VISION AND TECHNIQUE IN PARADISE LOST AND THE FOUR ZOAS

Milton and Blake are considered representatives of what may be called the visionary tradition in English poetry. Focusing on Paradise Lost and The Four Zoas an attempt is made to first, delineate the myths embodied in these texts and second, to point out their differences. After a few remarks about what is meant by the term »visionary«, the author gives a brief appraisal of the poems. Although both texts start from an identical starting-point, even the most superficial reading will uncover decisive divergences. The paper analyses the following five structural differences: (i) while Milton uses a linear, deterministic organization of episodes, in Blake's work their nature is thought to be cyclical, interchangeable, (ii) the selective and intergrative use of material, (iii) the different characterization of protagonists, (iv) the different modes of representing space/distance, and (v) dissimilarities that are evident on the level of language. Relying on certain judgements propounded by George Steiner, Joseph Campbell and Arthur O. Lovejjoy a proposal is put forward to explain these differences as originating in a changed perception of the world, different psychological types and in the emergence of a new stylistic formation (Romanticism).

Numerous indicators w arrant the attem pt to place John Milton (1608 -74) and William Blake (1757-1827) within a common tradition.Besi des the question of influence (which is readily ascertained) this paper contends th at they are the principal representatives in English poetry of w hat we choose to call the visionary tradition, which ca/n summarily be said to have produced myths of varying validity as answers to and accounts of the particular predicament of man.Concentrating our atten tion on two of their works, Paradise Lost and The Four Zoas, it will be the aim of this paper, first, to briefly delineate the myths espoused by these texts and, second, to register the points of divergence which we contend bring to light certain developmental patterns of the fortunes of the visionary imagination in historical time.The visionary quality under investigation is a »constitutive« element of their poetry; the ideas, beli efs and assumptions th at Milton and Blake held transform ed themselves in the creative process and »became symbols, or even myth«.1The myt-hie constructs and the minutiae of poetic composition are functionally interdependent.
The presumtion behind this work is that there are elements of simi larity which vindicate the procedure of placing Paradise Lost and The Four Zoas in the same class and that, d'iaebronically, a process of differentation set in which necessitates elucidation.What is labelled here as visionary poetry seems not to be an isolated, self-oontaiined phenomena but shares in global processes.Throughout history it has had its zenith points where it has given the most unifying, uplifting vision of man and world, backed as it is by, we believe, the general unity of culture On the other hand, it may sink into low tides where, unbacked and alone, through sorties of his own, the poet grapples w ith the riddle of existence.May it not consequently chance that the visionary faoulty be comes defunct?Whatever may happen it should be stressed that the term visionary need not prejudice aesthetic qualification.Oftentimes, the truly great poet is the individual arranging scraps and bits in a visionless time (»These fragments I have shored against my ruins« The Was teland, 430), while a writer anchored in a period of cultural cohesion may turn out to be a chronicler of oddities, a mere propagandist.What we deem worth investigating -and this is the crux of our argumentis how the changes in the ability to embrace the whole of being (which we allege is dependent on circumstances extraneous to the book) leave their imprints on the performances of a w riter devoted to this promet hean task.The differences are readily ascertainable if one brings to mind and compares a poet immersed in tradition and his counterpart, a ma verick wanting standards of value/communal myths.
The Oxford Dictionary defines vision to be »something which is apparently seen otherwise than by ordinary sight«.It adds that it is of a »prophetic or mystical character« and »supernaturally presented«.We use the term to denote that all-unifying function of a particular mode of perception.Neither scientific nor religious (although not wholly sepa rate from them), which define and differentiate the totality of being, visionary perception is an universal spiritual operation which is capable of simultaneously embracing unity and differentiation, both evil and good.One recalls Yeats's rejoinder to the anticipated question whether he actually believed in his »circuits of sun and moon«: »They have hel ped me to hold in a single thought reality and justice«.2The visionary faculty enables man to feel integrated in the oosmis round and to give an account of self, life and death.
The visionary poet either tries to duplicate creation by presenting it in his work or launches forth, like the biblical demiurge, to inhale a breadth of order and meaning into a world he considers fallen, ban krupt.For instance, Blake employs place names, scenes and heteroge neous actualities of his time and orders them into a puzzling cosmology.
Hart Crane in »The Bridge« turns to the alienated, schizoprenic modern world and undertakes to humanize it by imbuing it with mythic signi ficance: O Sleeplees as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
Need we point to Coleridge's relevanoe in this context and his concept the »prim ary Imagination« which he asserted »to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the infinite I am «.3 For our present purposes it is justifiable to simplify the complex heterogeneity of the Miltonic and Blakean texts and assert, that »the great year of the world« represens the common theme, the rudim entary myth of both Paradise Lost and The Four Zaos.Of course differences exist in the way the two poets artioulate this idea but lit is clear that the fall from edenic 'innocence and its renew al (Milton), and the fall into disunity and the reestabilishment of the whole (Blake) are varients of the identical underlying conception.The processes charted out in their works presume a dualistic idea of being and antagonistic powers waging battle w ithin temporality; in Milton and Blake these are mustered aro und the dualities of God-Satan, Reason (Urizen)-Energy(Los).The myth which is embodied in Milton's work and which delineates the workings of these forces is unmistakeningly embedded in the biblical and classical tradition and demands little annotation.On the other hand, The Four Zoas is a demandingly complex text th at poses problems of understan ding and interpretation.It is our contention th at the idiosyncradies of structure -developmental differentiation between the two poemscan be accounted for by the fate of vision in historical time.The stages through which vision undergoes transform ation need not be progressive, driving towards synthesis.As a m atter of fact, we believe that the deve lopment of vision during the tim e period under consideration displays clear evidence of a falling away (declension) from the vision of totality which seems to have been the characteristic of the Miltonic experience of the world.

II
The Christian m yth provides the point of departure for the n arra tive of Paradise Lost.It can be argued th at Milton's »religious nature« once it awoke »from 'its sleep in the world« »quested for a metaphysical frame to contain it, to nourish it like a plant, to make it fruitful«.4Chri stianity gave John Milton this metaphysical frame.A sketchy appraisal of the twelve books of Paradise Lost will clearly bring this out.
In books 1 and 2 Milton gave his vision of evil: Satan and his con federates assembled in hell.This section provides the chief evidenoe for what has come to be known as the Romantic reading of Paradise Lost: »«unconquerable will« (I, 105-111)5 and in particular the passage depic ting the Satanic host as rebels ending w ith the words »Better to reign in Hell then serve in Heaven« (I, 245-263).Book 2 consists of their con sultations and disputes that are resolved in the decision to seek out and conquer the newly created domain (earth).It is these two sections which are the source of the Romantic revisionst reading of Paradise Lost acooirding to which Satan is the real hero of the story.B. A. Wright for mulated this revisionary reading in the following way.
The fact remains that Satan is the only character capable of expressing the heroism of human endeavour not only in war but in what for Milton was a more glorious field of action -the struggle with nature, the search for knowledge, the exploration of the world.6 The focus changes in book 3 where Satan is espied leaving hell; there is a prophesy of m an's sin and fall; Christ ransoms himself as saviour; Milton provides anticipatory passages of what will eventually come to pass.Book 4 describes man in his paradisical state; the topography of Eden; Satan discovers that human happiness is not unconditional but is dependent on his obedience to a prohibitive decree.Books 5, 6, 7 and 8 form a group because in them Raphael of the angelic host brings know ledge to newly-created, innocent man.In book 5 Raphael gives an acco unt of the strife in heaven and explains to Adam what preceded Satan's revolt so that in a certain sense, the information of book 5 antedates boiok 1.The cause «of his revolt seems to have been that he questioned the lore that he was created by God: »We know no tim e when we were not as now« (V, 859).Book 6 continues the depiction of the heavenly wars.In book 7, after the pageantry of celestial battles, the earth is in the center of attention: Raphael meticulosly follows the Genesis account.Raphael describes Milton's cosmology in book 8.It abides by the medi eval conception which conceives the »sedanterie Earth« as the center of the universe and the rest of the cosmos as parts of a hierarchiial order.Milton accedes to the Weltanschauung of the Middle Ages and it is pro per that Raphael oonsults his erathly conferee to cringe before-the gran deur of creation and not to ask after God's ways: m an should rely on faith and not endeavour to assail the enigma of existence w ith reason.Book 9 m ight w ith reason be thought the denounment of Pararise Lost.This is the actual scene of the tem ptation and fall.Milton illustrates the cosmic wrong which is wrought by m an's disobedience by relating dis turbances in the natural order.The immediate consequence of the diso bedience dis the upturning of human faculties.Still amidst the fall, in book 10 the reader sees the reperoussion of the orime on the Satanic host.At the end of the book Milton writes of the movement towards salvation w ith the promise of Christ's sacrifice.Generally, the pristine time of m an's identification with nature has ended and the destiny of man as a historical being commences.In book 11 the human pair hear of the edict to be evicted from Eden.The angel Michael is to lead them but before doing so he is to give them foreknowledge of future events.From this point to the end of the work, Milton puts into verse biblical history.Michael's revelation of post-flood history continues in book 12.
