Katie Arthur

John Milton’s time was one during which the religious attitudes and atmospheres were in a constant shifting flux.  The Roman Catholic Church had been challenged, the newly-founded Anglicans were being put on trial for their inauthenticity, and each man had to decide for himself where he stood.  John Milton, true to his nature, decided to stand half-heartedly with the Puritans while faithfully maintaining every single one of his own personal beliefs and conforming to none of theirs with which he did not entirely agree.  He was stubborn in his own views, to the point he did not believe in the complete sacredness of the written Scriptures.  In his long treatise outlining all of his fundamental Christian beliefs, he describes what he understands to be a “double scripture.”  The written Scriptures are a valuable thing, but only insofar as they give instructions on salvation.  The rest of the content of the Bible, because it has been handed down from generation to generation of flawed mankind, is subject to flaw itself.  There is another, more authoritative scripture, though, he says manifested in the heart of the individual believer as the promised Holy Spirit.  He is the ultimate guide, again, for each individual believer, to real Truth, found in either the Bible, or merely divinely inspired.  Along with this rather demeaning position he gives to the written Scriptures, Milton also holds in rather abnormally high regard the ancient literature of his classical education.  He in a sense treats both the sacred literature of his deeply-rooted religious beliefs and the mythical tradition literature with the same veneration, using both simply as pointers to the Truth revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.  (See Austin Woolrych’s article).  Rebekah Waltzmann says in her dissertation very prettily,

for him, the Bible was the book of paramount importance but by no means the only one.  His love of literature took him far beyond the confines of religion, and the Bible is supplemented and enriched by the classics.  While the Bible contained spiritual truths, stories, poetry, and numerous examples that could be used within his work, Milton found within the myths an artistic and moral resonance that could provide him with elements the Bible could not (71).

As he is writing Paradise Lost, which is such a richly religious story, Milton supplements the truth found in the dull words of the Scripture with the beautiful language patterns of the mythical writers.  In particular, he uses the epic simile.  He speaks of biblical truths, for example, the Garden of Eden, in reference to mythological stories, for example, the field in which Proserpine is abducted by Pluto.  Similes used in the way Milton uses them in Paradise Lost are very particular to classical epic poetry, and he makes this allusion quite consciously and unapologetically.  The combination of his rather demeaning position on Scripture, and his blatant passion for pagan mythology gives us leave to wonder about his true opinion of the Scriptures.  He claims they are important, but in his day-to-day living and writing, the way he treats them will show us to what degree he truly values God’s Word (and beyond that, perhaps, God’s authority in his life).  I have chosen to focus on Milton’s epic similes, and, in particular, the comparison he draws between the Garden of Eden and Proserpine’s field of flowers.

First, it will be important to understand a little bit about the way a simile can function formally in a text, and the way Milton uses these formal functions in his poem.  Shane Gasbarra, in his doctorate dissertation for Yale University, says there are four things a simile can do.  First, it can add to what the reader sees, either explaining the narrative subject more fully, in words and images familiar to the reader, or by simply saying it again, giving a mental picture of the narrative subject to the reader, almost acting as a relieving break for the mind that has been at high attention as the author unfolds the narrative.  Second, the simile can be of a form called “multiple-correspondence.”  This is really a sub-purpose of the first, explanatory purpose, but a bit more significant, because in the multiple-correspondence simile, “each detail in the simile must answer some detail in the main narrative” (8).  Obscure nuances of the narrative can be brought out with ease and literary gracefulness by significant things within the simile.  On the other hand, there is the danger searching for one-for-one correspondence within a simple simile can be misleading, or trying to create a one-for-one correspondence can cause the simile to become strained and disgracefully pieced together.  C. A. Martindale, though, says we as readers of Milton are safe to treat all his similes as multiple-correspondence, and should assume any detail we draw out of his similes was intended to be drawn out of the narrative.  Third, a simile can also act as an antagonistic parallel, a contrasting comparison.  The simile can present opposing images to throw into greater relief the virtues of the narrative image.  Fourth, the simile can act as anticipation for events to come later on in the main narrative.  While one detail of the simile image parallels specifically with an image in the main narrative at the very moment of the simile’s presentation, another aspect of the simile may parallel something not yet presented in the main narrative.  The author can use the simile to slip in an almost subconscious suggestion to the reader of what is to come.  So Milton, when he writes his similes, draws on all his classical influences, but because he is John Milton, surpasses them in usage even as he depends on them for his content.  Martindale says some aspects of his similes are like Homer’s and in some aspects they are like Virgil’s, but in every case, he outdoes them.  The important question for us now, is, “why?”  Why does he go to such lengths, displaying his breadth of knowledge and writing capability?  Is it simply to show off, proving he could out-write even the best?  Milton was known to be uncommonly confident in his own superiority.  Or, is it to elevate by antagonism the subject and the characters he is treating in this deeply religious epic poem?

