M, Materialism and PL. EIC 2010

8/10/2019 M, Materialism and PL. EIC 2010

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such as the palace of Pandemonium, the dances of the angels, orGalileos telescope. Miltons poem itself is pre-eminent amongthese works in so far as it is an immediate and continuingpresence and because he presents it so self-consciously inrelation to himself making it; and, like every other thing in thecosmos, the poem is physical and alive, instinct with Spirit(6.752).

Physical or corporeal matter is explained by Raphael in termsof the ve senses, what we hear, see, smell, touch, taste (5.411);together with things that we see, smell, touch, and taste, sound is

corporeal. The corporeal matter of Paradise Lost is what we takein through our senses. The words on the page their lexical, syn-tactic, and linear properties are taken in visually. 3 The auralsubstance is the sound of the poem, whether we are readingaloud or hearing the poem silently in our minds ear or listeningto someone else reading. If we are reading aloud, the sounds aretactile as well, as Diane McColley observes, felt with our lipsand breath and vocal cords. 4 The corporeality of Paradise Lost insists that it be read, heard, and spoken.

This visual, aural, and oral substance is animate, or instinctwith Spirit, through human agency, seminally through thecreating poet and variously through readers. In composing thewords spoken, heard, written Milton evokes signicationswhich include images or mental sense impressions, ideas,argument, characters with their thoughts and feelings, theshaping of the plot, allusions, down to the minutest associationsof individual words. This vast abstract matter of the poem isconveyed to the mind of the reader through, and never losescontact with, the corporeal matter taken in via the senses. Thepoem is thus manifestly attached to a human being, inMiltons theology an extension of Gods works yet paradoxicallydiffering from them. Gods own works exist in their own right,whereas the poem, like all man-made things, exists through

human agency. Although Milton insists that his epic is thework of his heavnly Muse, he also regularly refers to it asmy song or my voice (proems to Books 1, 3, 4, 7, and 9),and its reception is likewise a personal experience for thereader. It was created by a human being and lives, time andagain, through successive readers. This view accords with

THE SOUND OF PARADISE LOST 221

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Miltons own ideas, expressed especially in Areopagitica , onhow books exist, how they achieve a life beyond life. 5

In Miltons cosmos, then, what kind of thing is Paradise Lost ?Other phenomena perhaps offer a clue. Among Gods ownworks, there is for example the plant described by Raphael:

So from the rootSprings lighter the green stalk, from thence the leavesMore aerie, last the bright consummate oureSpirits odorous breathes:

(5.479-82)From the solid root the plant becomes progressively less corpor-eal, culminating in its perfume, but these Spirits odorous neverlose contact with the ower, leaves, stalk, and root; and it is theplants form, the shaping of its matter, that animates it, from theroot spring[ing] lightly upwards to the ower breath[ing] outperfume. The poem exists in a very different form or active

Sphear[s] (5.477) but, as with the ower, there is no ssurebetween its corporeal and less corporeal substance theformer grows into or evokes the latter. The plant is ananalogue of the poem, as is also the angel body, suggested byWilliam Kerrigan as The metaphor deep-rooted in ParadiseLost for the poem itself. Angels are Vital in every part . . . / All Heart they live, all Head, all Eye, all Eare, / All Intellect,all Sense (6.345-51); the poem, Resting on a substratum of one rst matter, . . . limbs itself as we please and shares thegraces of angelic corporeality neness, substantiality, plas-ticity, ight. 6

However, closest to the poem ontologically is somethingmade by Gods creatures, hymns. Adam and Eves intricatelybeautiful morning hymn (5.153-208) exemplies the poemsparticular kind of aurality (metrical verse), its claimed unpre-

meditated ow (9.24), its temporal mode of existence, and itsattachment to human beings. Above all, it is vocal, t strainspronounct or sung / Unmeditated, such prompt eloquence / Flowd from thir lips (5.148-50). Meanwhile, the poem drawsattention to itself as vocal through the numerous speaking char-acters and, typically, by the narrating bard May I express thee

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. . .Or hearst thou rather . . .? (3.3-8), O For that warning voice(4.1), No more of talk (9.1). 7 Towards the end of the morninghymn, the blind bard joins his voice with those of Adam and Eve(5.202-4).

Where, then, would Paradise Lost nd a place in Miltonsgraded cosmos? Clearly where human beings are, and inMiltons uid material continuum their place is moveable, asRaphael explains to Adam and Eve (5.493-537; 8.640-1) andas the action of the poem makes manifest. Its place is uniquelyhigh as it issues from the creating poet. As it is received byreaders, the priority that Milton gives to suitable or able listenersis of the highest relevance. Drawing on the Latin audire (tohear), he hopes for t audience . . . though few (7.31)(readers would t metrically but Milton chooses audience).Such auditors will hear and respect the poem, and Milton dis-tinguishes them from the barbarous rabble who would nothear Orpheuss song but killed him (7.32-8). Similarly, in his

note on The Verse, he distinguishes readers with judiciousears from vulgar Readers, 8 demanding of the reader whatAngela Leighton has termed that difcult, double attention of reading with the ears. 9 Experienced by such readers, ParadiseLost will exist high on Miltons continuum of creation; hisbelief that divinely inspired poetry can plant and nourish theseeds of vertu 10 meant that such readers would grow in virtueand approach nearer to God. Those who do not read sensitivelywith ears and mind will experience an impoverished version of the poem lower on the scale of creation.

