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It is important to consistently evaluate differences in the tone of Jonson and Milton as they
explore immorality in their texts:
Paradise Lost is a consciously moral text with religious acknowledged didactic purposes.
Volpone is a theatrical entertainment with immorality mixed with inventive humour, making moral
judgements awkward.
Sources
Paradise Lost makes clear references to the Bible, consciously creating a new epic in the style of
the classics.
Volpone draws from the theatrical tradition of comedy (Aristotle) sourced in Commedia DellArte
continued through Renaissance drama.
So inflame my sense
With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now
Than ever; bounty of this virtuous tree!
So said he, and forbore not glance or toy
Of amorous intent, well understood
Of Eve, whose eyes darted contagious fire.
Her hand he seized; and to a shady bank,
Thick overhead with verdant roof embowered,
He led her, nothing loth; flowers were the
couch,
Pansies and violets, and asphodel,
And hyacinth; earths freshest, softest lap,
There they their fill of love and loves disport
Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal,
The solace of their sin; till dewy sleep
Oppressed them, wearied with their amourous
play.
(Book IX, 1031-1045)
Milton is much less ironic than Jonson his use of blank verse is more stately and formal
Milton argues that Eve and Adam were free to choose or reject an object that appealed to their
sensuous desires. It was not up to God.
Deception and the falseness of appearance Temptation as Performance (links well to Volpone)
Critical interpretation, Alistair Fowler The implication is that Satan, besides talking
persuasively, is acting a part
Satan takes delight in tempting Eve: Hope elevates, and joy / brightens his Crest he delights
in the success of his plan to deceive Eve
But is Eve just a means to an end YES But the hot Hell that always in him burned / Though
in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight, / And tortures him now more
This sense of delight in seeing Eve is distinct to the delight he gains in his commitment to do
ill
Milton refuses to call the snake innocent even before Satan enters him. Instead he stresses the fallen
root of the word, nocent [harmful], of which the unfallen counterpart, innocent, is merely a kind of
frail denial. So the snake is not innocent, but, much more ominously, nor nocent yet (l. 186). A second
example is when, on Adam and Eves first appearance at l. 205, we are told of the luxurious and wanton
growth of the plants of paradise their unfallen labour strives to keep pace with by means of astute
pruning. But because we know the story, and because we, too, are subject to the mortal sin /Original
(IX,1003-04) we cannot help but hear ominous pre-echoes behind both adjectives.
As Ricks points out, before the fall luxurious is a harmless horticultural word; but its fallen
meaning jostles against it here. Likewise, and more ominously, wanton, for in this case the unfallen
meaning suggests an absence of discipline, the fallen meaning sexual promiscuity. Another example of
this jostling of innocent with less innocent meaning comes when Adam and Eve part at line 385. In the
innocent world from her husbands hand her hand / Soft she withdrew means that her hand was
delicate and incapable of guile; but on the edge of the Fall the same line has a faint mixed suggestion of
frailty and deceit, much as the adverb and adjective (the meaning is both soft and softly) mingle in
Miltons impressionistic grammar.
Immediately Eve is compared with a wood-nymph light,/Oread or Dryad. The unfallen sense is
to celebrate the delicacy and charm of the Pastoral World. But think of Eves soft insidiousness for a
moment and the fallen meaning is predominant, with the Oreads and Dryads reduced to available eyecandy, the pagan Pastoral they have strayed in from suddenly suspicious and our first mother alight
woman on the cusp of catastrophe. Finally, note how on opposite sides of the Fall the most familiar
words, such as wound, complicate their meaning. In Book 8, before the Fall, wound is a creative word,
Adam the male mother rejoicing at how quickly his birth scars healed when Eve was brought forth from
his side, though wide was the wound (8,467). By the climax of Book 9, however, the wound made by
original sin is more terrible, more destructive, and more generally felt (earth felt the wound). This
breach never heals for the rest of human history.
The Deception
Satan is compared to a ship tacking into the wind As when as ship by skilful Streasmen wrought / Nigh
Rivers moth or foreland, where the Wind / Veres of, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile
- Use of sibilance
- Indirect and weaving motion Satan is indirect, devious but also determined
Satan entering the serpent
Nature is at this point unfallen there is no harm in nature, without the thorn, the rose (Book 4) and
the serpent fearless unfired he slept (animals do not harm each other, so the serpent is unafraid and
no one is afraid of it).
