Divided Empire: Milton's Political ImageryIn Divided Empire, Robert T. Fallon examines the influence of John Milton's political experience on his great poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This study is a natural sequel to Fallon's previous book, Milton in Government, which examined Milton's decade of service as Secretary for Foreign Languages to the English Republic. Milton's works are crowded with political figures—kings, counselors, senators, soldiers, and envoys—all engaged in a comparable variety of public acts—debate, decree, diplomacy, and warfare—in a manner similar to those who exercised power on the world stage during his time in public office. Traditionally, scholars have cited this imagery for two purposes: first, to support studies of the poet's political allegiances as reflected in his prose and his life; and, second, to demonstrate that his works are sympathetic to certain ideological positions popular in present times. Fallon argues that Paradise Lost is not a political testament, however, and to read its lines as a critique of allegiances and ideologies outside the work is limit the range and scope of critical inquiry and to miss the larger purpose of the political imagery within the poem. That imagery, the author proposes, like that of all Milton's later works, serves to illuminate the spiritual message, a vision of the human soul caught up in the struggle between vast metaphysical forces of good and evil. Fallon seeks to enlarge the range of critical inquiry by assessing the influence of personal and historical events upon art, asking, as he puts it, "not what the poetry says about the events, but what the events say about the poetry." Divided Empire probes, not Milton's judgment on his sources, but the use he made of them. |
From inside the book
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... relationship between the governing and the governed within a state , and , second , the competition among sovereign nations for advantage on a global stage . That some men govern others and that nations compete for power Milton accepted ...
... relationship between Christian Doctrine and Paradise Lost is another matter entirely , since they both survey the state of the human soul from its creation to its final destiny . But the two works were composed to different ends and ...
... relationship between the poet's political experience and the shape of his art may be seen in the parallels between the ruling body of France and the several govern- ments of his later poems . During the decade of the 1650s , the kingdom ...
... and to enrage thee more , / Thy King and Lord ” ( 2 : 698-99 ) . The two prepare for armed combat to settle the matter , only to have Sin intervene and disclose their relationship . The issue , therefore , The Image of Rule 5.
Milton's Political Imagery Robert Thomas Fallon. and disclose their relationship . The issue , therefore , is left ... relationship between the queen regent and her chief minister as something more than official . Kleinman dismisses ...
Contents
1 | |
25 | |
To Reign in Hell | 55 |
Heaven and Hell | 83 |
The Lords of the Earth | 97 |
Divided Empire | 119 |
The Final Things | 143 |
Embattled Humanity | 161 |
Works Cited | 180 |
Index | 186 |