In conclusion, perhaps it is possible to group the books of Paradise Lost according to the following scheme: books 1, 2, 3: supernatural division, drama and conflict; book 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: m an and his relation to transcen dental powers, cosmology, creation; book 9, 10: tempation and trans gression; books 11, 12: loss of pristine justice, man and his odyssey through historical time.
Blake's prophetic book, amongst them The Four Zoos, are surely so me of the most difficult and obscure poetic works in English liturature.We have chosen The Four Zoas for our comparative analysis because we believe th at in this work Blake gives the fullest statem ent of his vi sion of being and that the processes of his mythological world, described in this work, show unmistakeable them atic similarities to the m yth Milton delineated in Paradise Lost.But while Milton makes use of an uni versal canon of beliefs -a vision of being sanctioned by an entire cul ture -Blake is of a period which lacked an established frame of refe rences and the text he writes is abundant w ith idiosyncratic oddities which are impedimental to an appreciative reception.
The Four Zoas is an extensive text, divided into nine sections (la belled nights), complexly interwoven, dispensing w ith linear develop ment.The pageant unfolds w ith Tharmas lam enting Enion, his »emana tion«, who has divided from him.The symptoms of the cleavage are evinced in the division masculine (sceptre)/feminine (emanation).Howe ver, the declension goes on and Enion gives birth to Los and Enitharmon.The cause of the fall/cleavage was apparently the usurpation of absolute power by relative agencies (see for example I, 262-264).7 Luvah and Urizen (love/reason) have underm ined the harmonious whole/ oneness and !in post-fall existence Urizen (reason, law) usurps, holds sway: »The Spectre is the Man.The rest is only delusion & fancy« (I, 341).His antagonist is Los who has »kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble« Jerusalem, plate 95, 20).It is characteristic of Bla kean textual strategy that the story of the fall is recounted in the first night in three different ways: a) depiction of the strife, division and conflict consequential of the lapse, b) with a laconic formula (I, 260-4) and c) in the last scene of the second draft.
At the beginning of the second night, the reader is introduced to Al bion, the pristine unified man who has abdicated his power and prero gatives to Urizen who sees »His feet upon the verge of Non Existence« (II, 21).To save reality from nonbeing (this being the supreme evil in the Blakean system) Urizen undertakes to build the mundane shell (II,.Max Plowman in his introductory study of Blake comments on the significance of creation in his universe: Although the creation of the world was necessary, it was esssentially evil.It was, in fact, approaching the nothingness of pure materiality, having gone through a long series of emanations in its outpouring from the divine original.It was constituted as a merciful limit to man's Fall.8 The language with which creation is described connotes constriction, boundedness, the tyranny of outwardness. In the third night, Urizen is still master but is perturbed by the promise of a »prophetic boy« (Orc) who will overturn his dominion.Li nes 27-104 once more recount the fall, this time according to Ahania, Urizen's emanation.It appears that Ahania's aim is to open Urizen's eyes to the complexity of his situation but he shirks her warnings: »Shall the feminine indolent bliss, the indulgent self of weariness, »The passive idle sleep, the enormous night & darkness of Death »Set herself up to give her laws to the active masculine virtue?(Ill, Ahania's banishment effects a further declension toward non-entity in Urizen.The other sceptres and emanations also undergo a progressive devolution. The fourth night takes place in the fallen world.The sceptres and emanations, asserting the sovereignity of their respective wills, mistaking the part for the whole, are in no position to recreate, salvage the lost unity.Creation, the binding of Urizen, is revealed to be an aot of mercy whereby the process of dilapidation and shrinking towards nonentity is temporarily stayed.Los who is assigned these chores of creation is also transform ed: »He became what he was doing: he was himself trans form'd« (IV, 287).