Theres also the description of the sleeping serpent In Labyrinth of many a round self-rowld, / His
head the midst, well stood with subtle wiles a possible indication of a flaw in Gods pre-lapsarian
world?
He is also compared to other serpents:
Hermione and Cadmus transformed into snakes in Illyria for disbelieving that Dionysus was a god
Aesculapious, the god of healing, was represented in the temple at Epidaurus as a flashing-eyed serpent
Contentious Point at Line 631: Eve uses an imperative Lead then, acting as if she is in control, but
indeed Satan is rejoicing at his triumph, his hope expounding like a blazing fire.
Satan
Vocabulary
Eve
Reporting
clauses
Evaluative
language
the Tempter
Emotive
language
Epic simile
light of God.
Connotation
Sibilance
Grammatical
inversion
Poetic form
Undermines the pretenses of Eden that Eve rests her arguments on just as Eve did to Adam and again plays to her want to aspire to greatness: Why but to awe / Why but to keep ye low and
ignorant ye should be as Gods, since I as Man
Why does Eve Eat the Fruit? Miltons Exploration of Temptation (compared to
Jonsons presentation of greed)
Forbids us then to taste, but his
forbidding /
Group of wandering words; tract oblique side-long way shifts varied torturous
implications about Satans methods of creating a maze
seduction words: wanton fawning sexual temptation; glory of his shape Pleasing was his
shape, / And lovely, never since of Serpent kind / lovelier and colours His head crested aloft,
and Carbuncle his neck, with burnish Neck of verdant Gold attraction, beauty and
sophistication the pre-lapsarian serpent will not just deceive but seduce Eve.
Form
Milton uses monologue/soliloquy in his epic poem, since he intended to write Paradise Lost as a
tragedy there are dramatic qualities to the poem.
Use of monologue/soliloquy engages audience sympathy in Paradise Lost, and to some extent
achieves the same in Volpone though Mosca/Volpone display negative qualities in their soliloquy
to a greater extent than Satan in Paradise Lost.
Peter Weston
Her passions, as a result of flattery, are ruling
her reason
Alastair Fowler
The Bible:
One-dimensional, superficial Eve; we gain no insight
into her internal thoughts or reasoning not does
she question the Serpent as she does here (the
questioning presents a degree of interrogation, she
is not a wholly credulous mother)
Sandra M Gilbert
Diana K. McColley
It should be pointed out that in the twentieth
century feminist commentators tended to find
Eves hints of sturdy independence attractive,
and also (sometimes) as recalling Miltons own
tendency to question authority and rebel. In the
separation colloquy (Book 9) writes Diane K.
McColley in a recent Milton Companion, principles
very like Miltons own move Eve to decline to
let Satans threat interfere with their
liberties and the pursuit of their callings.
Eve:
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitnd by a Foe,
Suttle or violent, we not endud
Single with like defence, wherever met,
How are we happie, still in fear of harm
C. S. Lewis
Temptation
Eve is tempted by Satan; Adam is tempted by Eve.
Techniques used:
Techniques used:
sensual baits
Appeals to the senses a better life
Personal me Celia If thou
Future tense shall
Seduction
Movement of the serpent: Circular motion Fould
above could a surging maze, his Head / crested
aloft symbol of deception: circling spires
semantic field associated with furtive, deceptive
trickery.
* Group of wandering words; tract oblique sidelong way shifts varied torturous
implications about Satans methods of creating a
maze
Volpone Comparison
Aye, before
I would have left my practice for thy love,
In varying figures I would have contended
With the blue Proteus, or the horned flood.
Now, art thou welcome
Use of flattery: for thy love just as Serpent
adores Eve as his Sovran mistress universally
admired; both appeal to the vanity of the women
(rather misognistic) however, to different
results:
Eve: into the heart of Eve his words made way
Celia: Sir! / These things might move a mind
affect by such delights Celia transcends
sensual appeals and rejects the temptation
she is unaffected by the flattery and appeals to
personal pride.
