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
Results 1-5 of 39
... throne , and indeed continued to do so until his death in 1661. Hence , the protocol of the time required that any letter to the king , who was titular head - of - state , be accompanied by another to the cardinal , who would act on the ...
... throne , as Milton's companion letters confirm ; and the queen , while content to remain in the background of affairs , retained a significant voice in affairs . Of the relationship , Kleinman observes , " They acted like a family ...
... Thrones , / First , Highest , Holiest , Best " ( 6 : 723-24 ) and in angelic hymns to the pair , in which the Son is said to sit " Second " to God ( 3 : 409 ) . The Son's status is not static , however ; he rises in the estimation of ...
... throne , while Mazarin as her chief minister exercised that power and the boy king served largely as a ceremonial figure . As he grew to same word but a few lines earlier , however , where there would seem to be no ambiguity about its ...
... throne . Robert West observes that though Milton is imprecise in defining the order of the angels , he makes reference in Paradise Lost to the traditional eight degrees - seraphim , cherabim , thrones , dominations , virtues , powers ...
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 |