Why Keach is better than Milton

[Enjoying how scandalized I am by my own title]

I've had a roller-coaster relationship with Paradise Lost, going from intimidation to love to uneasiness (if you want to talk about the "living" quality of the Great Books, there you go). With Spenser done, my Renaissance class is going through Milton, and this fourth encounter with the poem has confirmed the wariness of my last experience by highlighting all the theological shenanigans taking place. I have two factors to thank for this: the astute insight of my professor and the inevitable comparisons that arise in my ongoing work with Keach's counterpart, The Glorious Lover.

What has struck me most forcefully in recent days is the parallelism between the two poems' depiction of the Divine Council (PL III and GL I.1) between the Father and the Son concerning the salvation of humanity. Both poets choose to depict the members of the Godhead as actual characters, which I find to be a daring move. This is perhaps less so with Milton, who is known for being...adventurous...in his theology, maintaining several pet heterodoxies (Arianism and Arminianism, to name a few); Keach, however, was a card-carrying Calvinist, and one of the tenets of Reformed theology in the seventeenth century was its rejection of (usually visual) representations of God, on the grounds of the second commandment. For context, when Keach's contemporary, Bunyan, desires a divine presence in his work, he restricts himself to personifying functions of God, i.e. the Interpreter, who represents the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man. So for Keach to follow Milton by including God Himself in the pages of his fictional - albeit allegorically didactic - poem is without any precedent that I am aware of in such theologically-conservative circles.

However, this is where the similarities between the two poems come to an end. I'll admit, the first time I read Paradise Lost, I fell in love with the passage where the Son volunteers to redeem mankind; Milton is clearly showcasing his skill for conjuring pathos from his readers. Despite the moment's artistic heights, a close reading of the scene presents several issues. [This would probably be better if I included the two texts side-by-side, but as I have neither the technical skills nor the space for such a thing, any curious reader will have to find them for him/herself.]

• Pervasive within Milton's text is a rejection of the doctrine of Predestination, which, while it comes as no surprise, raises a great number of questions concerning the logic of Milton's depiction of God (as demonstrated by the general angst of my classmates this morning): How does His simple foreknowledge of the events to come "absolve" Him from claims that He violates the will of mankind or the inevitability of the Fall? Milton falls into the trap of equating untouched human will with legitimate freedom.
• His explanation for God's motive for showing mercy to mankind is bizarre. The fallen angels will remain in their doomed state because they knowingly brought this on themselves. Man, however, because he was deceived by Satan, remains eligible for grace from God. Milton undermines both mankind's responsibility for the Fall and also the orthodox understanding of mercy as something utterly undeserved.
• Perhaps the most glaring departure from the biblical framework, Milton's council includes the entire angelic population of Heaven; they too are given the opportunity to redeem mankind, but none of them are willing to take the challenge (thus the famous "all the heavenly choir stood mute,/And silence was in heaven" ll. 217-218). Angels were never qualified to be mediators between God and man; redemption could only be accomplished by a representative of both parties. Furthermore, this open-ended offer turns the plan of redemption into a reactionary decision on God's part: Satan has caused a problem that God now has to fix.

So much for Milton. This is getting long, and other homework awaits, so Keach will have to wait another day.