But: Volpones persuasion is far more superficial
than the Serpents; he only ever offers her
material acquisitions score up sums of pleasures
but the Serpent offers knowledge of Good and
Evil and deceptively promises that Eve can
better her mind; there are two levels to Satans
seduction (flattery but also the promise of
ascension), therefore whilst Celia rejects sensual
delights, Eve submits to the promise of
Godhead feed at once both Bodie and Mind.
Celias virtue is stronger than Eves, she has
stronger resolution to retaining her innocence
innocence is all I can think wealthy but Eve is
Relationships
Attempts at Diplomacy: Sharing the Labour in Eden (I. 192 384)
The commune how that day they best may ply / Their growing work: for much their work outgrew / The hands
dispatch of two gardening so wide
Eve: We labour still to dress / This garden, still to tend plant, herb and flour, / Our pleasant task enjoyed, but
till more hands / Aid us, the work under our labour grows, / Luxurious by restraint
Let us divide our labours
Our days works brought to little, though begun / Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned
Adam: Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed / Labour, as to debar us when we need / Refreshment
For not to irksome toil, but to delight / He made us
Adam and Eve have differing responses to the work: Eve considers the tasks necessary to be completed
with efficiency, with this being the primary aim, not enjoyment. Adam however asserts that God allowed
them to enjoy their labours leisurely, with the refreshment of smiles/talk/food, and not have to toil
endlessly.
Husband and wife
Adam praises Eves concern over how best to carry out their work, saying nothing lovelier can be found / in
woman, then to studio household good, / and good works in her husband to promote
Adam demonstrates his bounding love for Eve willingness to pacify her by granting her request reluctantly,
saying But if much converse perhaps / thee satiate, to short absence I could yield. / For solitude sometimes is
best society, / And short retirement urges sweet return
Affection for Eve is at the forefront of Adams mind; he wishes to work with her to enjoy her company, sweet
intercourse, and sees the possibility of increasing his love if she was to depart.
Adam stresses how husband and wife can help each other: Each / to other speedy aide might lend at need
Thee wife, where danger o dishonour lurks, safest and seemliest by her Husband stays, who guards her, or
with her the worst endures
Evident that Adam sees his role as Eves protecter but that he also expects the same of her Not then mistrust,
but tender love enjoins, That I should mind thee oft, and mind thou me
Eve bargains with her husband intent on her separation.
Eve and Adams understanding of the possible threat that faces them
For thou knows / What hath bin warned us, what malicious foe / Envying our happiness, and of his own /
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame / By sly assault
What does the malicious foe threaten?
Whether his first design be to withdraw / Our fealty from God, or to disturb /Conjugal Love, then which
perhaps no bliss / Enjoyed by us excites his envie more
Adam suggests that the beast envies their Conjugal Love more than anything again Milton stresses Adams
affection for Eve.
Satans corrupt sensuality threatens the virginal Eve the pollution of Eve will bring the end of the
Golden Age in Eden and the establishment of lust and death of earth both Paradise Lost and Volpone
shows a process of transgression
Use of emblems: Plants in Paradise Lost express Adam and Eves relationship in Book 9 myrtle
appears to stand for marriage and roses for passion: In yonder spring of Roses intermix with myrtle
Eve using myrtle to supporting drooping roses she is the emblem of married love; contrast to later
when Adam brings Eve a crown of flowers wove of choicest flours a Garland to adorn her tress and her
rural labours crown, as reapers oft are wont their Harvest Queen Milton compares the pair to reapers
and harvesters, both common emblems of DEATH.
Are there similar uses of emblems in Volpone?
Eves arguments: vocabulary that alerts the reader to the ironic anticipations of the Fall; describes the
plants tending to wild Luxurious by restraint (frolicking growth) / (One night of two with wanton
growth derides tending to wilde) Eve will deride Adams attempts to bind her, restrain her, and will
indeed undergo her own wanton growth in submitting to temptation similar of course to Celia against
Corvinos constraints.
Comparison: Volpone and Paradise Lost
Volpones invocation of The Golden Age versus
the paradise of the Garden of Eden:
Volpone: Well did wise poets, by thy glorious
name, Title that age, which they would have been
the best
Presents an entirely corrupt version of the Golden
Age, where his love of material wealth transcends
all other pleasures far transcending / All style of
joy
Miltons effort to encapsulate evil in Satan was not successful. That is, those readers who have
left their reactions on record have seldom been able to regard Satan as a depiction of pure evil,
and some of the most distinguished have claimed he is superior in character to Miltons God.
