MILTON ONE-WORD ESSAY
In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Christianity is spun from a new point of view that challenges the reader’s prior religious beliefs and changes religious mindsets, ultimately forming a new story from the familiar biblical texts. When a curious non expert reads this text today, they are given valuable insight to political discourse, the mindset of individuals, and religion from 1674. Specifically, Paradise Lost allows us to look at how Milton attempts to “justify the ways of God to men” (Milton 1.26). To best understand the story and Milton’s intentions as a writer, we need to pay close attention to the most powerful word in Paradise Lost: God.
​
In order to understand the creation story and the motives of each character, we must first understand God and his powers and motives. By first looking at the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of God from the Christian, Judaic, and Islamic perspective (which is the origin Milton writes from), God can be understood as “the being or spirit that is worshiped and is believed to have created the universe.” This definition immediately demonstrates God’s incomprehensible amount of power, but it fails to state what his powers are specifically. However, the lack of description given to God, both in the Oxford English Dictionary and within Paradise Lost, is what makes the story so interesting. God’s powers initially feel unclear, but Milton’s true intention is to determine the relationship between God and men, so to better understand God, we must first understand the power of man.
​
Ironically, the one who will help readers learn the most about the relationship between God and man is neither God nor human -- his name is Satan. The majority of Paradise Lost is presented from the perspective of Satan who, as can be expected, despises God. He claims that he rose “against the throne and monarchy of God'' (.42) and the “tyranny of heav’n (1.124). However, through his hateful descriptions , the reader is able to get a taste of God’s extraordinary power. For instance, Satan calls God “the Most High (1.40), “Him the Almighty Power” (1.44), and most importantly, “th’ Omnipotent” (1.49). As an omnipotent being, God in theory has unlimited power and the ability to do anything he pleases. However, Milton never continues to expand upon God’s powers (is God omniscient or omnipresent?), and the reader struggles deciding whether or not Satan is a credible source.
​
Milton’s decision to keep God’s powers hidden can be interpreted in a number of ways. First, from the perspective of a christian reader in 1674, people might have refused to continue reading, or they might have boycotted the book if its messages suggested a different set of powers/characteristics than they envisioned themselves. By leaving God’s abilities as a blank slate, the reader naturally fills the void with the notions they acquired prior to beginning Paradise Lost. With this mindset, each reader can feel satisfied knowing that God has met their exact standards, since Milton is holding up a mirror to the individual reader’s understanding of God. Simultaneously, the readers will naturally argue and discuss their own perspectives, creating more traction for people to buy and continue discussing Milton’s book. With this strategy, Milton has not turned himself into a successful author, but he has also made himself into the hero that everyone agrees with since they are able to agree with themselves.
Despite the interpretations Milton grants his readers, Milton uses God’s voice to state that humans are “authors to themselves in all both what they judge and what they choose; for so I formed them free, and free they must remain...” (3.124). God explicitly describes man as free, as capable of making their own decisions, and as capable of ordaining their own fall. Even without knowing the true extent of God’s powers, having the confirmation that humans have agency, we are able to justify the ways of God to man. God may have the ability to control any and every human action, but he chooses not to. He steps back and allows humans to act freely and most certainly dangerously. And with this agency that God grants people, man’s independent actions ultimately influence and self-fashion God and the world he has created.
Milton never describes what God looks like, what his characteristics are, or what his true powers may be in detail. However, through looking at God’s relationships, the reader obtains Milton’s original intentions of creating a justification of the ways of God to men, and furthermore, how Paradise Lost influences the greater world around us.
COVER LETTER 2.0
In my rework of my argumentative description, my goal was to link the complex concepts from A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism to Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning into a coherent essay. At first, writing about these concepts together was difficult for me because both books are dense with information. Specifically with Scott, it had been months since I discussed his ideas, and when reading Better Living Through Criticism, I didn't have the prior knowledge of Renaissance Self-Fashioning. However, after looking back through my notes in my two commonplace books, I refreshed my memory on all of the ideas, and my argument for agency seemed to construct itself. Overall, I’m really proud of myself being able to connect all of our ideas together from the past four months into one essay. Moving forward, I hope to continue connecting complex ideas together in the future novels, stories, and argumentative texts that we read as a class.
