By Kendyl Daley
In Paradise Lost, John Milton pens Man’s fall from grace and seeks to “justifie the wayes of God to men” (1.26). As Milton retells the story of Genesis, he authors the works of the Author Divine, who commands the winds of chaos, sculpts Man from primordial clay, and enthrones him on Earth’s “happie seat” (12.642). In the garden of Eden, Paradise is the pinnacle of God’s creative mastery. By artful hand he has woven flora and fauna into one blissful fabric, where “All the beasts of th’Earth” live in harmony with Paradise’s loveliest pair, Adam and Eve (4.340). In “the land of eternal spring,” Adam and Eve are overcome by nature’s bounty. From the “fertil ground” of Paradise rise redolent trees, adorned with fruits of “Golden Rinde” (4.249). Nectarine rivers snake through gardens green, feeding “Flours of all hue” and lapping at Paradise’s pearly shores (4.256). Amidst “the Groves, the Fountains, and the flours,” it appears that Adam and Eve are rich in every resource (5.126). That is, every resource except for one: their freedom. The garden’s veil of abundance is pierced by its verdurous wall, which towers over Adam and Eve and seals them inside. Within these bounds, Adam and Eve are at the mercy of God’s machinations, and perform preordained roles on “th’Earth’s great Altar” (9.222). As director of the terrestrial theatre, God controls his creations in body and in mind and stages their fall with forbidden fruit and wayward foe. Meanwhile, God watches the spectacle with an all-seeing eye, a celestial spectator from his empyreal seat. Thus, in Milton’s Paradise Lost Adam and Eve are not free; they are actors atop God’s woodie theatre, Paradise.
By structure alone, Paradise stands a verdant stage where Adam and Eve are displayed before God. As Satan descends on Earth, he sees “delicious Paradise/ Now nearer, Crowns with her enclosure green/ As with a rural mound the champain head” (4.132-34). In this description, Paradise is a raised plain that sits atop the untamed growth of Eden. This passage evokes the image of a theatre, with the plateau of Paradise as an elevated stage to exhibit Adam and Eve. Satan’s account of the “enclosure green” offers a preliminary view of Paradise’s walls, while suggesting that God’s gated garden is not the unfettered idyll that it appears to be. Satan emphasizes the unsightly walls, with “thicket overgrown” and trees of “insuperable highth,” that form “a woodie theatre of stateliest view” (4.136-42). With this evocative diction, he conjures the image of a stage, as Paradise takes the shape of a green colosseum, built with towering trees of Cedar, Pine, Firr and Palm. It is worth questioning whether Satan offers a biased perception of Paradise, but the garden is also described by Adam as “a Woodie mountain” whose top is bare and bounded by trees (8.303). Altogether, this imagery renders Paradise a stage, where Adam and Eve are platformed on the mount of Eden to act in God’s earthly spectacle.
In Eden, Paradise is “the glorious seat of Mankind” (4.208). By every account God has crafted a splendid garden, fit with groves of odorous trees, “fruits burnisht with Golden Rinde,” and “Flours of all hue” (4.243, 256). However, the abundance of Paradise is a theatrical tactic to control Mankind. Paradise is a palatable prison; it is the sumptuous set that adorns God’s stage, the backdrop of his empyreal plans. Evidence of the garden’s theatrical nature lies in Paradise’s deceptive walls. When describing the triune wall, Satan catalogues the row of outermost trees, the “verdurous wall of paradise” and “higher than that Wall a circling row/ Of goodliest Trees loaden with fairest fruit” (4.144-47). Interestingly, the fruit-bearing trees grow tallest and within reach of Adam and Eve. With Milton’s attention to sequence in mind, Satan’s description of the wall is indicative of divine intent. The tall, tempting trees are the focal point of the passage—and Paradise’s wall—as they overshadow the grotesque border and appease the couple with odorous offerings. As such, God lays a masterful mask of bounty over Paradise; even its bounds offer boughs of tempting fruit. The arrangement of the wall is proof of God’s theatrical flair. Rather than build a static, intimidating wall, God disguises his borders with opulent offerings—a performative ruse, to appeal to the senses of Adam and Eve. The pair is bribed by the gratuity of their maker, too enticed by the fruit of God’s trees to question his arborous boundaries. Consequently, Adam and Eve remain ignorant to the nature of Paradise’s walls and will continue acting in God’s plan, judgment clouded by their maker’s theatrics.