Human agency is fundamental to where and how the poemexists. When Raphael explains to Adam and Eve about fancy(imagination), understanding, and reason faculties used inthe creating and the reading of a poem he insists on theseamless connection of body and mind:

ours and thir fruitMans nourishment, by gradual scale sublimdTo vital Spirits aspire, to animal,To intellectual, give both life and sense,Fansie and understanding, whence the Soule



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Reason receives, and reason is her being,Discursive, or Intuitive;

(5.482-8)

The physical and the spiritual are thus inseparably connected ina human being and must be so too in the poem, which issuesfrom a human being. Milton suggests this powerfully when,lamenting his blindness, he feed[s] on thoughts, that voluntariemove / Harmonious numbers (3.37-8), the audible material of sound and rhythm. 11 There is a direct intercourse between the

bards mind, ear, and dictating lips. Milton describes how thespoken word, in turn, infuses its substance via the ears intothe spirit or heart or mind of the listener (3.135-7; 4.799-809;5.694-6; 8.1-3, 210-16; 9.549-51, 733-8). The word spokenand heard is corporeal matter. Through synaesthesia, theangels can even smell it (3.135-7); Adam experiencesRaphaels voice physically, like food and drink (7.66-8;8.210-16); and Satans words Into [Eves] heart too easie

entrance won and still ring in her ears as she gazes at the fruit(9.733-8). Francis Bacon held that sound is one of the subtilestpieces of nature, a virtue which may be called incorporeal andimmateriate, but for Milton it is unmistakably corporeal, andhis poem is shaped with it. 12

Vocal and aural substance is thus fundamental to ParadiseLost s existence. This is true of all good poems, but the inbuiltphilosophy of Miltons epic prompts the questions, of whatmould, / Or substance is the poem itself and how endud(2.355-6)? In the cosmos which he depicts, Milton emphasisesthe corporeality of sound and thus implicitly encourages us tohear and speak the poem. In heaven, sound is copious: God ispre-eminently a voice, heaven rings with the sound of theangels blest voices, and Gods own ear / Listens delighted(3.347; 5.626-7); the gates of heaven open with Harmonious

sound (7.206). In paradise, the angels are heard day and nightSinging thir great Creator (4.684); Adam and Eves prayersand hymns follow their example, and the natural world isMade vocal by their song, sound[ing] and resound[ing] thecreators praise (5.204, 172, 178). The garden is alive with con-versation, between Adam and God, Adam and Eve, and Adam



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and Raphael. On rst hearing human speech, Satan became alleare to hear new utterance ow (4.410). Book 7 shows theuniverse created through the spoken Word of God and cele-brated each day by the angels in song, especially on theseventh day, not in silence holy kept (7.594). Hell, andheaven during Satans rebellion, are full of Infernal and unsuf-ferable noise (6.667, 867), and Satan, despite his annualhumbling to wordless hissing (10.576), is supremely and victor-iously voluble in the human world. In hell, besides powerfulvoices and horrendous noise, music is heard, the seductive

sound Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet and choralsinging so beautiful that it Suspended Hell (1.711-12; 2.554).Chaos, the source of uncreated sound, is a universal hubbubwilde that assaults the ear and roar[s] (2.951-3; 6.871).After the Fall, the human world is resonant with sound. Thereis music (11.558-63, 583-4), but more notably human voicesin factious opposition (11.664), strident argument inauguratedby Adam and Eve (9.1143-89), while the ultimate cacophony,the hideous gabble of Babel (12.56), is reminiscent of thehissing scene in hell (10.504-47) and the stunning sounds andvoices all confusd of chaos (2.952). Milton emphasises toohis oral mode of composition. We know that he dictated inthe mornings and that, if an amanuensis was late, wouldcomplain, Saying hee wanted to bee milkd .13 In the invocationto Book 7 he asserts that, although half the epic yet remainesunsung, his voice is, mirabile dictu , unchangd / To hoarce ormute (7.21-5), and concludes the proem to Book 9 byclaiming that he hears the poem through his heavenly muse,who brings it nightly to my Ear (9.47).

Joining his voice with the angels voices at the conclusion of their hymn in Book 3, Milton rejoices in the copious matterof my Song (3.413). Although we cannot smell or touch or

see the poem in the way we perceive a springing plant,Paradise Lost shares with all things in the one rst matter(5.472) and is copiously material. What is special is how it isIndud with . . . form[s] (5.473). As Kerrigan, Rumrich, andFallon note, The endowment of form triggers the animation of matter. 14 The making or forming is what animates or spirits



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Paradise Lost , and it shares with the angels song in being madewith words sounded vocally.

