2011 Interdisciplinary Perspectives Presentations
Location
UMass Boston Campus Center Ballroom C
Start Date
28-4-2011 4:00 PM
End Date
28-4-2011 6:00 PM
Description
In Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, John Milton assumes the role of God’s advocate to make the case that God’s decrees are beyond reproach; humankind’s eternal death sentence and the banishment from Eden, issued as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, are not excessive punishments. Twelve books and nearly ten thousand lines later, however, Milton’s argument seems to contradict itself. The Archangel Michael tells Adam that in the fullness of time, a new Paradise will be established as a place of joy and wonder far superior to the original Eden; and ironically, this wondrous ending is an eventuality only made possible because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Milton sets out explicitly seeking to justify God’s ways to mankind but he implicitly justifies man’s first disobedience against God by arguing that mankind would never have known anything better than Eden if Adam and Eve had simply been content to obey God.
“Ad Patrem,” composed within a few years of Milton’s finishing his M.A. at Cambridge College in 1632, followed his rejection of a career in either the clergy or the courts; he chose instead to devote himself to a more secluded life of study and authorship. Explicitly written as an epistle of thanks to his father, within the space of seventeen lines, it becomes a challenge to the father’s authority. The poet contradicts his stated purpose, arguing that even though he is grateful for his father’s generosity, it would be wrong for him not to disobey the father and pursue his own ends.
In order to better understand why Milton came to write Paradise Lost, a close reading of “Ad Patrem” is not merely incidental; it is essential. Milton’s apparent contradiction in —beginning with his justification of God to man and yet ending with a justification of man’s disobedience to God—is neither a contradiction nor an unintended accident. Indeed, Paradise Lost, Milton’s mature masterpiece, perfects an argument that the poet first articulated in his little-known work of Latin juvenilia entitled “Ad Patrem” (“To His Father”).
Of Milton’s First Disobedience and the Fruit of the Tree: “Ad Patrem” As Prologue to Paradise Lost
UMass Boston Campus Center Ballroom C
In Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, John Milton assumes the role of God’s advocate to make the case that God’s decrees are beyond reproach; humankind’s eternal death sentence and the banishment from Eden, issued as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, are not excessive punishments. Twelve books and nearly ten thousand lines later, however, Milton’s argument seems to contradict itself. The Archangel Michael tells Adam that in the fullness of time, a new Paradise will be established as a place of joy and wonder far superior to the original Eden; and ironically, this wondrous ending is an eventuality only made possible because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Milton sets out explicitly seeking to justify God’s ways to mankind but he implicitly justifies man’s first disobedience against God by arguing that mankind would never have known anything better than Eden if Adam and Eve had simply been content to obey God.
“Ad Patrem,” composed within a few years of Milton’s finishing his M.A. at Cambridge College in 1632, followed his rejection of a career in either the clergy or the courts; he chose instead to devote himself to a more secluded life of study and authorship. Explicitly written as an epistle of thanks to his father, within the space of seventeen lines, it becomes a challenge to the father’s authority. The poet contradicts his stated purpose, arguing that even though he is grateful for his father’s generosity, it would be wrong for him not to disobey the father and pursue his own ends.
In order to better understand why Milton came to write Paradise Lost, a close reading of “Ad Patrem” is not merely incidental; it is essential. Milton’s apparent contradiction in —beginning with his justification of God to man and yet ending with a justification of man’s disobedience to God—is neither a contradiction nor an unintended accident. Indeed, Paradise Lost, Milton’s mature masterpiece, perfects an argument that the poet first articulated in his little-known work of Latin juvenilia entitled “Ad Patrem” (“To His Father”).
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