Paradise Regained: Moral Dialectic and the Pattern of Rejection
- Paradise RegainedMoral Dialectic and the Pattern of Rejection
Research Associate, The Henry E. Huntington Library
notes
1. Arnold Stein, Heroic Knowledge: An Interpretation of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes (Minneapolis, 1957), 17, 131. For earlier examinations of the rejection-motif in Paradise Regained, see Merritt Y. Hughes, “The Christ of Paradise Regained and the Renaissance Heroic Tradition,” SP, XXXV (1938), 254–77; Frank Kermode, “Milton’s Hero,” RES, n.s. IV (1953), 317–30. See also J. H. Hanford, “The Temptation Motive in Milton,” SP, XV (1918), 176–94; Elizabeth Marie Pope, Paradise Regained; The Tradition and the Poem (Baltimore, 1947); A. S. P. Woodhouse, “Theme and Pattern in Paradise Regained,” UTQ, XXV (1956), 167–82; Northrop Frye, “The Typology of Paradise Regained,” MP, LIII (1956), 227–38; Burton O. Kurth, Milton and Christian Heroism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959).
2. See Hughes; Stein, 29–33; The Prose Works of John Milton (Bohn Standard Library, London, 1884), V, 95.
3. Prose Works, II, 74; cf. 67–8.
4. Stein, 5.
5. Like Paris, Milton’s Christ is a young man meditating in solitude on the ends and means of the triplex vita. For the traditional interpretation of the Judgement of Paris in terms of the active, contemplative, and voluptuous lives, see Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London, 1958), 78–9; Sears Jayne, “The Subject of Milton’s Ludlow Mask,” PMLA, LXXIV (9559), 535. See Howard Schultz, Milton and Forbidden Knowledge (New York, 1955), 73, 225–6, or the “ethical ladder” in which Satan arranges his “lures” and their organization in terms of the vita voluptaria, the vita activa, and the vita contemplativa.
6. See G. Budaei … De Transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum (Paris, 1535), 35 (“caelestis Herculis clava”), 55, 112 (“Hercules ille noster”); Opera Ioan. Coropii Becani (Antwerpiae, 1580), 22 (“Hercul igitur dictus, ut is per quem omnia creata sunt; quod nomen si vertas, videbis quid filius Dei in hominem versus praestiterit”), 119 (“Christus … qui verus Hercules … nos à Caco veneno purgatos unà secum ad epulum ducat ambrosium, huic victoriae praeparatum”), 171 (“Ab her item Hercules nomen duxit …; qui quis alius quàm Christus, aeterna aeterni patris virtus”). For the Renaissance interpretation of the Hercules-Antaeus myth as the victory of “reason” over “earthly appetites,” see Merritt Y. Hughes, ed., Paradise Regained (New York, 1937), 408–9, 531–2n. In Hercules cum Antaeo Pugnae allegorica ac pia interpretatio, Christiano militi non minus utilis quam iucunda lectu, autore Nicolao Vuinmanno (Norimbergae, 1537), the myth is allegorized in terms of the Christian soldier’s warfare with the flesh: “Adeoque cognovi Allegoriam fabulae non coacte trahi, sed volentem, & commode accommodari posse ad spiritualem Christiani hominis cum pestiferis nephariae carnis affectibus, pugnam ac dimicationem assiduam…. In quo potissimum adversus carnem, cuius typum gerit Antaeus, luctandum est, ac renunciandum turpibus affectibus. Adversus quos perinde nobis bellum esse debet iuge ac perpetuum, atque divino huic Herculi cum mundi monstris acerrimum semper fuit.” On the title-page appears a woodcut depicting Hercules’ victory over Antaeus, as well as a female figure who bears a palm branch and places a garland on the victor’s head. According to the explanations beneath this illustration, “Antaeus diaboli, carnis, & mundi typum gerit,” “Hercules Christianus miles est,” and “Musa remuneratrix virtutum & fortitudinis vincendi.” Latin verses on the verso of the title-page (“Carmen in allegoriam pugnae Herculis cum Antaeo, Vuolfgango Vuinthausero authore”) explain the myth in terms of the ways to heaven and hell—the way of divine life and that of the flesh:
7. E. L. Hawkins (ed.), A Literal Translation of Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates, Book II, second edition (Oxford and London, 1902), 13–17; cf. Paradise Regained, ed. M. Y. Hughes (New York, 1937), 477n., for a further parallel with Prodicus’ narrative. For a survey of the tradition of Hercules’ Choice, see Erwin Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, XVIII (Leipzig and Berlin, 1930); and idem, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York, 1939).
8. Hawkins, 14–15.
9. Sir David Ross (trans.), The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (London, 1954), 5–7, 24, 264...