Since the 1970s scholars have lost touch with the oraland aural substance of Paradise Lost , focusing more andmore upon Miltons theological, philosophical, and politicalthought. A move away from the study of formal elements hasled to the imbalance in Milton studies noted by Stanley Fish. 15

Very few scholars have explored the sound of the poem inrelation to meaning, and none have connected its sound withthe animist materialism that informs Paradise Lost .

The major exception in the largely deaf company of Miltonistsis John Creaser, notably through his study Service is perfectfreedom: Paradox and Prosodic Style in Paradise Lost .16

Basing his work on the prosodic theories of Derek Attridge,Creaser frees Milton from traditional foot prosody andreveals the continuing rhythmic variation for expressivepurposes that Milton achieves while still adhering to the vebeats of the blank verse line. As well as inverted stress,frequent in Paradise Lost at the beginning of a line, there arethree other possible deviations from the basic duple alternation,termed demotion, promotion, and pairing. Creasersnotation for scanning, employed below, is as follows. Capitalsindicate full stresses. Demotion is a stress falling on an off-beatand is indicated by italicised capitals, for example, SER-vantof GOD, WELL DONE (6.29); demotions make for a slow,weighty rhythm because they add an extra stress to theve-beat line. A promoted syllable is a syllable naturally givenlight emphasis but which, because of its place in the line, isfelt as a metrical beat; it is indicated by small capitals, forexample, the third syllable of solitarie in: Through E-denTOOK thir SO-li- TAR-rie WAY (12.649). Pairing, a favouritedeviation with Milton, is two consecutive stresses, both of which are beats; to retain balance, they are either preceded or

followed by two unstressed syllables; pairing is indicated bycapitals for the adjacent stresses and by underlining, forexample, MILL-ions of SPIR-its for HIS FAULT a-MERCT(1.609).

The editor and critic Gordon Teskey also has ears to hear, andemphasises the need to experience the poem as physical effort



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and physical sound. He is deeply interested in the ontology of Paradise Lost , stressing repeatedly its createdness as poiema ,a thing made, and imagining it as an emergent structure, some-thing that feels, even as we read it, still in the process of beingcreated, of excitedly breaking forth from the poets imaginationand passing, even now, through the poets lips to our ears. 17

Even Teskey, however, never really explores what ParadiseLost is made of, and, for all his admiration of the materialforce of the poem as an artifact in sound, 18 how the sonicmatter embodies meaning does not excite his scrutiny. Yet

Miltons shaping of the sound of words to help carry meaningis fundamental to Paradise Lost as a thing made.

A rudimentary way to hear this is to compare Miltons textwith translations. Prose translations, such as Chateaubriandsin 1836, lose an important visual component, the arrangementof the words in lines and the expressive purposes of that arrange-ment, but all translations lose the aural power of Milton.Consider Theodore Haaks German translation of 1681.Miltons rst six lines

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the FruitOf that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tastBrought Death into the World, and all our woe,With loss of Eden , till one greater ManRestore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing Heavnly Muse, (1.1-6)

become, in Haaks translation,

Des ersten Menschen Abfall und die FruchtIhm hochverbottnen Baums, dass ihr VersuchDen Todt und all Unheyl hat auf die Welt

Gebracht, und uns auss Eden biss Gott-MenschUns voll erlo s und alles wiederbring,Singend, O Sin,19

Haak knew Milton personally and strove for delity, which isevident in his use of blank verse, his placing of Frucht,



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Versuch, and Gott-Mensch at the end of lines, and in hisretaining Miltons suspended syntax which nally resolves inSingend, O Sin, but the unique sound and rhythm of Miltonare lost. Haaks lines do not capture the heavy monosyllabicintensity of BROUGHT DEATH in- TO the WORLD, andALL OUR WOE, and his lines follow the plodding iambic of Des ER-sten MEN-schen AB-fall UND die FRUCHT. Miltonsopening lines would have startled his contemporary readers,not only because they are unrhymed and surge forward in along suspended clause, but also because the rst line is wildly

aberrant, with six instead of ve beats, three of which fall onconsecutive syllables: Of MANS FIRST DIS-o-BED-ience ANDthe FRUIT. Yet this weird, arresting rhythm is right, in itssublime weightiness, for the astonishing announcement thebard is making. As appropriate rhythm, what Milton calls aptNumbers, it is part of the animate body of Paradise Lost ,aural substance combining with semantic components to helpbody forth the sense of the momentous, primal fault.

