaGillies.A scholarlytranslationof Gilbert'simportant
workby StephenPumfreyandIan G. Stewartis scheduledfor publicationin the series
Medievaland Early ModernScience.
54
15RendDescartes,Descartes:PhilosophicalWritings,ed. ElizabethAnscombeandPeter ThomasGeach(London:Nelson'sUniversityPaperbacks,1972),199.On "extension,"

see Daniel Garber,"Descartes'sPhysics,"in The CambridgeCompanionto Descartes,
ed. John Cottingham(Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.Press 1992), 286-334.
16Descartes,PhilosophicalWritings,203-4.
" See Fallon;and
MarjorieNicholson,"TheEarlyStagesof Cartesianismin England,"
Studiesin Philology26 (1929):356-74.
08Casey,200-1.
19OED, compactedition, s.v. "place."
2"For Casey'sdiscussionof ImmanuelKant's"Concerningthe UltimateGroundof
the Differentiationof Directionsin Space,"see 202-42.
21The idea of holy places as enclosures is argued in Michael Lieb, "Holy Place:
A Reading of ParadiseLost," Studies in English Literature1500-1700 17 (Winter
1977): 129-48. See also JacksonI. Cope, The MetaphoricStructureof ParadiseLost
(Baltimore:Johns HopkinsUniv.Press, 1962).
22See MildredGutkin,"KnowledgewithinBounds:The SpatialImageryof Paradise
Lost,"EnglishStudiesin Canada,7.3 (1981):282-95.
23Milton,ParadiseLost, ed. Fowler,2nd ed. (New York:Longman,1998), book 2,
lines 1052, 1051, 1047;book 3, lines 418-19. Hereaftercited parentheticallyby book
and line number.
24
See Fallon, 192.
25Fowler,ed., ParadiseLost, 3.573-76n.
26See Grant McColley,"ParadiseLost,"Harvard TheologicalReview 33 (1939):
181-235, esp. 217, 223-24.
27See Fowler,8.23n.
28The topos aboundsin ancientand medievalliterature,in which formit was much
cited in the renaissance:perhaps most popularlyin cartoucheson the world map
prefacingOrtelius'smuch publishedTheatrumOrbis Terrarum.See my "Theatresof
the world,"in Shakespeareand the geographyof difference(Cambridge:Cambridge
Univ.Press, 1994), 70-98.
29A. N. Whitehead,Scienceand the ModernWorld(Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.
Press, 1926), quoted in Casey,211.
311The
most notable "reactionary"
readingis A. O. Lovejoy,"Milton'sDialogue on
in Reasonand the Imagination:Studiesin the Historyof Ideas,1600-1800,
Astronomy,"
ed. JosephA. Mazzeo(New York:ColumbiaUniv.Press, 1960), 129-42. But see also
McColley.
31 See Fowler,8.83n. See alsoAlanH. Gilbert,"Miltonand Galileo,"
Studiesin Philology 19 (1922):152-85; and CatherineGimelli-Martin,"'Whatif the Sun Be Centreto
the World?':Milton'sEpistemology,Cosmology,and Paradiseof Fools Reconsidered,"
ModernPhilology99.2 (2001):231-65.
32Dante Alighieri,Dante:TheDivine Comedy,3: Paradiso,Italiantext with translation and comment by John D. Sinclair(Oxford:OxfordUniv.Press, 1971), canto 28,
lines 64-68.
33AlanGilbert,173.
34For Galileo'sbelief in the ontologicalconsistencyof the universe, see Donald
Friedman, "Galileoand the Art of Seeing," in Milton in Italy: Contexts, Images,
Contradictions,ed. Mario A. DiCesare (New York:Binghampton,1991), 159-74,
esp. 165. See also Fallon,who contraststhis unifiedspatialontologywith the dualistic
ontologyof Comus(81).
John Gillies
55
K. Lewalski(ParadiseLostand the Rhetoricof LiteraryForms[Princeton:

