epic and allegory

8/12/2019 Epic and Allegory

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Epic and Allegory in "Paradise Lost", Book IIAuthor(s): James S. BaumlinSource: College Literature, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring, 1987), pp. 167-177Published by: College LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25111735.

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EPIC AND ALLEGORY INPARADISE LOST, BOOK IIby James S. Baumlin

Paradise Lost, though conforming broadly to the style and structure ofclassical epic, is a typically Renaissance poem of mixed genre, a complexinterlayering of pastoral and georgic, comedy and tragedy, allegory andsatire, not to mention the many lyric moments in this epic, theepithalamion, hymns, prayers, complaints, and sonnets.1 Paradise Lostis a revisionary poem as well, one that criticizes and redefines theheroism of pagan epic, asserting in its place the true Christian heroismof selflessness, sufferance, and obedience. The mixing of genre is indeeda means by which Milton achieves this revision of classical epic; the

military heroism of classical epic deflates when countered by thealternative genres, with their alternative values and world-views. Meaning in Paradise Lost is thus genre-bound: to understand Satan we mustconsider how this fallen angel embodies the old heroism, the proud

military heroism, of pagan epic, and how this heroism is qualified anddevalued by other generic modes: by Satan's role, for example, as tragicvillain, or as the allegorical personification of Pride. We mustunderstand Adam, similarly, through the major literary modes or genresthat define him: pastoral, georgic, and, with his fall, tragedy.

Moral choice, the freedom of will to obey or rebel, is a central theme,and the dialectic among genres becomes a major vehicle for developingit. Epic and allegory, pastoral and georgic, comedy and tragedy describecontrasting attitudes towards life; and the juxtaposition of genres in

Paradise Lost creates tensions among these attitudes or world-views,tensions resolved only through a character's choice (and, as Stanley Fishwould have it, a reader's choice) of lifestyle. Translated into generic

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168 COLLEGE LITERATURE

terms, Satan falls by rejecting humble hymns to God and his Son,choosing in their place the eloquence and proud heroism of classicalepic. Similarly, Adam's pastoral innocence and his tranquility or otiumbecome dependent upon his Virgilian role as a georgic laborer: his dutyis to tend the garden/' both the external garden of Nature and hisown internal garden, the garden of his passions, intellect, and desires.

When Adam fails to keep his own inner garden, he too falls?and fallsfrom the genres of pastoral and georgic to tragedy.In Paradise Lost, therefore, moral choice, presented through theconventions of poetry, becomes essentially a choice among genres. Andepic, surely pagan epic?the poetry of proud, military heroism?is afallen genre, one in need of redefinition and redemption. Book III, withits adaptation to epic of the allegorical debate between Justice and

Mercy, redefines heroism through the Son's great sacrifice for man.Book II, on the other hand, must first prove the fallen nature of paganepic. This it does by adapting a different convention of allegory: bylayering upon the heroic council and by Satan's flyting with Death thatinvolves the themes and characterizations of the Seven Deadly Sins. Apageant of these sins in fact unfolds when each of the seven speakers

in this book reveals his embodiment of a particular vice, one of whichthen motivates his words and actions. Epic, the dominant genre ofParadise Lost, is thus devalued (in Book II) and again revalued andredefined (in Book III) by means of allegorical debate. Though the epicconventions may be more familiar to readers of Book II, much of itsallegorical symbolism has indeed been examined.2 Yet once we understand the implications of mixed genre, we see that neither the heroic northe allegorical elements should stand alone in an interpretation of thisbook, and that to study them in isolation is to distort a complex,

multilayered text?a text built on the relationships, even conflicts,between the conventions (and values, and world-views) of its differinggenres. A deeper understanding can therefore be gained by exploring thedialectic between epic and allegorical symbolism, a dialectic whoseeffects can be seen most clearly in the characterizations of Book II.

The tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins is extensive through Christianliterature, and Milton would have had any number of sources.