In the fifth night the imaginative powers, Los and Enitharmon, shrink into »fixed space, stood trem bling on a Rocky cliff,/Yet mighty bulk & majesty & beauty rem ain'd, but inexpansive« (V, 12-3), their nature impoverished.In this state of constriction, Orc bursts into life.In Urizen's stifling, repressive world Luvah, the principle of love, is transformed into Orc, the principle of strife, rebellion.In his rage (with strong Oedipal connotations), Orc »fir'd/The darkness, warring with the waves of Tharmas & Snows of Urizen« (V, 106-7).Blake provides enough evidence for the reader to identify Ore-Luvah as energy which in his myth is opposed to the material, static world (water-Tharmas) and to impeccable, cruel reason (snow-Urizen).W riting of the birth of Orc, Kathleen Raine comments: »birth of love into the world of generation, and the consequent degradation of this nature and metamorphosis into serpent form«.9The episode is of importance because it clearly shows that the bansihed / repressed forces are not annihilated, forever uprooted/excluded from the established order, but inevitably return in changed and perhaps m alignant form, and the reader intuits th at a co unter-movement is under way in the text.The imposed factitious order necessarily becomes prey to what it excludes, represses, wants to expur ge as otherness.
The sixth night unfolds upon Urizen exploring his world (dens).Blake identifies it as the natural world, cut off from spiritual realities: »Beyond the bounds of their own self their senes cannot penetrate« (VI, 94).Urizen, abashed by the ruins that he perceives, seeks »a void/ »Whe re self sustaining I may view all things beneath my feet« (VI,.Reverting to a dogmatic religious ordering of existence, he possesses himself of »a New dominion over all his Sons & Daughters, & over the Sons Daughters of Luvah in the horrible Abyss« (VI, 237).
At the beginning of the first version of the seventh night we read of Urizen approaching the caves of Orc where the »adamantine scales of justice« (VII, 10) consume »in the raging lamps of mercy« (VII,11).By the use of oxymorons (adamantine justice, raging mercy, etc.) Blake effectively depicts Urizenic world of dislocated and distorted value sys tems.Hypocricy permeates this world: »let Moral Duty tune your tongue./»Butbe your hearts harder than the nether millstone« (VII, 111-2).However, for all the seeming limpregnability of this order there always lurks a subvertive counterpower which endangers and will eventually undermine its stability: »The Man shall rage, bound with this chain, the worm in silence creep« (VII, 143).After providing two addtitional accounts of the fall, Blake introduces the spectre of Urthona who, reco gnized as »another Seif« (VII, 340), conjoins with Los.The passage »If we unite in one, another better world will be »Open'd within your heart & loins & wondrous brain, »Threefold, as it was in Eternity, & this, the fourth Universes, »Will be Renew'd by the three & consummated in Mental fires; (VII, signifies that a oountermovement (toward reunion) is under way in the text.
The second version of the seventh night is a depiction of Urizen's efforts that consist of »reversing all the order of delight (Vllb,22).As in the previous version of the night the text sets forth the rages of Urizen's arch enemy and there in the promisory note of redemption which, on the whole, is the function of this section.
In the eigth night the countermovement is in full stride.The poet's vision is focused upon eternity which contracts »upon the Limit of Con traction« into one man, Jesus, »to create the fallen Man« (VIII, 3).Blake relies on Christian lore to envision the process of renewal.Urizen rea lizes that »life cannot be quenched, Life exuded« (VIII, 421), the Zoas fall into a stupor, the emanations reemerge and the scene is set for reu nification, renewal.