SCOTT + GREENBLATT 2.0
A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism and Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning both deal with various issues that, from first glance, may seem to cover completely unrelated topics. However, after taking a closer look, it becomes evident that these books share the overarching theme of agency. Agency is not interchangeable with autonomy, specifically the choice in exercising complete power and control. Instead, it is having some power within your actions and decisions.
Scott never directly mentions agency, but when describing the relationships between art, artists, and audiences, agency is demonstrated through the meaning of a piece of art, which is ultimately formed by the artist’s cultural influences. The artist submits to various authorities and opposes various aliens; with these specific influences, the artist becomes inspired to create art and give it meaning. This same concept can be applied from the perspective of the audience. When an audience member interacts with a piece of art, their own authorities and aliens alter their perceptions of the artist, the artist’s intentions, and their interpretation of the piece of art. Since all people have different aliens and authorities, art work commonly creates some discourse and criticism – however, the criticism isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, the criticism ultimately improves everyone’s lives because it allows people to not only express themselves (a form of demonstrating agency), but it also encourages people to branch out from their personal beliefs and interact with foreign ideas, ultimately challenging and growing the minds of everyone around us.
Unlike A.O. Scott, Greenblatt not only mentions the idea of agency, but he dedicates his entire book to prescribing his audience with agency. Specifically, Greenblatt enlightens his audience with his ten governing conditions: a system of guidelines necessary for self fashioning to take place. Within these ten conditions, he introduces the ideas of aliens and authorities, and on a deeper level, the idea of dialecticalism. For something to be dialectical, there needs to be a contradiction, differentiating factors based on individual situations, and a cyclical nature. Alongside the ten conditions, it may seem that gaining agency through self-fashioning is difficult to achieve, but self-fashioning occurs all around us. Greenblatt demonstrates this by catering his message towards numerous audiences. For instance, his ideas give agency to literary scholars, historians, those dedicated to religious studies, social scientists, philosophers, and even curious non-experts. Historians learn to stop viewing history strictly through a linear lense, religious studies scholars can understand how religions can act as both an alien and authority, and philosophers can expand upon their knowledge on how identities form. By writing for a number of audiences, Greenblatt not only shows how common self-fashioning is, but he also demonstrates the dialectical nature of his writing since multiple messages coexist within the same words.
Ultimately, the common theme of agency in both Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism and Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning ultimately guides people to live their lives with a greater purpose. With agency, we can consciously determine which authorities we want to submit to, which aliens we wish to reject, and how to shape our lives without the need of complete autonomy.
COVER LETTER:
In my concept map and persuasive description, my goal was to link the complex concepts from A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism, Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, and Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning into a simple, coherent visual image, backed up with a brief description to provide further explanations. This image shows the basic ideas from each book, how the books individually build on themselves, and also how they connect to each other. Alone, the map or persuasive description may be difficult to follow without the context from the other piece. However, similarly to how Popova writes with images to complement her ideas, I tried to emulate the main themes throughout the three books with a combination between writing and simple visuals. This style, in my personal opinion, is one of the most effective ways to convey complex topics concisely.
Likewise, in Popova’s BrainPickings pieces, she commonly incorporates the themes of curiosity and thinking for yourself. While attempting to emulate Popova’s style in my concept map, I used those same themes to mimic what she might take away from the books and use in a hypothetical BrainPickings piece. To best mimic her artistic style, I incorporated quotes from the books in my persuasive analysis to solidify my arguments pertaining to the main themes. In more extensive works, I am inclined to continue incorporating long quotes, not only to mimic Popova’s writing style, but to also continue building credibility to best support my stance in persuasive discussions.
PERSUASIVE DESCRIPTION:
A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism, Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, and Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning all deal with various issues that, from first glance, may seem to cover completely unrelated topics. However, after taking a closer look, it becomes evident that these books share many common themes; one of the most reoccurring and influential ones is the idea of authority. Berger takes the most direct approach with this theme, as he discusses the role of teachers in public schools compared to private or Montessori schools. In public school, since teachers are limited to teaching strict curriculums, they often have limited time to answer students’ questions, therefore, they commonly refuse to answer questions.