The notion of God’s theatrical garden continues in Adams’s dream. Adam describes his creation and the “shape Divine” that guides him up a “woodie mountain, whose high top was plaine/A circuit wide, enclos’d, with goodliest trees” (8.303-4). This dream is a testament to God’s theatrical abundance; unlike the “steep wilderness” and “grotesque” border described by Satan, Adam is charmed by a row of alluring trees (4.135-6). As God manipulates Adam’s dream, he conjures an inviting version of Paradise’s border, sparing Adam from unsightly thickets and daunting walls. Adam’s deceptive dream spotlights God’s obsession with optics, as he manipulates Adam’s perception of the garden and conceals its true, restrictive nature. God’s ploy succeeds; Adam pays the border no mind and is immediately entranced by the tempting fruits that “stirr’d in [him] sudden appetite” (8.308). Simultaneously, this idyllic dream places Adam in a subordinate role to God. The dream is a mystical and self-engrossing experience for Adam, as he is exalted by God and offered a paradisiacal throne. Like clockwork, Adam wakes from the dream and falls to God’s feet, rejoicing in the benevolence of his creator and his gracious gift of an Earthly throne. God chooses to show Adam this spectacle, assuring that he becomes beholden to his magnanimous maker. As a result, the “Sov’ran Architect’s” plan begins to fall into place (5.256). Having built his verdant stage, God can house the disillusioned Adam, who is coaxed into submission by illusory abundance and a distorted dream. Gratified by his Maker’s benevolence, in submission he will remain, subject and actor in God’s sylvan theatre.
Adam’s creation provides further evidence that he is an actor on God’s terrene stage. Adam falls into “gentle sleep” and dreams that a divine figure carries him to the “Garden of [his] Bliss” (204). As Adam describes:
…by the hand he took me rais’d,
And over Fields and Waters, as in Aire
Smooth sliding without step, last led me up
A woodie Mountain; whose high top was plaine,
A Circuit wide, enclos’d, with goodliest Trees (8.300-4).
As he dreams, Adam discovers that he was created outside of Paradise, plucked from the Earth, and transported into the bounds of the garden. Thus, Adam’s dream is an act of theatrical curation. God, having raised a mountainous stage and adorned it with a deceptive backdrop, procures an actor for his theatre. The creator’s deific curation attests to his directorial role in Paradise, which deprives Adam of his agency. The omnipotence of the Universal King is on full display, as Adam floats over the landscape and into captivity, a puppet dangling from his master’s string. With that said, Adam’s creation reiterates God’s need for control. As Empyreal King, God rules over the Earth, but still relegates Adam to the narrow bounds of Paradise. Only by entering the walls of Paradise is Adam truly God’s subject; only then, does God’s power reach its full potential. Hence, this passage presents the creation and curation of Adam, the primary actor of Eden.
Aside from establishing control, the walls of Paradise structure Adam and Eve’s daily lives. Upon their creation, God tells Adam “This Paradise I give thee, count it thine/ To Till and keep” and bids him to “Be fruitful, multiplie” (8.319-20, 7.531). As the bounds of the garden limit their autonomy, Adam and Eve abide by God’s commands and slowly slip into a routine. Come morning, Adam and Eve perform with the “Quire of Creations” on “th’Earth’s great Altar,” singing praises for their God (9.218-219). During the day, the pair performs their “daily work of body or mind,” as they lop the garden’s wanton growth and engage in pleasant conversation (4.618). By nightfall, they retreat to their bowre and perform their marital duties, for their “maker bids increase” (4.718). In this respect, the bounds of the garden enforce the roles of Paradise, by limiting the agency of Adam and Eve. Their lives are inherently performative, as they exist to serve their Creator’s will and act in accordance with his divine decrees. Effectively, the walls are an extension of God’s directoral presence, as they confine Adam and Eve to preordained roles. Restrained by the walls, they are incorporated into God’s paradisiacal plan, obedient actors in his arborous theatre.
While the walls of Paradise limit Adam and Eve in body, they also limit the pair in mind. By the account of Satan, the walls of Paradise are impregnable—except for the singular “eastern Gate of Paradise,” where Gabriel guards the entrance with a flaming sword (4.545). Only certain angels are granted entrance into Paradise to broaden Adam’s mind with Socratic conversation. The “sociable Spirit” Raphael begins a pedagogical relationship with Adam and directs conversation about the fall of Satan, the battle of the angels, and Adam’s own creation (5.221). However, after Adam inquires about astronomy, Raphael begins to withhold answers, saying:
Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve
To glorifie the Maker, and inferr cause to be
Thee also happier, shall not be withheld
Thy hearing, such Commission from above
I have receav’d, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds (7.115-20).