In order to answer that, we must first understand what Milton is drawing from, so we can compare his treatment in his simile to the original treatment.  Milton would have grown up studying all the classical authors: Ovid, Homer, Virgil, Hesiod, Claudian, etc.  The Proserpine simile from Paradise Lost alludes to a myth many of these authors recorded.  In Book IV, Milton is setting the scene for Adam and Eve to be introduced to the reader, painting an extensive picture of the lavish beauty of the Garden in which these two first perfect beings are to dwell, and he says the beauty of this Garden is greater than even that of Proserpine’s field of flowers.  Who was Proserpine?  Good question.  Claudian, in the 5^th-century AD, wrote the most complete version of the story Milton would have been familiar with, in his De Raptu Proserpinae (The Rape of Proserpine).

The basic storyline starts with Pluto, the god of the lower regions, and he brings a complaint against Jove, his brother and authority, saying he deserves a wife.  Jove decides that is probably a fine idea, and chooses Ceres’s beautiful maiden daughter, Proserpine, for his brother.  Meanwhile, unaware of the plans made for her daughter, Ceres is fending off hoards of unfit suitors who are looking to win Proserpine’s hand in marriage, and, fed up with the whole process, Ceres hides Proserpine away in Sicily, in a beautiful castle where she will be away from her relentless pursuers.  But Venus, sent by Jove, comes to Proserpine’s castle, saying with sweet words of friendship, she should venture outside the castle every once in a while, her mother is being unfair to her keeping her shut up in the castle, and there is a lovely field of flowers just waiting for her to come and enjoy.  Proserpine is convinced.  She goes, and much to her dismay, finds the beautiful narcissus flower she has just picked was placed by Jove to lure her to the place where Pluto waits to snatch her away in a foggy cloud of violent fury.  Ceres finds an empty castle when she returns to greet her daughter, and in the attempt to find her, flies over the whole earth in despair, asking everywhere for her precious child, spreading her knowledge of agriculture to mankind as she goes.  She happily discovers after much searching Pluto has taken her to be his wife, but because Proserpine has unfortunately eaten the pomegranate he gave her, she is bound to him.  Ceres can take her up to the heavenly regions for part of the year, but she must remain with Pluto for the rest.  Traditionally, this is the explanation given for the changing of the seasons: Spring and Summer are when Proserpine is with her mother, and Ceres is happy and blessing the earth, and Winter and Fall are when she must return to Hades.

The first interesting thing we must note is the context in which Milton brings up this story.  Milton is talking in Book IV of Paradise Lost about the beauty of the Garden, and he brings in this allusion.  The Proserpine myth is not about the field where she picks flowers at all.  Claudian’s account does not mention anything about the field except it has flowers in it.  Of course, we can assume because Ceres found it a fit place to put her beloved daughter, it was beautiful, but Claudian does not dwell on that point the way Milton dwells on the beauty of his Garden.

