2. Milton: The Mind's Own Place

Milton was revered by subsequent poets to a degree no less than Shakespeare, though in slightly different kind: with a certain ambivalence owing to the dual aspects of Milton's nature as both poet and preacher. As preacher or politician, he tended to stimulate the omnipotent or argumentative side of his poetic descendants; while as poet, he encouraged their capacity to learn from emotional experience, and to overcome the fear of ostracism. Essentially, the heroism of Milton's poetic quest in Paradise Lost lies in his disengaging the mind from its dependence on the static poles or non-developmental states of heaven and hell, and internalizing the spirit of religion in the form of a ‘paradise within thee, happier far’ (. 586-7), which could lead the mind ever onwards. Adam and Eve, having metabolized their fall, abandoned their omnipotence, and reinstated humility, find that ‘the world is all before them’. In the beginning, their world hangs like a jewel from the neck of heaven:

This dependence is disengaged by the emotional storm brought by the burning envy and jealousy of Satan with his ‘bursting passion’: