Paradise Lost: Milton’s Approach To Lust, Sex, And Violence Essay, Research Paper
Paradise Lost: Milton’s Approach To Lust, Sex, and Violence
There is no reason to apply modern theories to Milton if we do not care whether
Milton remains alive. However, if we wish him to be more than a historical
artifact, we must do more than just study him against the background of his time.
We must reinterpret him in light of the germane thought of our own age.
-James Driscoll
The Unfolding God Of Jung and Milton
Images and allusions to sex and death are intermingled throughout John Milton’s
Paradise Lost . The character of Satan serves as not only an embodiment of
death and sin, but also insatiated sexual lust. The combination of sex and lust
has significant philosophical implications, especially in relation to themes of
creation, destruction, and the nature of existence. Milton, in Paradise Lost,
establishes that with sex, as with religion, he is of no particular hierarchical
establishment. However, Milton does not want to be confused with the
stereotypical puritan. Milton the poet, seems to celebrate the ideal of sex; yet,
he deplores concupiscence and warns against the evils of lust, insisting lust
leads to sin, violence and death.
From the beginning, Satan, like fallen humanity, not only blames others; but
also makes comic and grandiose reasons for his evil behavior. Yet, despite his
reasoning to seek revenge against God, “his true motivation for escaping from
hell and perverting paradise is, at least partly, something more basic: Satan
needs sex” (Daniel 26).
In the opening books of the poem, Satan is cast into a fiery hell that is not
only is miserable, but devoid of sex. As Satan describes when he has escaped to
Eden, in hell: “neigh joy nor love, but fierce desire, / Among our other
torments not the least, / Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pine” (Book IV,
509-11). The phallic implications of “pain of longing pine” is quite clear. In
this metaphor, Milton expresses that sex itself is not a sin; to be without it
is a “hellish” punishment. However, Milton rejects the morality of lusting for
sex, equating it with: death, sin, violence and Satan. Milton elucidates the
lustful desires of Satan throughout the first few books. For example, liquid, a
common symbol of femininity is depicted seven times in the first two books in
the form of a “lake” (Daniel 26). The “lake” serves as a metaphor to the waters
of the womb. Further metaphors to female anatomy and the womb are made through
references of hell as a “pit” (Book I, 91). Therefore, Satan’s fall into hell
is an allusion to being thrust back into the womb(hell) where Satan and his
rebels are sexually inhibited. As Daniels states, “These images suggest that
Satan has been, in regard to the perfect sex that he enjoyed in Heaven,
emasculated, rendered impotent but burning, in a feminine, inactive in hell.”
(27). Similarly, Frank Kermode comments, “Milton boldly hints that the fallen
angel [Satan] is sexually deprived . . . the price of warring against
omnipotence is impotence (114). This is exemplified in book II, when Milton
writes, ” Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt/ From Heaven’s high jurisdiction,
in a new league / Banded against his throne, but to remain. In strictest
bondage” (318-321).
Furthermore, Satan’s sexual despair is intensified by the very notion that it
was the Son of God, who caused his malady. As Satan says, he and his “associates
and copartners” (Book I, 265) were “transfix[ed]” by the Son’s “Thunderbolts”
(Book I. 328-329) to a “fiery Couch” (Book I, 377). Thus, Satan blames his
sexual despair on the Son of God, who is his arch-rival for the favor of God. In
Satan’s eyes, it is “as if it were a sexual assault by the triumphant
Son.”(Daniels 27).
Satan lusts for sex, as does his rebels; sexual tensions saturate the images in
the first few books. To elucidate, Satan’s consult begins amidst: a plethora of
phallic symbols: standards, staffs, ensigns, “a Forest huge of spears,” pipes,
flutes, and, amidst the uproar there is the “painful steps over the burnt soil”
of phallic feet . (Daniel, 30).
Even when Satan views his consult of demons, the images used by Milton conjure
images of a potential erection: “his heart / Distends with pride, and hardening
in his strength ” (Book II, 571-573), Satan “stood like a Tower” (Book II, 591).
Furthermore, when Satan arrives at the walls of Eden, the sexual imagery
continues, Eden is seen as mons Veneris: “a rural mound, the champaign head /
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides / With thicket overgrown, grotesque and
wild, / Access denied” (Book Iv. 134-37).
In Paradise Lost, Milton equates lust with evil, Satan is seen as a foil to
Christ, God’s good son, and references are made to Christ being: “by merit more
than birthright Son of God, / Found worthiest to be so by being good, / Love
hath abounded more than glory abounds;” (Book III, 309-312). Furthermore,
although Eve is seduced by Satan, it is her lust for the fruit from the Tree of
Knowledge that causes her downfall.
However, unlike lust, sex itself is not presented in Paradise Lost as impure.