Even more useful than Haaks translation, in opening onesears to the sound of Paradise Lost , is Dennis Danielsons prosetranslation/paraphrase. 20 Danielsons stated purpose is to leadreaders back to Miltons text, which is printed on theleft-hand page facing the prose version on the right. Themajestic power of Miltons narrative and imagery is notentirely lost by Danielson, but his translation continuallyprompts one to return to the left-hand page to hear the soundof Milton. Danielsons of all the happiness he had lost, andnow of endless suffering (p. 15) enables one to hear, withrenewed clarity, Both of lost happiness and lasting pain(1.55). The power of Miltons line here is carried by its starkcompression, its weighty rhythm, with a demotion (stressfalling on an off-beat) on lost, and by the antithesis mademore powerful by closeness of sounds (l, st, p) on stressed syl-

lables: LOST HAP-pi- NESS and LAST-ing PAIN. The precedinglines work with similar expressive purpose: BUT his DOOM / Re-SERVD him to MORE WRATH; for NOW theTHOUGHT (1.53-4). Milton pronounced wrath with thesame vowel as more, 21 and the heavy rhythm, with assonanceon the long, low vowels MORE WRATH . . .THOUGHT



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intensies the sense of inexorable wrath. There is similar asso-nance in the other two instances of wrath in Book 1(1.110-11 and 220-1), and in the manuscript, in each case, au caret is inserted to indicate wrauth, which was Miltons pre-ferred spelling. 22

Rhythm shapes or inspirits Paradise Lost everywhere; as JohnCreaser puts it, the rhythm of the verse is the lifeblood of thepoem. 23 The rich aural corporeality of the poem, however, ismore than a question of rhythm. Miltons auditory imaginationtypically shapes patterns of sound assonance, alliteration,vowel length, consonantal and syllabic quality with rhythmfor expressive purposes, and is a pervasive shaping or animatingprinciple in the making of the poem. To take just one line Greedily she ingorgd without restraint (9.791) both allitera-tion and assonance fall on the rst three beats, which fall on longvowels, and the rst beat is emphasised by inverted stress:GREED-i-ly SHE in-GORGD with-OUT re-STRAINT. The

result is a powerful driving line in which sound, particularly thevelar voiced plosive g, combines with rhythm to help enforcethe grossness which the lexical components signify. This powerwould be lost if we were to substitute, for example, JOY-ous-lySHE de-VOURD with-OUT re-STRAINT, a rhythmicallyidentical line but which lacks Miltons expressive combining of rhythm with sound. The characteristic shaping of sound withrhythm works across lines as well, as in:

Yet NOT the MORECease I to WAN-der WHERE the MU-ses HAUNTCleer SPRING, or SHA-die GROVE,

(3.26-8)

Stephen Fallon believes that the condence of this assertion is

undercut by the tortuous syntax. Yet I still wander wouldbe more direct. Yet no less do I wander would at least be idio-matic. 24 But the sound of the lines modies such a reading: theowing, undislocated iambic movement and the assonance of not and wan, more and haunt, all on down-beats, help toconvey a tone of condence, not anxiety.



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Miltons minute care to convey meaning throughsound-with-rhythm is evident even in single words, such asclang, which is used only twice in Paradise Lost . When thesolemn and sublime archangel Michael (11.236) foretells thefate of paradise at the Flood, he concludes with clang:

then shall this MountOf Paradise by might of Waves be moovdOut of his place, pushd by the horned oud,With all his verdure spoild, and Trees adriftDown the great River to the opning Gulf,And there take root an Iland salt and bare,The haunt of Seales and Orcs, and Sea-mews clang.

(11.829-35)

The surging onward movement of these lines is an example of mimetic prosody, where aural effects suggest what is beingdescribed. Onomatopoeia is rarely used by Milton, but clangis distinctly onomatopoeic That wonderful word clang,writes Gordon Teskey, is an acoustic chaos that reverberatesfor us from the noise of chaos itself. 25 It is given harshacoustic weight by being the last of three monosyllables placedat the end of a heavily monosyllabic line, with a possibledemotion on mews, and by being followed by a stop: The

HAUNT of SEALES and ORCS, and SEA- MEWS CLANG.The only other use of clang in Paradise Lost has a differentcontext, and the word has accordingly a different acousticweight. Raphael, the affable Arch-Angel (7.41), is describingthe creation of the birds:

Mean while the tepid Caves, and Fens and shoares

Thir Brood as numerous hatch, from the Egg that soonBursting with kindly rupture forth disclosdThir callow young, but featherd soon and edgeThey summd thir Penns, and soaring th air sublimeWith clang despisd the ground,

(7.417-22)



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There is no pause after clang here. The word does not stand outwith audible harshness, as in Sea-mews clang, but has a lighteror shorter acoustic weight because part of a owing iambicmovement: and SOAR-ing THAIR su-BLIME / WithCLANG de-SPISD the GROUND. This accords with thesense of joy in the lines: the birds despise the ground becausethey are given wings and can y. As Helen Darbishireobserved more than fty years ago, with Milton every soundand syllable counted, every pause or silence between sounds.Never has poet known better than he that sound expresses

sense, and that the minutest details of his art must be cared forif he is to render the fullness of his meaning. 26