From this passage, it is clear that the “Sov’ran Architect” has constructed bounds both physical and intellectual in Paradise (5.256). Raphael discloses that Adam’s access to knowledge is limited; furthermore, he reveals that information is issued based on its relevance to worship. Through this strict prescription of knowledge, the walls of Paradise become conduits of knowledge, through which God transmits strategic information. Consequently, the angels fill a role of their own—God shapes them into divine mouthpieces, to service his will and voice his word. Beneath the reign of an intellectual tyrant, they must regurgitate specific scripts, written by the pen of their Divine Author. Ultimately, the walls are a tool for the mediation of knowledge, as God censors Adam’s intellectual freedom. Coupled with the angels’ restricted responses, they deepen Paradise’s stage-like qualities, revealing the roles that God enforces on his subjects, carnal and celestial alike.
With grand walls and a cherubic sentinel, Paradise appears to be an impregnable fortress. However, Satan “at one slight bound high over leap’d all bound… lights on his feet” (4.181-83). These lines illustrate that God’s garden walls and guarded gates are ineffectual, for Satan penetrates Paradise with ease. Once again, the walls of the garden attest to Paradise’s theatrical nature, for their grandeur is an elaborate act, concerned solely with appearance. Satan’s entry into Paradise points to a more ominous conclusion about God’s boundaries—they are meant to be crossed. This notion is supported by Raphael’s conversation with Adam. While explaining Satan’s escape from Hell, Raphael makes the damning declaration that God “sends upon his high behests/ For State, as Sovran king, and to ensure/ Our prompt obedience (8.237-40). The statement assures Adam that the devilish brigade would not have escaped hell, had it not been God’s will. Furthermore, it implies that God orchestrates performative trials to test the obedience of his subjects. Along with Satan’s trespass into Paradise, this evidence casts God’s omnipotence in an uncharitable light, as a Maker who builds faulty walls and welcomes wicked revolts. With that said, the “ill-fenc’d” Paradise is an invitation of disobedience, used to spur the contrarian Satan into action. With all-seeing eye, God foretells Satan’s pervasive plan and uses the schemes of the “grand foe” to test Adam and Eve’s obedience (6.149). By enacting this plan, Satan is recruited into God’s terrestrial theatre to play a key role as the catalyst of Man’s destruction.
Despite his meticulous orchestration of Paradise, the Creator asserts that Adam and Eve are free beings. In conversation with the Son, God makes the callous declaration that he ordains the freedom of his subjects, but “they themselves ordain’d thir fall” (3.127-8). This is a distorted understanding of freedom; every aspect of Paradise serves a theatrical purpose and buries God’s will beneath a guise of abundance and deceit. In Paradise Lost, true agency is an artificial ideal for Adam and Eve, as actors in a world constructed. Although Adam and Eve are housed in a mansion of nature’s bounty, their existence is unnatural—as are their choices, which are manipulated by God’s territorial boundaries, intellectual tyranny, and theatrical abundance. God’s concept of freedom is a diversion of blame, to pin Paradise’s undoing on his “lowlie” creations. Nonetheless, God is to blame for the fall of Adam and Eve for his role as Empyreal Author, whose divine direction coerces Man into inevitable disobedience.
In Paradise Lost, Milton offers a flawed presentation of free will, told through the story of Genesis. As actors in God’s woodie theatre, Adam and Eve are subject to God’s divine interventions, as he monopolizes their physical mobility, their access to knowledge, and their free will. More damning, however, are the seeds of disobedience that God sows from the inception of his earthly seat. With futile walls and forbidden fruit, the fall of Man is sewn into the fabric of Paradise. God constructs his verdurous theatre with every intention that it will fall. Only then, can God set Man forth into a wider, more stately stage: the rest of Earth. In the aftermath of the fall, Adam and Eve parent a race of sinful progeny, who devote their lives to their Maker’s praise to escape the damnation they inherit from their ill-fated parents. The raze of God’s idyllic theatre raises a new stage for his dominion over Man—but this time, without bounds. God’s glory follows in the forlorn footsteps of Adam and Eve, to rule over Man in his newest abode. Though the pair are cast from the verdant walls of Paradise, God’s reign is evergreen, as he assumes a new role of his own: the all-powerful, merciful God, who can control the fallen masses with the promise of salvation.
Works Cited
Milton, John. Paradise Lost, edited by Barbara K. Lewalski, Blackwell Publishing, 2007.