Milton takes a different attitude towards sex than what would be expected of the
doctrines of the time. He passes no moral judgment in Paradise Lost that sex
itself may or may not be engaged solely to procreate. For Milton, “chastity is
rather `purity of life’, the aggregate of `the duties that touch the purities of
ones person’. Her [chastity] proper companions are `modestie and temperance’,
and if she appears at all as abstinence it is only in the sense of `abstaining
from straggling lusts and al impurity’”(Patrides, 166). In Eden, before the fall,
sex is perfect, as Adam and Eve are sinless nor do they feel guilt about
themselves. In fact, it is when Adam and Eve must engage in sex to procreate
that guilty feelings arise: “After the fall, both Adam and Eve agonize that the
devil has devastated their sex lives by turning the personal pleasure of sex
into the source of a race of beings doomed to suffer” (Daniels 36). Before the
fall, Satan while observing Adam and Eve in Heaven becomes hateful and jealous
at the sight of this universal and harmonious fornication, and writhes with
hateful envy at the memory of his state in Heaven: “I hate thy beams /That bring
to my remembrance from what state / I fell”(Book IV, 37-39). Before the fall,
Adam and Eve are amorous and like God, delight in love. As Patrides states, “No
Protestant commentator ever denied that Adam and Eve `knew’ each other before
the Fall, and neither does Milton” (167). Milton asserts outside of Paradise
Lost that love is “as a fire sent from Heaven to be ever kept alive upon the
altar of our hearts, be the first principle of all godly and vertous [sic]
actions in men ” (Patrides, 168) . Most renaissance writers regard love as a
positive passion. But they also believed that if love is cut off from its true
source, which is God, it grows perverted, immoderate and irrational. Burton,
wrote, “if it rage . . . it is no more love but a burning lust, a disease,
Phrensie[sic], Madness, Hell.”(440) and according to Peter Sterry “All lust is
Love degenerated, Love corrupted” (Patrides, 170). In Eden, before the fall Adam
and Eve are guiltless of “dishonest shame / Of Nature’s works, honor
dishonorable, / Sin bred “(Book Iv, 313-315) and are “god like erect, with
native Honor clad / In naked Majesty” (Book IV, 289-90). This stands also as a
phallic metaphor to contrast Satan’s impotence. He is a fallen angel, not “God-
like” as is Adam, having cut himself off from God, his love has been corrupted
and turned into a madness. Through Raphael, Milton expresses a concern for
sexual gratification without love as reducing man to the level of animals:
if the sense of touch whereby mankind
Is propagated seem such dear delight
Beyond all other, think the same voutsafed
To Cattle and each Beast
(Book VIII, 579-82)
The pain caused by Satan’s sexual frustration and lust is incalculable, as he
whines:
Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two
Imparadised in one another’s arms
The happier Eden shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss, while I to Hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
(Book IV, 505-509)
The above passage contains several sexual connotations; Eden provides a
blissful “fill” while Satan is “thrust” into hell, devoid of joy or love.
Satan’s building lustful hate becomes perverted into thoughts of forceful rape.
God, seeing Satan winging his way to earth, has sent angels Ithuriel and Zephon,
to prevent Satan from overwhelming the humans against their will(Book IV, 800-
900). Through Satan’s plot against humanity, the lust/love relationship becomes
elucidated further when compared to biblical references. James I:15 states:
“That when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is
finished bringeth forth death”. Milton painstakingly reiterates this ideology
throughout Paradise Lost.
By the end of Paradise Lost, lust brings forth death. Most readers recognize the
erotic nature of Satan’s encounter with eve. The tasting of the forbidden fruit
by Eve is based on a lust created by Satan as the serpent. Eve returns to Adam
“defaced”, “deflowered” and “now to Death devote” (Book IX, 901). When Satan
ruined Eve, he knew that Adam would soon follow. Satan realizes the
consequences of his actions; in agony of lust and despair he needs sex so badly
he is willing to murder Adam and Eve, for in order to sate his lust, the humans
must die, and consequently so must all humans.
After the fall, Eve is distraught as she contemplates abstaining from having
sex in order to thwart death. She states to risk bringing children into “this
cursed world” is unconscionable (Book X, 981-91). From here, the theme of sex
and lust moves towards lust and violence. As Daniels writes: “Milton subtly
modulates the theme of lust and death to one of lust and violence, a theme that
already has been heard in the catalog of devils as well as in the sexual
dimension of the war and Heaven” (44).