35Barbara
PrincetonUniv.Press, 1985]) notes how, by respectingGalileo'schoice of "dialogue"
as the genre of astronomicaldebate, Raphael"removesastronomyfrom the province
of revelationand places it squarelyin the realmof humanspeculation"(46).
36Between1570 and c.1642, Ortelius'sTheatrumOrbisTerrarum(Antwerp,1570),
and thus his world map,went throughsome forty-twofolio editionsin Latinand the
majorEuropeanlanguages,includingEnglish, into which it was translatedin 1606.
See R. V Tooley,Maps and Map-Makers(London:Batsford,1949), 30-31. In addition, some thirty-onepocket editionswere publishedbetween 1576 and 1697. Latin
text from The Dream of Scipio is cited in a cartoucheat the top left-handcornerof
the TyptusOrbis Terrarummap. It translates:"Forman was given life, that he might
inhabitthat sphere called Earth,which you see in the centre of this temple"(Cicero,
The Dreamof Scipio,in Cicero:De RepublicaDe Legibus,trans.and ed. C. Keyes
W.
[Cambridge:HarvardUniv.Press, 1948], 266-267).
37SeeWilliamEmpson,"Donnethe space man,"in WilliamEmpson:Essayson RenaissanceLiterature,Volumeone, Donneand the new philosophy,ed. JohnHaffenden
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.Press, 1993), 78-128.
38LisaGorton, "JohnDonne's Use of Space,"Early Modern Literary Studies 4,
specialissue 3 (September1998):paragraphs15, 2, http://purl.org.emls.
39Donne,"AHymnto God my God in my Sickness,"in Poemsof John Donne, line
1; The SecondAnniversary,line 217.
40JohnCase, SphaeraCivitatis(Oxford,1588), 1.
41Gimelli-Martinnotes how "Dante can praise the primum mobile as both the
'swiftestof the heavens'... and as utterly remote from all earthlythings. Because,
'its parts,the nearestand the highest,are so uniformthat I cannottell which Beatrice
chose for my place"'(259).
42Donne, The Second
Anniversary,lines 216-18.
43Fallon, 119.
in Fallon,98-107, esp. 106-7.
44See the chapter"Milton'sAnimistMaterialism,"
45OED, compactedition, s.v. "frequent."
46Milton,"WhenI Consider How My Light is Spent,"in Poems of John Milton,
line 14.
47TheOED offers seven senses of the word "lax,"the sixth of which is "so as to
have ample room,"a latinismof which Milton'susage is the single example (OED,
compactedition, s.v. "lax").
48Satanvoices much the same idea:
he to be avenged
And to repairhis numbersthus impaired,
Whethersuch virtue spent of old now failed
More angelsto create, if they at least
Are his created,or, to spite us more,
Determinedto advanceinto our room
A creatureformedof earth, and him endow
With heavenlyspoils, our spoils....
(9.143-49, 151)
49McColleyarguesthat such ideas were traditional:"Amongthe beliefs which long
had interestedChristianwriters,few were more widely knownthan the conception

that to some degree man was createdto fill the place left vacantby the fallen angels.
56
Origen went so far as to state that his creationwas an indirectpunishmentfor the

apostates"(201).
50Anotherquasi-microcosmicusage is the referenceto "the parsimoniousemmet,
provident/ Of future, in small room large heart enclosed"(7.485-86). The emmet
functionsas an emblem of political"commonalty"
(Fowler,7.487-89n).
51Seethe discussionof Milton'scounter-Hobbesian
conceptionsof natureandnatural
law in Nicholson,"Miltonand Hobbes,"Studiesin Philology23 (1926):405-33, esp.
421-22.
52These are the lines:
sea he had searchedand land
From Eden over Pontus,and pool
Maeotis,up beyond the riverOb;
Downwardas far as antartic;and in length
West from Orontesto the ocean barred
At Darien, thence to the land whence flows
Ganges and Indus....
(9.76-82)
53Fowler,11.96-97n.
54SamuelY. Edgerton,"FromMentalMatrixto Mappamundito ChristianEmpire:
The Heritageof PtolemaicCartography
in the Renaissance,"
in Artand Cartography:
Six
HistoricalEssays, ed. David Woodward(Chicago:Univ.of ChicagoPress, 1987), 10.
55On Milton'soppositionto Cartesianism,see Fallon,esp. chapters3 and 4.
56A. J. A. Waldock,ParadiseLost and Its Critics (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.
Press, 1966), 94.
57See Henri Lefebvre, The Productionof Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith
(Oxford:Blackwell,1994), 38-39.
58Milton,Comus,lines 372-74, 380-84. See Fallon,203-5.
59Dante,canto 28, line 3.
60DavidMasson,quoted in Nicholson,"Miltonand the Telescope,"ELH 2 (1935):
18. See the discussionof the cinematicpotentialof ParadiseLost in Sergei Eisenstein,
The Film Sense,ed. JayLeyda(London:Faber & Faber, 1977), 54-58.
61See Fallon,esp. chapters1-4.
62See
George Williamson,"Miltonand the MortalistHeresy,"in his Seventeenth
CenturyContexts(London:Faber & Faber, 1960), 148-77.
John Gillies
57