A passage in which rhythm, linear arrangement, and,especially, patterns of sound help to create meaning in termsof Miltons animist materialism, help to inspirit the matter outof which Paradise Lost is made comes at the point whereSatan calls up his followers in hell. The lines were cited byLeigh Hunt in 1825 as exemplifying Miltons harmonioussound effects, 27 although Hunt made no attempt to explainhow these effects work:

he stood and calldHis Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intranstThick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the BrooksIn Vallombrosa , where th Etrurian shadesHigh overarcht imbowr;

(1.300-4)

Charles A. Huttar believes that these lines have a melodicsound, unlike the harsher lines that follow [1.304-13], andhave thereby a pastoral quality; Milton is hinting at apleasant rural scene, a locus amoenus , which is achievedpartly by sheer melody, the liquid consonants and open back

vowels.28

The idea that a melodic sound can create apastoral quality is specious since the sheer sound of wordsmeans nothing. Huttar, however, at least attempts to listen tothe lines, unlike Peter Herman, who focuses on Miltonspolitics, ignores the sound of the poem, and treats ParadiseLost not unlike a document in prose. By a long and circuitous



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route, he argues that the Vallombrosa passage is about bothrepublicanism and monarchy and therefore betrays Miltonsincertitude about the seventeenth century revolution. 29 By com-parison with all previous readings, this is egregiously far-fetched.The lines are about loss and devastation, and if Herman hadlistened to them he might have heard the sound of sense. 30

The angels are stunned, intranst, and there is an appropri-ate sense of stillness in the lines, which move fairly slowlybecause of a predominance of long vowels and a number of pauses, two in line 301, one each in lines 303 and 304. There

is an extra, unavoidable pause at the end of line 301, onintranst, because of the long vowel and also because thecluster of unvoiced consonants at the end of the line and thebeginning of the next intranst / Thick together with theplosive ts, require careful articulation, making it impossibleto slide over easily from intranst to Thick. The pause onintranst is the only end-line pause in the ve lines and helpsto carry the sense of the word. The long vowels of the lines, inaddition to slowing the pace, produce Miltons characteristicfullness of sound. Sonority is increased by consonance:Legions/Angels; by liquid, voiced, and nasal consonants:Legions/Angels . . . intranst . . .Autumnal . . .. Vallombrosa . . .Etrurian . . . imbowr; and by assonance: stood . . .calld . . .Forms . . .Autumnal . . .Brooks . . .strow . . .Vallombrosa . . .overarcht. Miltonscorned the use of rhyme for his epicand rarelyuses onomatopoeia, but creates, as here, more subtle interlinkingof sounds for expressive purpose, a sound of sense. Assonance isa strong factor, so that Milton uses strow here to reverberatewith brosa , but strews elsewhere (5.348). Vallombrosa resonates especially, phonetically and semantically, withAutumnal Leaves, and is a key word, with its even rhythm,vowels, and liquid and voiced consonants; Milton loved Italianand would have sounded the double l and the voiced s. A

place outside Florence, Vallombrosa means literally valleyenshaded but in this context hints at the valley of the shadowof death. Shaded valley would t metrically, but Miltonprefers the sighing, sonorous Italian word which resonates withother words in the context; for the same reason, he does notsay October leaves, which would also t metrically, but



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Autumnal Leaves. Derek Attridge, writing of aural effects in James Joyces Ulysses, speaks of a reciprocal relationship . . .between phoneticandsemantic properties andof the materialityof language as it does its work of bringing meaning intobeing (Attridges italics). 31 This is what is happening in theVallombrosa passage. The mutual reverberation of sounds hasan expressive effect: as the words resonate with one another,the sense of each is intensied stood . . .calld . . .Forms . . .Autumnal . . .Brooks . . .strow . . .Vallombrosa . . .overarchtimbowr. This reverberating assonance, reciprocating with

lexical meanings, the linear arrangement, and the subduedpace, mobilises meaning, helping to create the overall senseof loss and devastation.

In this way, Miltons enduing his poem with sonic matterhelps to carry the abstract matter of connotations, images, andallusions. The materialist monism of Paradise Lost , whichallows no division between corporeal and incorporeal matter,is a continuing guide to reading the poem. Just as the springingplant described by Raphael is corporeal with less corporealmatter, so with the uniquely endud poem, physical andabstract matter are seamlessly connected as expressivesounding words. In the process of Milton creating thatdirect intercourse of mind, ear, and voice and the reader listen-ing while reading, the poem becomes animate, a living thingwithin the continuum of creation.