With the ninth night the poem comes full circle round.It unfolds amid apocalyptic upheaval which anticipates the cessation of tem pora lity.Urizen's creation lis reversed, its threads unknit.The sons of Urizen take up the plow and harness -»instruments of harmony« (IX, 302)and relinquish the implements of war.If the reader is capable of recal ling -after this marathon journey -that at the fall the sons of Uri zen fled from the forges and fields into the turm oil of war, the return to the tools of husbandry marks a direct reversal, a return to pre-fall existence.Lines 390-556 set in the garden of Vala reenact the edenic state.Redemption is achieved through the realization that »Man subsists by Brotherhood & Universal Love« (IX, 638).The final line of the poem.»The dark Religions are departed & sweet Science reigns« (IX, 855) tells us that a passage has been made through the satanic mills (of course, in the Blakean sense) and that man, freed of the »woof« of dehumanizing religion/mystery, has prepared for a knowledge and wisdom meant for his benefit and wellbeing.

Ill
From the foregoing description of the myths embodied in Paradise Lost and The Four Zoas it seems legitimate to contend that their authors set out with very similar aims.Compare Milton's form ular statem ent of purpose : A quotation from Kathleen Raine points out where the two works the matically overlap: »This is the old story of the descent of the soul from an eternal to a temporal world.In the classical myth the lure is the honey of generation; in the Hebraic, the apple on the tree of nature«.10Using John Beer's criterion it may be argued that both Milton and Blake set out to create an epic poem: »creation of an epic poem which should record this lapse of man from his original virtue and prophesy his even tual apocalyptic awakening«.11However, alongside these similarities, even a superficial perusal of the two texts has, we hope, divulged sig nificant, readily ascertainable, differences.Paradise Lost is a self-conta ined, finished text, given final form by the authority of the writer.Bla ke never carried out the final revision of The Four Zoas.The latter text contains variant readings; thus, for example, the reader is confounded wdth two parallel endings of the first night and two equally valid ver sions of the seventh nigth.Needless to say, the fact that Blake's prophe tic books were not intended to be read as texts without the designs (etchings, water-colours) bespeaks the peculiar status of his poetry.Di vergences in the outer execution of the two texts are symptomatic of more significative differences.The next step in our analysis is to syste matize the most salient differences.A) Our interests here focus on the structural differences of the two poems.For the purpose of the present analysis we will simplify the no tion of structure by defining it as the distribution of elements within a given whole.In The Four Zoas the organization, ordering of the consti tuent p ails of the poem, is cyclical, nonlinear, regressive, tossed about; the text is repetitive returning incessantly lo its beginning.On the basis of w hat has been said in the previous sections, it would not be difficult to reconstruct the events recounted in Paradise Lost into a linear arran gement, to reassemble the sequence of events and see them as a narra tive.Blake's interests center on spiritual states and he is willing to re tu rn a num ber of times to a description of a particularly significant ele ment, in order to shed light on it from a num ber of perspectives (we have noted the proliferation of descriptions of the fail in The Four Zoas).As was shown in the account of Paradise Lost, the vision presen ted in the text may be viewed as strung on successive episodes, arranged in their causative order.It would impinge on authorial intentions to reshuffle their developmental order.Paradise Lost develops a story whose episodes are logically ordered, whereas the theme of The Four Zois is the delination of states, and since the number of these is deli mited, it does not surprise th at Blake tends to be repetitive (even more so if the reader keeps in mind his other prophetic books).Let us illus trate Milton's well-wrought plan by instancing a fragm ent from book VIII.After enumerating God's creation, Adam fawningly describes the woman.While toward all the other enjoyments that were bequethed him he feels superior, when confronted by the woman here only weak Against the charm of beauty's powerful glance.Or Nature failed in me, and left some part Not proof enough such object to sustain, Or from my side subducting, took perhaps More than enough.
(VIII, 532-237) On one level this is a panegyric to the irresistibility of female charm Yet, considered structurally (how this passage functions in the grand drama), the fragment obviously prepares the ground for Adam's deci sion to join Eve in sin.If Milton did not foreground this infatuation (importance of earthly love) he would have difficulties in legitimating Adam's motivation in joining Eve in breaking the interdiction against the tree of knowledge.The characteristic organizational strategy of Blake's poetic in The Four Zoas is the interchangebility of episodes while, on this level of analysis, Paradise Lost is deterministic.