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Space and Place in "Paradise Lost"

Author(s): John Gillies

SPACEAND PLACE IN PARADISELOST

My aim in this paperis to exploreJohnMilton'swayof imagining-of construingandconstructing-placesandspacesin Paradise

Lycidasand Comus,he felt himself tied to a higher standardof truth

Until the adventof what Donne called "newphilosophy"(a com-

pound of cartography, atomism, magnetism, Copernicanism, and

mit of which is the earthlyparadise),and heaven (risingsuccessively

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

niversaryaccordinglyturns on the want of correspondencebetween

It is worth remindingourselves of some of the ways in which a

distancefrom the solar system were multipliedsuch that the idea of

Space and Placein ParadiseLost

The termsplace and space do not signifysomethingdifferentfrom

The impact of such ideas on seventeenth-centuryEnglish thought

was considerable." While Thomas Hobbes adapted Descartes towards

the victory of Cartesianism is ceded by Dr. Johnson ("Our intercourse

The ultimatereasonforthe apotheosisof spaceas sheerlyextensional

directions,room";"aparticularpart of space of defined or undefined

Spaceand Place in ParadiseLost

To askhow Miltonposits places within space is also to askwhat he

content of the cosmos. Thus, we hear of "stars distant" that "nigh at

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

languageclinicallyexposes the mathematicalabsurditiesinvolved in

Havingdone the science,Raphaeladdresseshimselfto the issueof

value implicit within Adam's Copernican challenge:

Yet not to earth are those brightluminaries

cerningthe two chiefworldsystems,Ptolemaicand Copernican(1632),

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

Forthwithup to the clouds

Unlike Donne ("the space man" in William Empson's witty phrase)

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

is profoundlycorporealand correspondinglyplacial.37A key index of

of the one andthe plathe differencebetweenthe spatialimagination

peculiarpower of rooms in Donne'spoetry,"Lisa Gortonnotes how:

His charactersinhabit peculiarlysimplifiedlocations and spatial

evolutionaryniche in the spatio-temporalstructureof creation.The

Good out of evil to create, in stead

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

Into their vacantroom, and thence diffuse

left by the fall of a full thirdof all the angels.God is quiteexplicit

trustedto have seiz'd and into fraud

in greatnumbers,crowded,full,"as distinctfromthe morecommon

sense of temporal frequency.45Milton's usage additionally suggests not

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

Not likethesenarrowlimits,to receive,

The unfrequentedplace is a nonsense, and this particularparadiseis

The sense of pollution is compounded by the liquid aspect of this

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

ments,moreeven thantheirsum:it is an ontologicalpartnership.Were

to spirits foul" (11.122-23). Again, the

word-choiceis precise:"receptacle"suggestsa neutralformof accommodationstoppingwell short of the primordialagency of places that

Spaceand Place in ParadiseLost

"Breathingunitedforcewith fixedthought,"the devilsthus"movedon

Spaceand Place in ParadiseLost

While similar in some respects, Satan'sstrategy for transcending hell

If the secondhalfof the argument("[t]hemindis its ownplace")is

Cartesianin its absoluteseparationbetween mindand matter,the first

It is not simplythe extremeantithesisof placeswhich makeshell most

Space and Placein ParadiseLost

more dispersed and technologizedcondition of postlapsarianEarth.

Why then-in spite of his sophisticatedunderstandingof the "new

Space and Place in Paradise Lost

(3.6).To be sure,the passageon blindnessculminatesin Milton'sprayer

Space and Place in "Paradise Lost"

Space and Place in "Paradise Lost"