A study of the working of Milton's imagination as revealed in the portrayal of the chief characters in "Paradise Lost", "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes"

Abstract

After some suggestions concerning Milton's poems, and imagination in general, the chief influential factors of his life are brought forward in an attempt to trace, first, how his imagination worked upon his life-experience to produce his mature attitude to God and man, and later, how it works upon his life-experience and mature attitude in enabling him to portray the chief characters in his poems. Suggestions connected with 'primary' and 'secondary' imagination, or inspiration and self-directed reasoning-power, lead to the opinion that Milton came to depend too much upon his self-directed reasoning power for his understanding of God, and by its means created out of himself a conception of God to which he tried in vain fully to conform, with results which are reflected in his three poems. As characters, God and the son of God represent Milton himself, consciously under the rule of reason, but they are only portrayed poetically when reason is in abeyance to inspiration. Satan represents a large part of Milton himself in rebellion against the rule of reason, and therefore is continually surrounded by poetry. Adam and Eve, Samson and Dalila represent Milton himself and woman as he sees her; they show how he would be ruled by reason but cannot be, and how woman, to him, rebels against the rule of man and of reason, as he himself in Satan rebels against his own idea of God. Finally an explanation is offered for his manner of restricting his characters to a portrayal of himself, while, in all, the study is a collection of ideas, many of which not only defy inclusion in an abstract, but, so far, have also defied their owner to control them fully, or, within the time appointed, to reduce them under the unifying rule of law and order.