ABSTRACT
Marjorie Hope Nicholson states: ‘Of all the characters in the epic God has been most seriously attacked’. 1 For instance, Harold Bloom wrote that ‘God’s failure as a literary character is the only blemish on an otherwise sublime work’. 2 Others have criticised the inconsistent characterisation of the Father; John Peter calls him ‘a heterogeneous complex of ingredients, part man, part spirit, part attested biblical Presence and part dogma’. 3 Some of the Romantics, in addition to critics such as Sir Walter Raleigh, William Empson, and A. J. A. Waldock, have also stressed numerous negative traits and inconsistencies in what they perceive to be the Father’s overtly tyrannical character. 4 Michael Lieb argues that the God of Paradise Lost is full of ‘hatred’, and as a result, readers are ‘encouraged to . . . hate like God’. 5
John Shawcross, however, asserts that since the twentieth century, critics have begun to think about ‘the subject of God’s Providence’ as opposed to the defects of the Father’s character. 6 The Father is constantly related to our understandings of the divine. For example, when C. S. Lewis writes that ‘those who say they dislike Milton’s God only mean that they dislike God’, 7 it is because Lewis himself believes in God’s ‘eternal providence’ ( PL 1.25). At the other end of the spectrum, Empson argues that Milton’s will to ‘assert’ ( PL 1.25) this providence is proof that the poet himself is ‘struggling to make God appear less wicked’. 8 Such responses indicate a difficulty that many may face in coming to terms with some of the Father’s character traits in the epic. Milton’s belief in the unquestionable perfection of God makes it difficult for readers to take a human interest in the Father’s seemingly less amiable character. This is because the Father’s role often means that he ‘can neither degenerate nor develop but must remain static’. 9 As for the Father’s voice, which is the main way in which Milton dramatises the character, Beverley Sherry notes that the Father’s poetic sound can make him less affable. 10
Dennis Danielson is correct, then, when he stresses that ‘Milton’s God is especially controversial’ because ‘to believe or not believe in this God is such a fundamental thing that one cannot realistically join the conversation created by Paradise Lost and expect one’s belief or unbelief to go unaddressed’. 11
Clearly, both the way the Father is portrayed and the concepts he represents through his voice must be considered if one is to understand how his character is received. Moreover, much like critical opinion about Milton’s theology, a critic’s intellectual and religious orientation can affect significantly his or her perception of the Father. Belief in God is a complex issue, which can be personal, experiential, philosophical, cultural, inherited, or a mixture of these. Accordingly, the combination of these factors, which form one’s belief system about the divine, may affect the reception of the Father in ways that do not necessarily impinge upon the reception of other characters in Paradise Lost .