The passages analysed so far are descriptive. Speeches,however, are crucial to the oral and aural existence of ParadiseLost . I have attempted to show elsewhere that Milton createsan evolution of speech rhythms and patterns of converseacross the epic which relates to seventeenth century ideasabout the deterioration of mankinds speech with the Fall. 32

That evolution is part of Miltons theodicy: the wayes of Godwith Man (8.226) are justied because Adam and Eve freely

give up their closeness to God in a departure which is utteredand heard in their alterd stile (9.1132). Before the Fall, thespeeches of Adam and Eve move in the measured rhythms of celestial speech, but with the Fall their speech takes on the dislo-cated, passionate accents of Satan. Readers with ears attuned tothe contrasting rhythms of infernal and celestial speech, will hear



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Adam and Eve letting Satan into their mouths as they let himinto their minds. The Satanising of their speech, most markedin their soliloquies (9.795-833 and 10.720-844), is part of Miltons poetic theodicy, which is in striking contrast to proseworks such as Thomas Pierces The Divine PhilanthropieDefended (1657), Anthony Burgesss The Doctrine of Original Sin, asserted and vindicated (1658), or Richard Baxters GodsGoodness, Vindicated (1671). Milton distinguishes poetry asmore . . .sensuous than works of this kind; 33 thus auditoryeffects become part of his argument.

While the evolution of speech rhythms across the epic is strik-ingly audible, the dialogue in heaven in Book 3 dramaticallythe core of Miltons defence of God works in a morenuanced fashion. The prodigious scholarship on this dialoguehas taken little account of sound. Dennis Danielson acknowl-edges that Miltons justication of God is all the more impress-ive for its being literary, but in the literary dynamics of Miltons free will defence he does not hear auditory effects. 34

Similarly, in analysing this dialogue Irene Samuel traces a pro-gressive change in the Fathers tone from coldly logical towarmly loving, but does not consider sound as part of this pro-gression. 35 Isabel MacCaffrey reminds us that, with the dialoguein heaven, there is a shift to a highly aural mode of apprehen-sion where ideas are more or less nakedly presented. Shepoints to the traditional belief that certain kinds of truths maybe audible but invisible; spiritual verities may be understoodonly through our ears, the avenue of concepts, the path tounderstanding; Miltons argument is heard by our innerears, not seen in imagination. 36

The dialogue in heaven is the most abstract section of thepoem but it is not nakedly presented. MacCaffrey rightlyobserves that the language of God is stripped of sensuous impli-cation. 37 Almost image-free, the heavenly dialogue is neverthe-

less sensuous, orally and aurally sensuous. It was milkd out of Miltons body in his voice and is taken in through the readerssense of hearing, heard at one and the same time by innerand outer ears as we listen to Milton orchestrating twovoices, the Fathers and the Sons. Gods dealings withmankind are defended here as the hard justice of the Fathers



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speeches is subsequently softened by and incorporated with lovein the speeches of the Son. The voice of the Son is a compara-tively still small voice which gradually softens the dominatingsound and rhythm of the Fathers voice. The sonic progressionis inseparable from the progression of ideas as mercy tamesjustice, compassion tames wrath, and humility tames hard self-righteousness, so that, by the end of the dialogue, the twovoices harmonise.

Miltons poetic orchestration is heralded in the rhythms of theopening lines of the Fathers and the Sons speeches. The Fathers

powerful voice begins with reversed stress and strong pairing:ON-ly be-GOT-ten SON, SEEST thou what RAGE (3.80),while the Sons rst words follow the gentle iambic rhythm of:O FA-ther, GRA-cious WAS that WORD (3.144). Openinghis second speech, the Father adopts a similar soft, evenlulling, rhythm: O SON, in WHOM my SOUL hath CHIEFde-LIGHT / SON of my BO-som, SON who ART a-LONE / My WORD, my WIS-dom, AND ef-FEC-tual MIGHT (3.168-70). The Sons second speech begins with: FA-ther, thyWORD is PAST (3.227), and the Fathers nal speech openslike an exhaled sigh of joy and gratitude in a smooth iambicline unbroken by a caesura and owing easily into the nextline: O THOU in HEAVN and EARTH the ON-ly PEACE / Found OUT for MAN-kind UN-der WRAUTH (3.274-5).

The body of the ve speeches of the dialogue follows this pro-gressive softening. The Fathers rst speech (3.80-134) is denedby the Son himself in his immediate acknowledgement of hisFather as Judg / Of all things made who judgest onely right(3.154-5). Absolute justice, righteousness, characterises theFathers rst speech. It is declarative, condently, sternly, andrepetitively laying out justice which is hard but true, odiousTruth perhaps, such as will be uttered by the single just men(11.704), and which, when read aloud, sounds inescapably

caustic.38

The voice has immense power and authority, carriedin emphatic repetitions which frequently include alliterationand assonance for added weight: no bounds . . .no bars . . .norall the chains . . .nor yet, So were created, nor can justly accuse / Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate (3.81-3, 112-13).Balanced effects make for still more weight: Sufcient to have