Chaucer's Parson's Tale, which typifies much of this literature, ranksthe deadly vices in a particular order of severity, from the worst of allthese, Pride, to Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Covetousness, Gluttony, and,finally, Lust. In Chaucer, as in most versions, the vices develop



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EPIC AND ALLEGORY IN PARADISE LOST 169

progressively, each from its predecessor, and all ultimately from Pride.Milton retains this order among his own characterizations, making Satan

the embodiment of Pride, the champion of the devils and first to speakin Book I. Beelzebub, the embodiment of Envy and Satan's lieutenant,speaks next. In the infernal council which begins Book II, three newspeakers are introduced, Moloch embodying Wrath, Belial embodyingSloth, and Mammon embodying avarice or Covetousness. At Hellgatetwo more characters speak: Death, representing Gluttony, and Sin,representing lust or Lechery. The more elaborate images and trappingsof the traditional pageant?the emblems and visual symbols of Lust orEnvy or Gluttony?are of course absent from the description and dressof Milton's predominantly heroic devils. It is what they say and do,however, that makes unmistakable allusion to allegorical tradition,

marking each character as the embodiment of a particular vice.In the heroic council of Book II Moloch speaks first, the Scepter'd

King . . . the strongest and fiercest Spirit / That fought in Heav'n; nowfiercer by despair. 3 Moloch's fierce nature, his frowning (line105) and furious aspect, his advice to wage open War (line 51), tochoose / Arm'd with Hell flames and fury all at once / To forceresistless way (lines 60-62) and to fight with rage (line 67) against

God's angels all mark him as the embodiment of anger or Wrath. Suchincarnational symbolism continues in Book VI when, during the War in

Heaven, Gabriel fights Moloch furious King, who him defied, / Andat his chariot wheels to drag him bound / Threat'n'd (lines 357-59).Moloch's fury is here remarkable; so indeed is the allusion to Achilles'dragging of Hector's body, the subject of the Iliad being the wrath ofstern Achilles . . . . Moloch is fierceness and Wrath, just as Achilles isthe Homeric embodiment of this trait. But Moloch is also a devil and adeflation, then, of the Achillean hero. There are other ironies in

Moloch's characterization. Being himself defined and controlled bywrath, he projects this quality on the object of his own ire, his fierceFoe (line 78), God. His entire argument for all-out war thereforeascribes to God's character only the ire and rage and ferocity that

Moloch himself embodies:Th' ascent is easy then;

Th' event is feared; should we again provokeOur stronger, some worse way his wrath may findTo our destruction: if there be inHell



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Fear to be worse destroyed . . .What fear we then? what doubt we to incenseHis utmost ire? which to the highth enrag'd,Will . . . quite consume us ... . (lines 79-96)

The man (or devil) of anger sees only anger in others. But moresignificant, and surely more ironic, is Moloch's brooding on theopposite of his anger, fear?a word which he repeats three times in thepassage above. Moloch's wrath is, after all, reduced to fear, pain, andcowardice in Book VI when, cloven to the waist by Gabriel's sword, he

with shatter'd Arms / And uncouth pain fled bellowing (lines361-62). This is not a flattering picture of the Achillean hero. Indeed theharshest criticism of Moloch's character is that the vice he embodiesbecomes self-destructive: it is not war he argues for so much as suicide.His is ultimately a wrath turned inward, a desperate attempt to escapethe pain of one's own existence more than to cause pain in the life ofothers.

Belial is second to offer advice in the heroic council:On th' other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane;A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seem'dFor dignity compos*d and high exploit:But all was false and hollow: though his TongueDropt Manna, and could make the worse appearthe better reason . . .

. . . [yet] his thoughts were low;To vice industrious, but to Nobler deedsTimorous and slothful .... (lines 108-17)

In contrast to Moloch's angry advice for war, Belial counsels for ahumble and quiet peace. His counsels are, superficially, reasonable andpersuasively spoken. Yet there are again ironies in the characterization.Belial is, the narrator tells us, Timorous and slothful (line 117), andhis advice but cloth'd in reason's garb (line 226). Instead of peace,then, Belial Counsell[s]s ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth (line 227).Belial is Sloth, is the embodiment of ignoble ease. That he imitatesthe classical rhetoricians, making himself into a Ciceronian rather than

Achillean hero, becomes a further irony. While his counsels seem forthe public good, this Ciceronian hero offers mere words in the place ofaction?indeed uses words to paralyze the will, causing men and devilsalike to do nothing. The most the fallen angels can derive from Belial's



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argument, an argument born of his own slothfulness, is to becomenumb to the pain of Hell.

Next to speak in this developing pageant of the deadly sins isMammon, who echoes Belial's advice. In Book I he is revealed asmaterialistic and covetous:

Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fellFrom Heav'n, for ev'n in Heav'n his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring moreThe riches of Heav'n's pavement, trodd'n GoldThan aught divine or holy else enjoy'dIn vision beatific, (lines 679-84)

Hell alone can satisfy Mammon's materialism, for in Heaven thingscannot be piled up and prized for their own sake. Mammon's very name(deriving from the New Testament Greek mammona: riches) signifies thevice of Covetousness, the vice that defines his nature. Thus his counselfor peace is motivated by nothing more than his own greed. In Hellalone he can build his golden temples, satisfying his need to possessGod's magnificence :

As he our darkness, cannot we his LightImitate when we please? This Desert soilWants not her hidden lustre, Gems and Gold;

Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raiseMagnificence; and what can Heav'n show more? (lines 269-73)

Let us not then pursue (line 249) a course of war, Mammon thereforesuggests, but rather seek / Our own good from ourselves, and fromour own / Live to ourselves (lines 252-54). The repetition of ownand ourselves shows clearly that Mammon, of all the devils, hasbrought ownership and selfishness into the world. Yet the irony of hischaracter is that he cannot truly possess what he most covets, God'slight and Heaven's beauty; these, rather, he can only imitate. For he

misinterprets the lustre of things, mistaking their reflected light forthe inner light emanating from each spirit still touched by God. Lightimitated remains spiritual darkness.

Beelzebub, whom we have already met in Book I, is next to speak incouncil; his advice is to seek revenge (line 336) against God byseducing mankind:

That thir GodMay prove thir foe, and with repenting handAbolish his own works. This would surpass



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Common revenge, and interrupt his joyIn our confusion, and our Joy upraiseIn his disturbance, (lines 368-73)Beelzebub feels joy only in another's misfortune, while one's good

fortune can cause him only pain. Envy motivates every aspect of hisadvice, and he becomes, at least during the council, an embodiment ofthis vice. Like Moloch, who believes God shares his wrath, Beelzebubprojects his own envious nature on God?whom he assumes feels joyin the devils' confusion. The only satisfaction of such envy, then, isrevenge against God and the ruin of man's happiness. But there is apowerful irony, if not contradiction, in Beelzebub's incarnation of thisvice. Balancing his unbounded envy of God is his slavish, even selflessdevotion to his infernal chief, Satan. For the narrator suggests that hisproposition of revenge has been made in collaboration with the fallenArchangel, making Beelzebub no more than a spokesman for Satan'sown envy and revenge:

Thus BeelzebubPleaded his devilish Counsel, first devis'dBy Satan, and in part proposed: for whence,But from the author of all ill could SpringSo deep a malice, to confound the raceOf mankind in one root . . .

. . . done all to spiteThe great Creator? (lines 378-85)We are reminded throughout Paradise Lost that Satan is the preeminently envious one, that his envy against the Son of God (Book V,line 662) leads to the revolt in Heaven. But Book V also shows Sataninstilling this envy into Beelzebub: So spake the false Arch-Angel, andinfus'd / Bad influence into th' unwary breast / Of his Associate (lines694-96). Satan may thus be the source of envy, yet their closerelationship makes Beelzebub the mouthpiece of Satanic envy and theop?rant hand of Satan's bid for power in Book II: what Satanoriginally devises, Beelzebub advises to the rest in council.

Of course, Satan's and Beelzebub's relationship has further allegoricalsignificance: they are as close to each other as the vice Envy is to Pride.

Pride is, after all, Satan's great vice, but envy and revenge are itsinevitable products. The narrator asserts this in the beginning of Book I:Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?

Th' infernal Serpent. He it was, whose guile,



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Stirr'd up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'dThe Mother of Mankind; what time his PrideHad cast him out from Heav'n .... (lines 33-37)

Satan is indisputably the embodiment of Pride, and it is equallyindisputable that he both experiences and originates all the other vices.

Thus Milton's poem dramatizes St. Bernard's claim, which becomesitself a major proposition of allegorical tradition: all sins proceed from

Pride.4If the vices are Satan's offspring, quite literally so are the characters

Sin and Death; as Sin describes, to Satan her own birth and that of herson's,

A Goddess arm'dOut of thy head I sprung: amazement seiz'dAll th' host of Heav'n; back they recoil'd afraidAt first, and call'd me Sin, and for a signPortentious held me; but familiar grown,

I pleas'd, and with attractive graces wonThe most averse, thee chiefly, who full oftThyself inme thy perfect image viewingBecam'st enamor'd, and such joy thou took'st

With me in secret, that my womb conceiv'dA growing burden, (lines 757-767)Here is a warrior-goddess, an infernal Athena, who is the personification of sin?and on yet another level of allegory is the embodiment ofLust, as her tale of seduction makes all too clear. The allusion to St.James is also clear ( when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forthsin: and sin, when it is finished, bringest forth death ). As with theother personifications of vice, one finds irony in hercharacterization: far from being an attractive femme fatale, this incarnation of physical pleasure and desire becomes a sight . . . detestable(line 745), no less than monster from the waist down.