What is understood by these term s?By interchangeability we mean the possibility to reshuffle fragm ent throughout The Four Zoas, especi ally the metaphoric fragment that function, to use Eliot's term, as objec tive correlatives of spiritual states.It is our presumption that the intel ligibility of the text would not be greatly diminished.As was mentioned above, Blake seems to have centered his attention on particular states (sceptres/emanations in particular), while their causal determination did not receive as much attention.(Could it be that the mimesis of states is easier to render than the exploration of their transform ations and gene sis).If the fragments (episodes) were functionally incorporated into an unfolding pattern, they would be contaminated by its logic and the sequ ence of events would assign them a function, stripping them of their independent relevance.This is the case in Paradise Lost where the events exaust themselves in the goal-orientated sequence.However, we are not arguing that all patterning is missing from The Four Zoas.It is suf ficient to conclude that it is not as deterministic as Paradise Lost; its nature is circular/reversible.In the Blakean text the individual episodes have a greater am ount of independence.These differences m ark a sin gular dissimilarity between the two poets.In reading the text one perce ives that Milton gradually proceeds from one episode to another, closely paying heed to the scheme of cause and result.Little unm otivated m at ter is there in the poem.On the other hand, we often feel that Blake dis penses w ith logical sequence and that his developmental logic is less one of cause and effect in tem poral order than of proximity.
B) Another possible way to compare these respective works is to point out the different ways Milton and Blake made uise of the material that was accessible to them.The Blakean text is integrative: his vision fuses tenets of orthodox belief to his personal myth, ranges over other kinds of religious experience (Druid, hermetieism etc.), integrates con temporary scientific systems, the geography of England and much else into the texture of his work.These heterogeneous elements become metaphors of the underlying vision.What should be stressed is that Bla ke's mythopoetic imagination assigns bo all these elements the status of simultaneous validity.The situation is different in Paradise Lost and, for simplicity's sake, if Blake employs an integrative strategy, Milton is highly selective.In Paradise Lost Christianity and the biblical tradition hold a privilidged position.When Milton uses classic lore it functions as a simile, the images/ fables are reduced to an illustrative function, and he does so in an apologetic manner.Comparing Lucifer to oertain per sonages from Greek mythology, Milton conscientiously qualifies his rhe torical vagaries: «-Thus they relate, /Erring (I, 746-7); or, when descri bing the bounty of heaven: »Hesperian fables true,)/If true, here only, and of delicious taste« (IV, 250-1), i. e. true only in Christiandom, in the privilidged biblical discourse, A consequence of this rhetorical stra tegy is that these passages fail to function as metaphors, integratively, because Milton has intentionally kept two orders of reference apart.Presuming the tru th of the Christian tradition gives the author a van tage point from which to assort, judge.Referring to another text but suitable to present purposes William B. Yeats wrote of these two ele ments falling apart in Milton: »the one is sacred, the other profane; his classical mythology is an a rtific ia l ornament«.12The explanation seems quite simple: being a doctrinaire believer Milton was unable to assimi late, even w ith a bad conscience, m aterial foreign to the creed he adhe red to.
C) An additional level on which to differentiate between Milton and Blake is to throw a brief glance at the oontrastive ways in which they envision the protagonists of their epic dramas.Even though we cannot accept the m ain hypothesis of G. R. Sabri-Taibrizi's appraisal of Blake as a »social critic and revolutionary poet«, his comments on Blake's pro cedure in constructing character can be incorporated into the context of our argum ent: Blake's characters are identified by menas of their relationship with others.They change because their positions and the nature of their relationship with others change,13 One can speak of Urizen, Los, Orc, etc., as separate, definable entities only with great difficulties.Constant flux is their habitual state of being.The original eclipse into spectres/emamations is only the most apparent obstacle making it difficult for the reader to discern the protagonists as discriminate beings.On the other hand, the Miltonic world is peopled by individualized entities, be they gods, demons or men.It lis valid to con tend that the transgression of both Lucifer and the human pair amounts to a process of individuation.Assaulting the anonimity of law/morm, the transgressor is tempted, fired by the promise of otherness.Is not Satan's heroic cry one of the most radical formulations of the craving for indi viduality: »Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven -(I, 263).D) While the representation of space/distance in Blake fts dynamic, based on relations, abyssmal, formless, verging on the edges of infinity between being and nonbeing, Miltonic space is concrete, contained.14A typical passage in The Four Zoas reads as follows: »And if, Eternal falling, I repose on the dark bosom »Or winds & waters, or thence fall into a Void where air »Is not, down falling thro'immensity ever & (VI, In Paradise Lost, Milton draws boundaries which differentiate space.As a m atter of fact, the act of creation amonts to a separation of cosmos from chaos: what cause Moved the Creator in his holy rest Through all eternity so late to build In Chaos, (VII, The act of this universal division is duplicated on the earth: »among these the seat of men,/ Earth w ith her nether ocean circumfused-(VII, 623-4).
