| How could John Milton support the republican
cause in the English Civil War, even writing to justify the
execution of Charles I, and then portray Satan's rebellion
against the heavenly monarchy as evil in Paradise Lost?
This apparent paradox, dealt with in recent decades by critics
such as Christopher Hill, Joan Bennett, and S.P.Revard, is
the starting-point for Davies' brilliant analysis of images
of kingship in Milton's epic. Rather than simply attempting
to parallel events in English political history or Milton's
life with aspects of Milton's poem, though, Davies does something
much more important: she shows how Milton's poetry absorbs
and recreates the political material on which it draws, charging
with new life and meaning the bare statements of political
theory and yielding rich clusters of meaning that transcend
any specifically political content.
After briefly establishing the historical context, Davies
examines various images of kingship as they apply to the
major figures of the poem, each of whom is alluded to by
Milton as a king in some way. Linking each phase of her
study to Milton's prose works, the author shows how Milton
used historical archetypes such as the oriental tyrant and
the Roman emperor in the characterisation of Satan and used
feudal conceptions of the king as fatherly and liberty-guaranteeing
in the presentation of God and Christ. Finally, the picture
of Adam as king over Eden is analysed, revealing that he,
like Solomon, loses himself in concupiscence and gains a
world where power is coercion and nakedness shame. |