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stood, though free to fall, Freely they stood who stood, and fellwho fell, I formd themfree, and free they must remain, / Till theyenthrall themselves (3.99, 102, 124-5). In addition, the speech ismarked by a deliberate, slow, weighty movement, the result of stress reversals, pairing, demotions, and frequent caesuras:ON-ly be-GOT-ten SON, SEEST thou what RAGE, theSOLE com-MAND, / SOLE PLEDGE of HIS o-BE-dience: SOwill FALL / HEE and his FAITH-less PRO-gen-ie: WHOSEFAULT? / WHOSE but his OWN? (3.80, 94-7). The Sonresponds to this speech in more owing syntax and soothing

tones, the latter epitomised in the voiceless consonant and openback vowel of fa. Joined with the lexical meaning of father,the sound fa has a softness: O Father and that be from theefarr, / That farr be from thee, Father (3.144,153-4). Respondingto his Son, the Father begins his second speech with the smoothiambic of O SON, in WHOM my SOUL hath CHIEFde-LIGHT (3.168), but gradually the hard, assertive voice of the incensed Deitie (3.187) is heard again:

THIS my LONG SUF-ferance AND my DAY of GRACETHEY who ne-GLECTand SCORN, shall NEV-er TASTE;But HARD be HARD-nd, BLIND be BLIND-ed MORE,That THEY may STUM-ble ON, and DEEP-er FALL;

(3.198-201)

William Empson accuses God of speaking here in rocking-horsecouplets, using the off-rhymes which were re-invented byWilfred Owen to describe the First World War, with the samepurpose of setting a readers teeth on edge. 39 The tough voiceof justice reaches a peak with the draconian rhythm, repetition,balance, assonance, and alliteration of: HE with his WHOLEpo-STER-i-tie MUST DYE, / DYE HEE or JU-stice MUST(3.209-10). The Sons speech in response, while remaining rela-

tively still and small, somewhat approaches the Fathers voice. Itbegins again with the soft fa sound, Father, thy word is past(3.227), but gradually some reversed stresses, assonance, allitera-tion, and demotion are heard: on ME let DEATH wreck ALLhis RAGE, DEATH his DEATHS WOUND shall THENre-CEIVE, I through the AM-ple AIR in TRI-umph HIGH,



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DEATH LAST, and WITH his CAR-cass GLUT the GRAVE(3.241, 252, 254, 259).

With the following, nal, speech of the dialogue, there is alasting change in the Fathers voice, heard even by Empson:the rhythm around the word humiliation [3.313] is like takingoff in an aeroplane. I had long felt that this is much the bestmoment of god in the poem. 40 The Father has moved fromwrath and harsh justice to loving celebration, heard in thesustained, swelling lines, Because thou hast . . .quitted all tosave / A World from utter loss . . .because in thee / Love hath

abounded more then Glory abounds / Therefore thy Humilia-tion . . . (3.305-14), and in the visionary rapture of:

Mean whileThe World shall burn, and from her ashes springNew Heavn and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,And after all thir tribulations longSee golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,With Joy and Love triumphing, and fair Truth.

(3.333-8)

These lines are in harmony with those of the Son in the precedingspeech Thou at the sight / Pleasd, out of Heaven shalt lookdown and smile, / . . .wrauth shall be no more / Thenceforth,but in thy presence Joy entire (3.256-65) so that now theFather seems to be Substantially expressd (3.140) in the Son.In these closing words of the Father, enjambment accommodatesverbs with ease (3.334-5, 336-7) and the liquid ls take away thehard edge from his voice, as in the joyful release of the enjambedlines, And after all thir tribulations long / See golden days,fruitful of golden deeds (3.336-7). The sound and movementof the Fathers voice, especially in the triumphant, lilting rep-etition of golden days . . .golden deeds, reciprocate with the

semantic component of the words to evoke, more eloquentlythan anywhere else in Paradise Lost , the nal bliss of theApocalypse.

At the beginning of the dialogue there is a gulf between thevoices of Father and Son; by its end, through Miltonsnuanced treatment of auditory effects, the Father and the Son



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have approached each other and are at one. This vocal orchestra-tion helps to carry the defence of Gods ways, so that the abstractmatter of theodicy is embodied partly in sensuous sound. Readwith the ears, the dialogue in heaven is apprehended, like every-thing else in the epic, as at once corporeal and incorporealmatter, given life and meaning, animated, by Miltons shapingof it.

University of Sydney

NOTES1 Citations from Paradise Lost are from John Milton, ParadiseLost , ed. Barbara K. Lewalski (Oxford, 2007).2 Principally Stephen M. Fallon, Milton Among the Philoso- phers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland (1991).3

The appearance of the words on the page has received con-siderable attention, notably from Richard Bradford. See hisMiltons Graphic Poetics, in Mary Nyquist and MargaretW. Ferguson (eds.), Re-membering Milton (1987), pp. 179-96;Silence and Sound: Theories of Poetics from the EighteenthCentury (1992), The Look of It: A Theory of Visual Form inEnglish Poetry (Cork, 1993); and Augustan Measures: Restor-ation and Eighteenth-Century Writings on Prosody and Metre(Aldershot, 2002). John Hollander is aware of both the visualand acoustic modes of Miltons verse as the eye reads the lineson the page and the ear listens. See Vision and Resonance:Two Senses of Poetic Form (1985), p. 96. See also ArchieBurnett, Sense variously drawn out: The Line in ParadiseLost , Literary Imagination , 5 (2003), 69-92.4 Diane Kelsey McColley, Poetry and Ecology in the Age of

Milton and Marvell (Aldershot, 2007), p. 119.5 Areopagitica (1644), in The Complete Prose Works of JohnMilton , ed. Don M. Wolfe et al., 8 vols. (New Haven,1953-82), ii. 493. Quotations from Miltons prose are fromthis edition, abbreviated as CPW , followed by volume andpage number.



