Fall'n on Evil Days
Book VII opens with a rather strange invocation to Urania, a call for a return to the speaker's "native element" (15). For after being a guest in heaven, the speaker tells us, and soaring to the immortal heights of sublimity and seeing and telling of things which no mortal should have been able, it is "more safe" to continue his epic song with "mortal voice" (24). The speaker's seemingly humble recognition of himself as mortal and, therefore, limited in his abilities simultaneously contrasts and prefigures Adam's quest for knowledge from Raphael. We must wonder, however, if indeed the speaker's call to Urania can prefigure the actions of Adam, for the story of the fall has already occurred prior to the speaker's telling of it, and so perhaps his decision to be "narrower bound" (21) is an echo of Adam's original act. For I would argue against Paradise Lost that in this exchange with Raphael, both Adam and the angel are certainly tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion, if not overtly committing the first sin, defined here as consuming, of tasting of knowledge unfit for their natures and frames.
Directly after the speech to Urania, the speaker invokes her to tell of the exchange between Adam and Raphael. Here we see a fascinating paradox, one that permeates the entirety of the poem: the speaker, in "giving up" his authoritative, divine voice to Urania, is actually solidifying his limitless and rather god-like position. In other words, it is at the precise moment of humility, of weakness, that the speaker asserts himself as neither weak nor mortal. In restricting himself to temporal boundaries, the speaker highlights his previous abilities,as evidenced throughout the previous books, to transcend both time and space, as well as his greatness of spirit in being both wise enough to place restrictions upon himself and humble enough to seem to accept them. It is a paradox shared by Adam.
The speaker/Urania tells us that Adam, after having his questions answered in Book VI, was "Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know / What nearer might concern him, how this world / Of heav'n and earth conspicuous first began" (61-63). A few lines later, we get a clearer image of knowledge as something one eats or drinks, something one takes into his body and assimilates into his nature: "What within Eden or without was done / Before his memory, as one whose drouth / Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream" (65-67). The bit about his memory also harkens back to Book VI, and Satan's declaration that, as he could remember nothing before his own creation, he and the others must be self-generated. Though Adam acknowledges and seeks to understand that which came before him, and Satan denies the importance of pre-memory reality, neither are/were satisfied with their present existences as worshippers of God, content to know what he deems fit for their hearing.
Indeed, Adam admits that Raphael speaks "[g]reat things, and full of wonder in our ears, / Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed / Divine interpreter" (70-72). So wondrous are the angel's words that he is almost like translating another, unlearned language. And it is in this translation of dangerous knowledge, I think, upon Adam's request that he and Raphael fall together. For in language both reminiscent and shadowing of the fall yet to come, Adam requests that Raphael "[d]eign to descend now lower" in his willingness to impart "[t]hings above earthly thought" (80-84). Adam is, in a sense, asking Raphael to fall to Adam's own level.
And the angel, prefacing his revelations with the seeming disclaimer that no "words or tongue of Seraph can suffice, / Or heart of man suffice to comprehend" the recounting of "almighty works" (112-114) proceeds to do that which he has just stated as impossible, as far above his being and therefore unspeakable on his tongue and unhearable to Adam's ear. Humility, the seeming acknowledgement of inability to either tell or hear, actually functions as a means of transcending one's place in the divine hierarchy, and it is exactly this transcendent transgression that chained Satan to the Stygian pool.
Directly after the speech to Urania, the speaker invokes her to tell of the exchange between Adam and Raphael. Here we see a fascinating paradox, one that permeates the entirety of the poem: the speaker, in "giving up" his authoritative, divine voice to Urania, is actually solidifying his limitless and rather god-like position. In other words, it is at the precise moment of humility, of weakness, that the speaker asserts himself as neither weak nor mortal. In restricting himself to temporal boundaries, the speaker highlights his previous abilities,as evidenced throughout the previous books, to transcend both time and space, as well as his greatness of spirit in being both wise enough to place restrictions upon himself and humble enough to seem to accept them. It is a paradox shared by Adam.
The speaker/Urania tells us that Adam, after having his questions answered in Book VI, was "Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know / What nearer might concern him, how this world / Of heav'n and earth conspicuous first began" (61-63). A few lines later, we get a clearer image of knowledge as something one eats or drinks, something one takes into his body and assimilates into his nature: "What within Eden or without was done / Before his memory, as one whose drouth / Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream" (65-67). The bit about his memory also harkens back to Book VI, and Satan's declaration that, as he could remember nothing before his own creation, he and the others must be self-generated. Though Adam acknowledges and seeks to understand that which came before him, and Satan denies the importance of pre-memory reality, neither are/were satisfied with their present existences as worshippers of God, content to know what he deems fit for their hearing.
Indeed, Adam admits that Raphael speaks "[g]reat things, and full of wonder in our ears, / Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed / Divine interpreter" (70-72). So wondrous are the angel's words that he is almost like translating another, unlearned language. And it is in this translation of dangerous knowledge, I think, upon Adam's request that he and Raphael fall together. For in language both reminiscent and shadowing of the fall yet to come, Adam requests that Raphael "[d]eign to descend now lower" in his willingness to impart "[t]hings above earthly thought" (80-84). Adam is, in a sense, asking Raphael to fall to Adam's own level.
And the angel, prefacing his revelations with the seeming disclaimer that no "words or tongue of Seraph can suffice, / Or heart of man suffice to comprehend" the recounting of "almighty works" (112-114) proceeds to do that which he has just stated as impossible, as far above his being and therefore unspeakable on his tongue and unhearable to Adam's ear. Humility, the seeming acknowledgement of inability to either tell or hear, actually functions as a means of transcending one's place in the divine hierarchy, and it is exactly this transcendent transgression that chained Satan to the Stygian pool.
posted by alh at 6:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home