Carey argues that critics can be divided into Satanist and anti-Satanist the poem is
insolubly ambivalent at least as far as Satans character is concerned so it is impossible to
decide between pro/anti Satan.
Satanist critics generally emphasise Satans courage, anti-Satanist his selfishness or folly
Satanist:
William Hazlitt: Satans capacity to admire makes him sympathetic as a character: not irrevocably
hardened or incapable of gentle emotion. Only shows as a source of temptation and avarice in
Volpone, the potential beneficiaries and the Would-Bes but more understandably in Mosca.
William Hazlitt: Satan is not irrevocably hardened or incapable of gentle emotion All their
known virtue appears productive in herb, plant and nobler birth of creatures sweet interchange
of hill, and valley, rivers, woods and plaines
William Hazlitt: The most heroic subject ever chosen in a poem he wins our admiration the
more firmly because he is ultimately real, while the inhabitants of Heaven are remote and
strange.
NB: Satan finds sympathy is being the outsider (perhaps like Mosca): Terristrial heaven, danced
around by other heavens that shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, light about light, for thee
alone, as seems, in thee con centring all their precious beams of sacred influence
However, unlike Mosca, Satan fights against a hateful siege of contraries while Mosca furthers
himself and creates opportunities through his parasitical nature.
Rebellious element in Miltons Satan influenced the Romantic poets in the conception of the satanic
hero; a lonely outsider who struggles against everything and everybody, isolated from the rest of
mankind.
Anti-Satanist
Tillyard: Satan a terrible warning embodiment of the unrestrained passions, inspiring horror and
detestation rather than sympathy. (He is meant to incarnate those bad passions that entered man
at the Fall, expression of mans unappeasable dissatisfaction with what he has)
Aside from Satans immorality and foolishness, he is frequently depicted as self-glorifying: To me shall
be the glorie sole among the infernal powers, in one day to have marred what he Almightie styled.
Interesting: Embodies Miltons Puritan ideals of independence and liberty since he is seen as a rebel
fighting against the absolute power of a tyrannical God, just as Milton, defender of liberties, struggles
his battle against a despotic king. As Blake said, Milton is on the Devils party without knowing.
Others, like literary critic William Empson argued that "Milton deserves credit for making God
wicked, since the God of Christianity is 'a wicked God.'"
Leonard points out that "Empson never denies that Satan's plan is wicked. What he does deny is
that God is innocent of its wickedness: 'Milton steadily drives home that the inmost counsel of God
was the Fortunate Fall of man; however wicked Satan's plan may be, it is God's plan too [since
God in Paradise Lost is depicted as being both omniscient and omnipotent].'
Regarding the war in the poem between Heaven and Hell, the Milton scholar John Leonard writes:
Paradise Lost is, among other things, a poem about civil war. Satan raises 'impious war in Heav'n'
(i 43) by leading a third of the angels in revolt against God. The term 'impious war'. . .implies
that civil war is impious. But Milton applauded the English people for having the courage to depose
and execute King Charles I. In his poem, however, he takes the side of 'Heav'n's awful Monarch'
(iv 960). Critics have long wrestled with the question of why an antimonarchist and defender of
regicide should have chosen a subject that obliged him to defend monarchical authority
However, some argue that Milton's criticism of the English monarchy was being directed
specifically at the Stuart monarchy and not at the monarchy system in general.
Animal Imagery
The Bible and Milton both embody and anthropomorphise temptation in Satan, the serpent the fittest
imp of fraud - with all its subtlety and ability to glide obscure.
Satanwith inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found
The serpent subtlest beast of all the field (Book IX, 83-86)
Jonson uses animal references (from fable and bestiary) to indicate and characterise vices, a
development from the medieval morality play. Like fables, these animals participate in a tale of moral
lessons. It also implies the behaviour of most characters (not celestial Celia though) is sub-human,
instinctive and savage. All of Venice are arguably predators of prey or perhaps therefore both.