E) Readers have commented on Milton's stilted, stylized, to some.Latinized English.We assume that his style and recognizable idiom look for its sanctions back to an established rhetorical expertise.W hat is pro posed here is that the language Milton uses in Paradise Lost, w ith its time-sanctioned rhetoric, indicates his proclivity of writing within the 13 G. R. S a b r i -T a b r i z i , The Hell and Heaven of William Blake, Lawrence and Wlshart, London, 1973, p. 39. 14 One is tempted to use the distinction Oswald S p e n g l e r made in The Decline oj the West, Vol.I, Alfred A. Knopf.New York, 1973: »the pri me symbol of the classical soul is the material and individual body, that of the Western pure infinite space« (p.175), well-defined norms of tradition.On the contrary, Blake intentionally abandons w hat he disparages as the »Monotonous Cadence, like that used by Milton & Shakespeare« in order to be able to incorporate new material.As he continues in the introductory section of his later work Jerusalem: I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both Of caden ces & number-of syllables.Every word and every letter is stu died and put into its fit place; the terrible numbers are reserved for the terrific parts, the mild & gentle for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosaic for inferior parts; all are necessary to each other.
(Jerusalem, plate 3) These dissimilarities on the linguistic level reflect other differences in the two texts.Contrareities in the form and execution of Paradise Lost and The Pour Zoas stem from broader assumptions, occurences and conceptions of world and art.These have been illustrated in the previous section to which we would like to add their respective treatm ent of hum an love.In book IV of Paradise Lost the passage »Hail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source. ..« (750-775) eulogizes connubial love.If we briefly scan the lines it will be possible to point out some of the basic values held by the Puritan poet.In the matrimonial state Milton discerns the curbing of lust (»By thee adulterous lust was driven from men« (753), and the setting up of relations th at are requisite for civic life (»Rela tions dear, and all the charities/ Of father, son, and brother first were known« (756-7), by the help of which man rightly assumes his position of dominion over the animal kingdom.Norms, ordinances, laws, rules, in one word, order, are Milton's shibboleths, (The organization of the an gels into phalanxes (V, VI), i. e. even the powers of chaos espouse rank and order, corroborates this judgement).Contrary to this, Blake advo cates freedom, the breakup of rigid authority, might be even made out to be, in clear opposition to Milton, a pleader for free love.Let us quote two proverbs from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell th at will attest to this assessment: »Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion« and »You never know what is enough unless you know w hat is more than enough« (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, VIII, 1; IX, 7).Whereas the Miltonic universe is hierarchially stratified, Blake's earth and hell are in dynamic turmoil, uncurtailed energy sub verting all imposition of authority.On another level of investigation, it can be argued th at baroque elaborateness assails Latin, clasical clarity.Milton must have had a pre-wrought plan for his poem, the story cry stal clear (elaborated by tradition), the frame awaiting to be bodied forth.On the other hand, Blake wrote spasmodically, starting, than bre aking off to pick up the strands a t the other end, returning again and again to an abondoned image or movement.Would it be acceptable to say that w hat ultimately differentiates the two masters is the difference between reason and energy of which both of them wrote in such a grand fashion.