Her son, Death, is similarly complex in his allegorical significances.Though he functions as an epic warrior, the guardian of Hellgate, yet hepersonifies both his name and another deadly vice, Gluttony. Death istormented by a perpetual and insatiable hunger, which he himselfdescribes in Book X:

To mee, who with eternal famine pine,Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heav'n,There best, where most with ravin I may meet;Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems



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To stuff this Maw, this vast unhide-bound Corpse, (lines597-601)

In Book II Satan can thus win Death over by promising him, ye shallbe fill'd / Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey (lines 843-45), towhich Death Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear / His famineshould be fill'd (lines 846-47). Of course, most ironic in Death'sembodiment of Gluttony is that he has no body to glut; his is anunhide-bound Corpse, as he is himself sheer appetite divorced fromthe lawful desires of nature.

Thus Milton layers upon his epic characterizations the moral symbolism of traditional allegory. These layers both clash with and qualify oneanother. The Christian allegory of Book II becomes a spiritualcommentary on classical heroism, showing the poverty of motive, thetrue viciousness, behind each character's seemingly brave or politicwords and actions. Allegory places in clear relief the otherwise hiddenspiritual underside of each devil's choice of action?which becomes theirchoice, once again, of genre, their choice of epic warfare and revengeagainst God. But this layering of genres does more than devalue paganepic; it allows otherwise abstract personifications (Mammom, Sin,

Death) to assume concrete epic roles?to be fully fleshed out and asreal, as palpable, as the epic warriors they join in Hell. Allegory testsand criticizes epic, but epic concretizes?in a word, incarnates?theotherwise abstract personifications of Book II. This mixing of genreallows Milton to be a perspectivist, then, particularly in the delineationof character; thus these characters are never merely personifications,nor are they ever merely epic figures. Each genre provides a differentperspective on the characters, allowing us to see different aspects oftheir complex natures.5

A question concerning genre still remains: is Milton's technique ofincarnational symbolism in any way an innovation in epic, or is it itselfa traditional element of this literary form? The answer is perhaps tooobvious in that readers of epic?the literary form that attempts to definewhat is heroic in human nature?have always found in its characters thesymbols of virtue and vice. The Renaissance, following the interpretivetraditions of late antiquity and the middle ages, inevitably read classicalepic allegorically; and the Renaissance texts of the classics, with theirelaborate moral commentaries and allegoresis of character, scene, andevent, encouraged a similar blending of epic and allegory in their ownpoetic compositions?hence the Romance epic of Tasso and Spenser.



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We should not be surprised, then, to find Milton making a more subtlethough no less pervasive use of moral symbolism in epic characterization. Sir William Alexander, a contemporary of Milton and critic of thisgenre, writes that the epic poet, soaring above the Course of Nature,

making the Beauty of Virtue to invite and the Horrour of Vice toaffright the Beholders, may liberally furnish his imaginary Man with allthe Qualities requisite for the accomplishing of a perfect Creature. 6Spenser also sees the chief goal of the epic as fashioning a gentlemanor noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline ; and characterization,with its incarnation of the virtues and vices, becomes the primary meansof this moral instruction.7 Alexander again praises Sidney's prose epic,The Arcadia,

for affording many exquisite Types of Perfection for both theSexes ... As for Men, Magnanimity, Carriage, Courtesy, Valour, Judg

ment, Discretion; and in Women, Modesty, Shamefastness, Constancy,Continency, still accompanied by a tender sense of Honour. And his chiefPersons being Eminent for some singular Virtue, and yet all Virtues [are]united in every one of them. (187)Sidney likewise defines epic characterization as feigning notableimages of virtues, vices, or what else, 8 and in so doing makes

incarnational symbolism the foundation of characterization in heroicpoetry. The emphasis on such symbolism once again reflects theRenaissance poet's (and reader's) understanding of the classical models.Homer's Iliad, for example, is a poem not of one but of a number ofheroes, each of whom espouses a particular and clearly delineatedvirtue?be it physical strength, martial prowess, wisdom in political or

military strategy, eloquence, the ability to lead men, whatever. In theclassical epics the scenes that portray each character in full relief areabove all the heroic councils, formal debates over policy which tend todefine the participants according to the advice they give and theirbehavior while giving it. Nestor affirms his wisdom, Odysseus demonstrates his guile, Thersites reveals his brashness as well as cowardice,and so on through the classical models.