Milton uses this simile as explicit antagonism here.  He says Proserpine’s field was beautiful, of course, but it comes nowhere near to being as beautiful as the Garden of Eden.  It seems interesting he should pull out so obscure a detail from the myth to compare to his narrative, but as we look closer, we must give in to the brilliant piece of literary construction Milton creates here.  There are certainly more popular beautiful places in mythological tradition Milton could have chosen to compare to the Garden of Eden, but there is none that plays host to a story as similar to the rest of Milton’s Fall narrative as the story of Proserpine which plays itself out in “that fair field of Enna.”  While seemingly talking only about the beauty of the Garden, Milton lets his simile also do some anticipation here, subtly foreshadowing the entire narrative he is about to unfold.

Milton chooses Proserpine’s story because she herself is a representation of Eve, or more broadly, of mankind in general, whose innocence is taken by evil.  Proserpine allows us to understand more of Milton’s Eve because of both who she is and the situation in which she finds herself.  Proserpine is a child, innocent, but learning how to make decisions on her own.  Eve, we remember, is just newly created, and must learn how to make decisions on her own in keeping with the pleasure of her loving Creator.  Proserpine is the daughter of Ceres.  Eve is the daughter of God.  They are both supremely beautiful, which, in many minds, flawed logic aside, invites ideas of supreme virtue.  It must be pointed out, though, each one-to-one correspondence Milton creates here between the two women is a sort of diagonal parallel.  Each of Proserpine’s characteristics must be positioned in our minds slightly lower than Eve’s corresponding characteristics because Milton says explicitly the Garden of Eden, and naturally, the whole situation he is discussing in the narrative, is more impressive than that of Proserpine’s field.  Proserpine is the daughter of Ceres, but Eve is the daughter of the Lord God Almighty.  Proserpine was an innocent young lady, but Eve was created without flaw, the pinnacle of a perfect creation from the mind of a perfect Creator.

The situation each woman finds herself in is a sort of diagonal parallel as well.  The Garden and the Field are places of both beauty and of potential.  What does it matter, though, that the Garden and the Field are beautiful?  And beyond that, what does it matter that the Garden of Eden is more beautiful than Proserpine’s field?  The magnitude of the beauty snatched from Proserpine and Eve represents the magnitude of the beauty of peace and virtue they lose as well.  But interestingly, Claudian never says Proserpine’s field is a place of innocence.  He presents Proserpine’s field as a sort of neutral ground, full of potential, not necessarily off limits to her, but potentially exposed to danger.  As long as Persephone is without the influence or the presence of anything really corrupting, she is innocent in this place, free from guilt, and she can take full advantage of all the beauty around her with confidence and joy.  But as soon as there is something evil with her, the beauty is snatched from her.  Milton makes the same statement, showing the massive beauty Adam and Eve have access to, but always allowing them their free will, allowing their potential to be corrupted, even in this place of beauty.  But we will notice, like Proserpine, they maintain their innocence until something comes into the beautiful place from outside to corrupt them.

This diagonal parallel Milton sets up between his narrative and his simile is an encouraging indicator of his attitudes toward Scripture.  It cannot be denied that often, the written Scriptures are dull and dry in their verbiage.  Even C.S. Lewis, who of course, loved the Lord and venerated the Scriptures very highly said “it will not continue to give literary delight very long, except to those who go to it for something quite different.”  The Bible was not intended to be read as beautiful literature, but as Truth.  That Milton does not simply compare the Garden of Eden with Proserpine’s Field is significant.  If he had said “The Garden where the blesséd pair was found, was as beautiful as That fair field of Enna, Where Proserpine gathering flowers, etc.,” his language would assume the preexistence of the Field, setting the Field as the first and ultimate standard of beauty.  But he does not say that.  He says the Garden, the reality we find within the written Scriptures is more beautiful.  The myth here is simply a familiar supporting comparison for our minds’ understanding.  Milton does value the Scripture over the pagan texts.  He has looked to them for his source of Truth, and has let the rest of his learning fall into place underneath them.

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