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6 William Kerrigan, The Sacred Complex: On the Psychogenesisof Paradise Lost (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), p. 260.7 Voice , voices, and vocal are summarised by John K. Hale asthey appear in each book of the epic. See Miltons Languages:The Impact of Multilingualism on Style (Cambridge, 1997),pp. 133-4.8 The Verse, Paradise Lost , ed. Lewalski, p. 10.9 Angela Leighton, Poetry and the Imagining Ear,F. W. Bateson Memorial Lecture, E in C , 59 (2009), 99-113:100.10

The Reason of Church Government , CPW , i. 816.11 On these lines, Donald Davie observes that the numbersarent really something else but are the very thoughts them-selves, seen under a new aspect; the placing of move, whichproduces the momentary uncertainty about its grammar, tiestogether thoughts and numbers in a relation far closerthan cause and effect. Syntax and Music in Paradise Lost , inFrank Kermode (ed.), The Living Milton: Essays by Various

Hands (1960), p. 73.12 Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum: Or a Natural History in TenCenturies , in The Works of Francis Bacon , ed. JamesSpedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglass Denon Heath, 14vols. (1858-74), ii. 390, 436. Bacon writes at length on thesubject of sound in Centuries II and III of his Sylva Sylvarum(1627); he believes that the Sense of Hearing striketh theSpirits more immediately, than the other Senses; And moreincorporeally than the Smelling (ibid., p. 390).13 Helen Darbishire, The Early Lives of Milton (1932), p. 33.14 The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton , ed.William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon(New York, 2007), p. 383.15 Stanley Fish, Why Milton Matters; or, Against Historicism,Milton Studies , 44 (2005), 1-12.16

Review of English Studies , 58 (2007), 268-315.17 Paradise Lost (2005), ed. Gordon Teskey, p. xii; GordonTeskey, Delirious Milton: the Fate of the Poet in Modernity(Cambridge, Mass., 2006), pp. 49, 19; for Teskeys emphasison Paradise Lost as a thing made, see particularly ch. 3.18 Teskey, Delirious Milton , p. 28.



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19 Reproduced from Pamela R. Barnett, Theodore Haak, F.R.S.(1605-1690): The First German Translator of Paradise Lost(The Hague, 1962), p. 189. Haak translated the rst threebooks of Paradise Lost under the title Das verlustigte Paradeis ;they are reproduced in Barnetts book as appendix 3.20 Dennis Danielson, Paradise Lost by John Milton: Parallel Prose Edition (Vancouver, 2008).21 E. J. Dobson, Miltons Pronunciation, in Ronald DavidEmma and John T. Shawcross (eds.), Language and Style inMilton: A Symposium in Honor of the Tercentenary of

Paradise Lost (New York, 1967), p. 170.22 The Manuscript of Miltons Paradise Lost Book 1 , ed. HelenDarbishire (Oxford, 1931), pp. 55 (note to 1.54), xxi, xxvi,xxix, xxxvi.23 John Creaser, A mind of most exceptional energy: VerseRhythm in Paradise Lost , in Nicholas McDowell and NigelSmith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Milton (Oxford,2009), p. 463.24

Stephen Fallon, Why Milton Is Not a Religious Writer,public lecture, University of Queensland, 13 August 2008.25 Teskey, Delirious Milton , p. 83.26 The Poetical Works of John Milton , ed. Helen Darbishire, 2vols. (Oxford, 1952), i. 5. During the same period F. T. Princeobserved that Milton shared Tassos aim of the interdependenceof sense and sound: The Italian Element in Miltons Verse(Oxford, 1954), p. 131.27 Leigh Hunt, The Originality of Miltons Harmonious Use of Proper Names, in Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., The Roman-tics on Milton (1970), p. 438.28 Charles A. Huttar, Vallombrosa Revisited, in Mario A. DiCesare (ed.), Milton in Italy: Contexts, Images, Contradictions(Binghamton, NY, 1991), pp. 96, 105-6.29 Peter C. Herman, Destabilizing Milton: Paradise Lost and

the Poetics of Incertitude (New York, 2005), pp. 31-2.30 The poet Robert Frost used the phrase the sound of sense toemphasise the importance of sound in poetry. See Leighton,Poetry and the Imagining Ear, pp. 104-6.31 Derek Attridge, Peculiar Language: Literature as Differencefrom the Renaissance to James Joyce (1988), pp. 151, 154;



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M, Materialism and PL. EIC 2010

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