Milton uses the heroic council to precisely the same end, thedelineation of character. But what happens when classical heroism isdevalued rather than affirmed, when the characters one writes of aredevils rather than true heroes? What virtues shall they embody? Howshall the poet point to their spiritual natures? Milton's answer would



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perhaps sound quite like Spenser's own description of Arthur and heroicvirtue:

So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular,which vertue ... is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it themall ... . But of the xii. other vertues, I make xii. other knights andpatrones. (407)

So in the person of Satan, to paraphrase Spenser, Milton sets forthpride in particular, which vice is the origin of all the rest, but of the sixother vices, Milton makes six other *knights' [devils] the patrons.

NOTES1 Rosalie Colie's is the seminal study of mixed genre: The Resources ofKind: Genre Theory in the Renaissance. Berkeley: U California Press, 1973.Also useful in Alastair Fowler's Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the

Theory of Genres and Modes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,(1982): 180-83 et passim.

2 Robert C. Fox has explored Milton's allegory in three articles: Satan's Triadof Vices. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 2 (1960): 261-80. TheCharacter of Mammon in Paradise Lost. Review of English Studies, N.S. 13(1962): 30-39. The Allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost. Modern

Language Quarterly 24 (1963): 354-64. His works in particular have beenuseful in preparing this essay. Among other explorations of the allegory inBook II are Joseph H. Summers, Satan, Sin, and Death, Chapter II of The

Muse's Method. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1962; and Robert B. White,Jr., Milton's Allegory of Sin and Death: A Comment on Backgrounds.

Modern Philology (1973): 337-41. It is therefore a small but, I think, asignificant step from these discussions to my own, which views thecharacterizations and actions in Book II as a subtle but carefully-orchestrated

pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins?a pageant superimposed, however, onepic warriors engaged in heroic council and in flyting before Hellgate. It isonce again the relationship between genres, between the epic and allegoricalelements of characterization, that is crucial to explore.

3 Paradise Lost, Book II, lines 43-45. In John Milton, Complete Poems andMajor Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957: 233.4 Though I have done little more than allude to Satan's embodiment of this

vice, Fox describes in detail the pride of this fallen angel, noting that other ofthe devils' vices, particularly Beelzebub's envy and Moloch's wrath, stem fromhim ( Satan's Triad of Vices, 276):

The vices of pride, envy, and wrath form an infernal trinity: collectively, they constitute the essence of Satan's character; individually,



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they are the respective vices of Satan, Beelzebub, and Moloc. At theheart of Satan's rebellion is his pride, and from his pride flow envy andwrath. This pride he shares with no one: symbolically, he retains forhimself the exclusive possession of this vice. But the secondary andderivative vices he shares with his associates?envy with Beelzebub andwrath with Moloc. In Satan these vices are united to form a complexyet consistent character; in Beelzebub and again in Moloc a particularfacet of Satan's soul is isolated and manifested in a pure form.

Once again, though, Satan possesses and experiences all the vices, not thesethree only. All the vices are of his birth.5 Joseph Addison (in The Spectator, January 5 to May 2, 1712) is largelymistaken in his famous criticism of Sin and Death, the criticism that theseabstractions do not properly belong in an epic work. First of all, Addison'sclassicism does not fully understand the nature of mixed genre, which would

make the presence of allegorical personifications decorous in an epic (andthus, as Northrop Frye would term it, an encyclopedic) work; secondly, hedoes not seem to appreciate that these personifications are always more thanabstractions, that they function as epic warriors?no different, really, fromother of Hell's inhabitants?and that they are both epic and allegorical intheir mixed characterizations, just as the other characters are epic warriors as

well as symbols of vice. Mixed genre thus elevates Sin and Death from thestatus of mere personification and abstraction.

6 Anacrisis, or a Censure of Some Poets Ancient and Modern (1634). In CriticalEssays of the Seventeenth Century, 1605-1685. Ed. J. E. Springarn. 3 vols.Oxford: Oxford UP, 1908): 1, 186.

7 Letter to Raleigh. In The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Ed. J. C.Smith and E. De Selincourt. London: Oxford UP, 1912. Rpt. 1959: 407.8 The Defense of Poesy, in Sir Philip Sidney: Selected Prose and Poetry. Ed.Robert Kimbrough. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1969: 112.

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