Warren Berger, alongside Tony Wagner from Harvard, explains the environment many American public schools practice in A More Beautiful Question:
​
“Many educators and learning experts contend that our current system of education does not encourage, teach, or in some cases even tolerate questioning. Harvard’s Tony Wagner says, ‘Somehow, we’ve defined the goal of schooling as enabling you to have more ‘right answers’ than the person next to you. And we penalize incorrect answers. And we do this at a pace – especially now, in this highly-focused test-prep universe – where we don’t have time for extraneous questions.”
In this scenario, the teacher has full authority over the students’ ability to ask questions, and thus, the authority has control over individual thought. Likewise, as A.O Scott and Stephen Greenblatt argue, authority in public schools sway the general student body’s taste in art and their ability to choose their own identities. For instance, Scott demonstrates how the government commonly deems certain pieces of art to be “masterpieces.” These works of art are shown to students for generations and convey the messages that they want to the public to think about. Alongside this, Greenblatt would most likely argue that these authoritative chosen masterpieces present messages that unwillingly alter the public’s perception of life, and therefore, they alter our personal identities.
If people with high authority determine how/what everyone should think in regards to art, questioning, and identity, then higher powers ultimately have control over generations of students. However, while this reality exists among the three authors, I believe people are also able to choose their own identities through education if they are taught how to think for themselves. While asking questions and seeking personal interests are commonly dismissed within the general United States public school system, it is encouraged within Montessori schools and a handful of private schools.
Nikhil Goyal, a seventeen-year-old high school student, traveled around the United States to research educational possibilities that differed from his own public school experience.
​
“Some of [the schools’ had no grades, no tests – none of the memorization of facts that dominated his own school experience. Students got to work on interesting projects, sometimes of their own choosing, lasting for months. At Brightworks, ‘the entire curriculum is based around big questions.’ Goyal said he thought one of the best things about these project-based or inquiry-based schools is that they got students to ask introspective questions such as What’s interesting to me? ‘Nobody’s ever asked them that before,’ Goyal said."
​
Expressing curiosity and creativity in school inspires independent thinking throughout a person’s life and allows them to branch out and become more exposed to global perspectives. This exposure, alongside the ability to think for oneself, allows us not only to think for ourselves (as Berger demonstrates), but to also defy A.O Scott and Stephen Greenblatt’s concepts of losing control over our personal tastes and identities.
CONCEPT MAP:
POPOVA: RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
Link: https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/03/27/alan-lightman-searching-for-stars-on-an-island-in-maine/
In the BrainPickings piece titled Alan Lightman on the Longing for Absolutes in a Relative World and What Gives Lasting Meaning to Our Lives, Maria Popova uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to best connect the semi contradictory ideas of science and religion into one cohesive concept. She immediately begins with a quote from Maria Mitchell (a pioneering astronomer) that links the two ideas, then follows up with a more recent quote from Carl Sagan which says “the notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both” (Sagan). She continues with another quote — this time, from “the Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr (Popova). By introducing her topic with three quotes from highly respected scientists, Popova immediately grants her argument credibility among her readers. She also accompanies these quotes with the front cover of Alan Lightman’s book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine. This image allows her to simultaneously acknowledge Alan Lightman: a physicist and writer whose words Popova uses to better present her argument.
​
Popova shifts gears from an ethos heavy introduction into a pathetic appeal through the use of storytelling. Staying true to her typical BrainPickings format, she simply introduces Lightman and his spiritual experience, then allows Lightman to tell his own experience through a small, quoted paragraph. Then, she smoothly transitions from Lightman’s personal story to his explanation of his spiritual experience — this transition is made up of an astronomical drawing (representing a visual for his story) and Lightman’s achievement of becoming “the first professor at MIT to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities” (Popova). This acknowledgment builds the credibility of Lightman’s words, and it further supports Popova’s ability to connect science and religion.
​
Throughout the remainder of her piece, Popova continues to alter back and forth between Lightman’s quotes, mini transitional descriptions, and pictures to provide pleasant visuals. She rarely uses her own voice, but when she does, it’s typically detached and matter of fact. She takes on the narrator role to clearly convey the ideas of her argument. However, despite not using her personal voice often, it’s evident that her writing was well researched and methodically pieced together to connect scientists’ voices into one strong, coherent concept while simultaneously maintaining full control over the conversation.