IV
In 'J'he Death of Tragedy George Steiner appraises Milton in a fas hion which is very applicable to th e problematic at hand.Pointing out the significance to literature of a common belief shared by reader and artist, he writes : But the pact was broken during the splintering of the ancient hierarchic world image.Milton was the last major poel to assume the total relevance of classic and Christian mythology. . .After Milton the mythology of animate creation and the nearly tangible awareness of a continuity between the human and the divine or der -that sense of a relationship between the rim private expe rience and the hub of the great wheel of being -lose their hold over intellectual life.15 1 6 1 7 Steiner's judgement has the utmost pertinence to our study, although we would qualify the »relevance of classic« mythology to Paradise Lost Remaining within the same frame of argument, it can be argued that Blake was victimized by the breakup of the »hierarchic world image«.Christian mythology gave Milton the awareness and certainty of the con tiguity of the human and divine order, whereas Blake sought to storm heaven and what are his works but human artefacts confronting a mute universe.
Joseph Campbell, exploring the distinction between »traditional« and »creative« mythology, writes: In the context of a traditional mythology, the symbols are presen ted in socially maintained rites, through which the individual Is required to experience, or will pretend to have experienced cer tain insights, sentiments, and commitments.In what I am cal ling »creative« mythology, on the other hand, this order is rever sed : the individual has had an experience o f his o w n .., which he seeks to communicate through signs.
It is hoped that the sketeky analysis of Paradise Lost and Four Zoas presented above has shown Milton to partake of traditional mythology.According to Campbell's criteria, it is reasonable to contend that Bla ke's world is one in which »all norms are in flux, so that the individual is thrown, willy-nilly, back upon himself«.1'This is compensated for by the ability of the individual to create his own myth »through an intelli gent »making use« not of one mythology only but of ail the dead and set-fast symbologies of the past«.18Our analysis has shown this to have been one of Blake's strategies in writing The Four Zoas.
The Jungian exposition of symbol-formation and the way it relates to collective religious systems and to individually created symbols appro ximates Campbell's position and is of interest in the present argument.Jung believes that the Christian epoch did a great deal in smothering the individual creation of symbols.It logically follows that once Christi anity slackens its hold over consciousness, individual man will resume to create his own systems.19Jung is of the opinion that the symbols of collective religion (Christianity in this case) suffice for most men (Milton would be numbered amont them).A num ber of individuals are not content with collective religious systems (Blake being the case in point) and they disjoin themeslves from it, blazing out a path for themselves.20 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 For Milton Christian myths w ere effective enough for him to come to terms with self, his time, the universe.Individually created mythologies are not sanctioned by a broader consensus.Traditional symbols/myths are thought to have been w orn threadbare and new ones are invented.In the case of Blake, there is not only the gushing forth, from the sub conscious, of novel images and symbols, but the poet reassimilates myths and unorthodox beliefs that had been ostracized by official Christian do gma.Blake's text is incendiary to the extent that, in affiliating itself w ith w hat is excluded, it undermines, questions, destabilizes.A corol lary of this strategy is the revisionist reading Blake gives of Milton's poetry in his The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: »The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowiing it« (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plates 5-6) In A rthur O. Lovejoy's evaluation of the break in occidental tho ught that is represented by Romanticism, there are strong oorrobrations for the argument that has been followed in the preceding pages.Refer ring to Milton's work, Lovejoy writes that the »notion of a hierarchial scale of nature is, indeed, not lacking, and the law of continuity is cle arly expressed«,20 so th at there is no doubt that Milton is of the com pany of men who »through the Middle Ages and down to the late eig hteenth century« accepted the conception of the universe as a »Great Chain of Being«, compo sed of an immense, o r . . .infinite, number of limbs ranging in hierarchial order from the meagrest kind of existents, which ba rely escape non-existence, through »every possible« grade up to the ens perfectissimum& However, a contrary principle, which advocated the counter-belief that »diversity itself is of the essence of excellence«23 and which we have come to call Romanticism, subverted the domination of this conception of Being: That change, in short, has consisted in the substitution of what may be called diversitarianism for uniformitarianism as the ruling preconception in most of the normative provinces of thought.24 In our interpretation of The Four Zoos we have attempted to show Bla ke as continually transcending finitude, ravening for a plenitude outside the given/established, the accepted system.Let us conclude our analysis by saying that the comparative assessment of Milton and Blake attem pted here, has documented the demise of one conception of the world and its paradigmatic artistic embodiment, and the onset of a countermo vement which was the dominant expression of the nineteenth century and is still highly visible on the agenda in our discources upon culture and art.