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  • Essay / Genesis and Paradise Lost - 2383

    The words spoken by God at Creation are the ultimate and original speech act; as told in Genesis and Paradise Lost, God only has to speak and the words come into effect: And God said: “Let there be light”; and there was light... (Genesis, 1:3) Let there be light, said God, and immediately the Ethereal light, first of things, pure quintessence springing from the depths... (VII.243) Milton reverses the arrangement of the identification of the voice and the spoken words themselves, thus fully absorbing the voice of God into the poetic lines.Satan is an inveterate liar who abuses language for his own evil purposes. Satan's language is "ambiguous and deceptive with a double meaning" (Paradise Regained, I.435), while the language of the Son (and by extension that of God) imposes a kind of linguistic harmony where "your actions agree with your words” (Paradise Regained, III). .9). In Paradise Lost, Satan's “ambiguous words” (V.703, VI.568) act as “persuasive” traps, “filled with cunning” (IX.737, 733). He speaks “noble words, which carry | An appearance of value and not of substance” (I.528), and this is worth bearing in mind if you are tempted to succumb to its seductive rhetoric, as Eve or, more recently, the poets Shelley and Blake were known to do it! God's words necessarily conform to their meaning (God is incapable of lying). But even though Satan does not have the power to speak, he does have the sophistical ability to conceal. At the beginning of Book I of Paradise Lost, faithful to epic convention, John Milton invokes the muse, but his muse is nothing less than the Holy Spirit: And above all you, O Spirit, who prefer before all temples the right and pure heart, teach me, for you know; You, from the first Were present, and with powerful wings spread Dove-l...... middle of paper ......a child whose only response from parental authority was an unsatisfactory "Because I said it!” But then these children grow up and seek their own answers. Blake's point begins to make sense if Paradise Lost is evaluated on the basis of its poetic success and theological failure. Milton "was a true poet, and unknowingly on the Devil's side" in the sense that his poetry unwittingly brought Satan to life while trying to destroy him. Satan, warts and all, is probably the most memorable presence in the poem and one that every reader will likely remember. Likewise, Milton's theology is so weak and flawed that it opens the door to a devastating philosophical counterattack. In attempting to justify God, Milton actually accomplishes the opposite, as the failure of Book III demonstrates. For Blake, Milton, the epic poet, ultimately prevails over Milton, the Christian apologist, who surely wished the opposite..