According to Milton, lust gives rise to warfare, when mankind is not busy:
“marrying or prostituting , as befell, /Rape or Adultery, where passing fair /
Allured them” (Book XII, 716-18), it wars: “With cruel Tournament the Squadrons
join; / Where cattle pastured late, now scattered lies / With Carcasses and Arms
the ensanguined Field / Deserted. Others to a city strong / Lay siege ” (Book XI,
652-55). Furthermore, he describes “just men they seemed, and all their study
bent / To worship God aright, and know his works / Not hid, nor things last
which might preserve / Freedom and peace to men” (Book XI, 577-580). Even these
“just men” succomb to lust:
They on the plain
Long had not walked, when from the tents behold
A bevy of fair women, richly gay
In gems and wanton dress; to the harp they sung
Soft amorous ditties, and in dance came on:
The men, through grave, eyed them, and let their eyes
Rove without rein, till in the amorous net
Fast Caught?
(Book XI, 580-587)
These “just men” become corrupted by their lust for these women and their
“perverted love” brings forth violence, and eventually their death:
Bred only and completed to the taste
Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance
to dress and troll the tongue, and roll the eye.
To these that sober race of men, whose lives
Religious titled them the Sons of God,
Shall yield up all their virtue, all the fame
Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles
Of these fair atheists” (Book XI, 618-625)
Thus, reiterating the renaissance and Milton’s notion that love cannot by cut
off from its true source, which is God; otherwise, it develops perverted lust.
The punishment for the ensuing spread of lust is the cataclysm of universal
death by the flooding of the earth; also death on a less universal scale caused
by the violence of “slaughter and gigantic deeds” (Book XI, 659) lust creates:
great conquerors
Patrons of Mankind, Gods, and Sons of Gods,
Destroyers rightlier called and Plagues of men
(Book XI, 695-697)
In reviewing Milton’s lethal nature of lust, it would be helpful to also examine
another work, Samson Agonsistes, in comparison to Paradise Lost. In Samson
Agonistes, Samson like the “just men” in Paradise Lost also becomes lost in lust
and violence and fears the consequence of death: “My race of glory run, and race
of shame, . And I shall shortly be with them that rest.” (Samson, 597-598). As
Daniels states, “Samson is ruined not so much because he is garrulous but
because he is violent and licentious”(77).
Milton viewed violence as another guise of a perverse satanic energy. However,
it may be argued as to weather or not Milton is a pacifist. James A. Freeman, in
Milton and the Martial Muse maintains Milton was anti-violence/war to the point
of pacifism. According to Freemen, Milton in Paradise Lost gives to the devil
the traditional warrior ethos and by doing so undoubtedly, “startled early
readers who were conditioned to respect military men? By identifying demonic
[and/or lustful] actions as martial, Milton attacks the `double speak’ of his
time(220-221)?war is the utmost that vice [evil] promises to her followers” (45).
In contrast, Michael Lieb, in Poetics of the Holy: A reading Paradise Lost of,
argues:
Peace was valued by Milton as much as anyone in the Renaissance, and yet this
love of peace and detestation of war should not blind one to the extent to which
Milton was imbued with the fervor of what he considered to be a just war
undertaken in a righteous cause (265-266).
Based on Paradise Lost alone, it would appear that Milton regards lust and
violence as two related issues. It is lust that gives rise to violence and
hatred. Even today, debate rages over the nature of violence. Often discussed is
the issue of whether the word denotes only physical harm or whether certain
kinds of emotional or psychological harm constitute violence. In Paradise Lost,
violence is linked with satanic energy and lust which alienates one from God.
Milton connects violence with lust in some of his early works as well; in his
mask Comus, the character of Comus and his crew, are compared with “stabled
wolves or tigers at their prey” (534) who surprise their victims with “unjust
force” (590) and with “the sons of Vulcan” who “fierce sign of battle make, and
menace high” with “brandished blade”(651-56). As well, sexual connotations are
very evident in Comus; Comus himself experiences the same sexual despair and
frustration of Satan in Paradise Lost. This lust creates a hell for Comus
similar to that depicted in Paradise Lost:
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,
that never art called but when the dragon womb
Of stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air
(130-133)
Furthermore, as Comus lusts after the lady in the mask, this lust turns to
thoughts of violence. In the mask, the two brothers debate the possibility that
Comus and his crew could conceive of trying to rape her. The second brother
states: “the rash hand of blood Incontinence” (397) will not allow “a single
helpless maiden pass /Uninjured” (402-403).
Without a doubt, it may be argued that Milton may or may not agree with a “just
holy war”, but he does believe that lust and excess will lead to violence. Such
violence created by lust, alienates man from God and is therefore, sinful.
In conclusion, Milton is consistent in his approach to sex, lust, violence and
death throughout Paradise Lost and many of his other works. The downfall of
humankind was caused by lust for the forbidden fruit, as was Satan’s motive for
revenge. Milton explicitly points out that lust leads to violence and alienates
man from God. The punishment according to Milton is justly, death. Throughout
Paradise Lost, Milton emphasis moderation, and love that becomes an obsession,
becomes lust. In Milton’s eyes lust is very dangerous and leads to violence and
death of mankind. Like other writers of his time, Milton warns of the
consequences of “falling” into lust as removing oneself from Godhead.