If not depraved from good: Narrative Structuring, the Archangel Raphael,

and the Center of Paradise Lost

James E. Osborne

English 533

Milton and the English Bible

Professor John Ulreich

December 7, 2012

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1. Introduction

The 1674 edition of Paradise Lost, published in twelve books, can be divided into

thirds, a neat division that can be seen as a reflection of Miltons use of three parts of his

conception of the cosmos in other words, Heaven, Chaos, and Hell where a majority

of the action of the poem occurs, with only a minor part being assigned to Earth

(Qvarnstrm 11), the Earth being the other component of Miltons cosmos. This division

of the 1674 edition might also be perceived as a subtle take on the apportioning of the

angels in Heaven, two-thirds of whom remained loyal to God and one-third of whom

rebelled. Within this three-part division one might also discover a foreshadowing of the

tripartite nature of the drama of Christs crucifixion: While Christ occupies the central

cross between the two thieves on Golgotha, the Son as victorious conqueror of the

rebellious angels occupies a metaphorically central position in book 6, the second book of

the middle third of the epic. There is also a possible ironic mirroring at work: Satan,

representative of all that is wrong, and associated with darkness and with midnight, has

one-third of the angels, [j]ust as the dragon in Revelation (12: 34) drew down one

third of the stars of heaven (Qvarnstrm 13). The Archangel Raphael, representative of

right, of good and of virtue (Copeland 117) has one-third of Paradise Lost.

Raphaels dramatic narrating voice, which in effect backgrounds Satan for a time,

recounts to Adam the story of the battle for Heaven and the creation of Earth, narratives

that dominate books 5 through 8, the central piece of a tripartite epic.

What could derail this interpretation of the 1674 second edition of Miltons poem

is the fact that the 1667 first edition consists of ten books, a version that Milton changed

to twelve books in what, according to John T. Shawcross, appears to be a case of

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publication consideration to make the poem agree with reader expectation (That

which 223). A number of scholars have pointed out certain narrative and structural

points in the 1667 Paradise Lost that indicate that, in contrast with the second edition, the

first edition does indeed have substructural attributes indicating particular authorial intent

regarding the division of the books. Shawcross notes the symmetry of the narrators

bipartite scheme of position : observation throughout the ten books of the 1667 edition,

as well as the steady progression of time from the first through tenth books (Shawcross,

With Mortal Voice 47-48, emphasis in original). Michael Lieb asserts that: the sixth

book [of the 1667 edition] becomes the matrix for the convergence of past, present, and

future events (69). William B. Hunter, Jr. notes ascended as the central word in the

1667 first edition, a word both preceded and followed by 5,275 lines (32). Hunter also

asserts that the positioning of the word ascended is a metaphor for the resurrection of

Christ from the dead, a precise mathematical localization of a passage which is a

traditional form of Biblical exegesis (32).

These pieces of evidence argue strongly for a structural symmetry and a specific

authorial vision particular to the first version. While such evidence has yet to be found for

the 1674 second edition, the second edition does contain structural symmetries that raise

intriguing possibilities of structure, voice, and character, particularly in the middle four

books, if they are taken as one facet of a tripartite whole. These possibilities include a

change in narrative voice in the middle books from the poet to Raphael that shifts

narrative perspective to Raphael as an arguably unreliable narrator; narrative scaffolding

that locates Raphael as the focal center of the middle books; and a focus on the angel

Abdiel in book 5 within Raphaels narration that foregrounds ambiguity over certainty.

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2. Discussion and Analysis

The structural analysis of the ten-book first edition does offer intriguing

symmetries with certain points in a similar analysis of the twelve-book second edition. As

Shawcross writes, citing Gunnar Qvarnstrm as well as Hunter (With Mortal Voice chap.

5 n.5 181), the exact center of the epic, calculated as to lines, is located in lines 761-62

(43); Milton apparently attempted to keep the center of the twelve-book edition the same,

but could not because of incorrect lineation of the 1667 edition (Hunter 33). Both the ten-

book and the twelve book Paradise Lost, thematically and temporally constructed like

two textual hemispheres [, . . .] are firmly integrated, the whole epic forming a unified

complex of interrelated parts (Qvarnstrm 140). Raphael as narrator occupies a central

positon in the exact middle of both editions; he has been called the civilized centre of

the poem (Sherry 227). Acknowledgement of the centrality of Raphael as narrator of the

midsection of both the first and second editions of Paradise Lost would be an

appropriate place to begin an analysis of his central role in the epic. First, however, a

brief overview of the structure of the epics narrative voices is necessary.

John T. Shawcross calls Paradise Lost an epic with a difference (With Mortal

Voice 90). As Anne Ferry has noted:

The epic is in one sense about the story of its characters, but that story is

always presented to us in the context of the narration. This condition of

epic is especially important for Miltons purposes: his story, because it is

invisible to us, demanded not only a narrator but one endowed with

unique powers of vision to make the impenetrable world of prehistory

known to us. (15)

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Miltons unique powers of vision highlight the dramatic parts of the poem. Roger B.

Rollin states, the fact that the midpoint of the poem has been reached provide[s] an

opportunity for reminding his audience that the narrator-poet and hero is also a mere

mortal, beset by troubled times and troubling enemies . . . (32). An especially moving

example occurs early in book 7, when the poet-narrator expresses his psychological pain,

discomfort caused both because of blindness and because of political persecution (Milton,

PL n. 26-27 477):

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though falln on evil days,

On evil days though falln, and evil tongues,

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,

And solitude; yet not alone, while thou

Visitst my slumbers nightly . . . (7.24-29)

Milton, the poet-narrator, communicates his state of body and mind in stunning vividness

as he invokes the Muse to grant him the fortitude to relate the creation of the world

through the voices of Raphael and Adam.

Ferry, continuing her analysis of Miltons narrative purpose, says that: [i]t is his

[Miltons] voice [. . .] which is the principal device in the poem for expressing its total

meaning (15, emphasis in original). However, Milton has also created other, highly

individual dramatic characters: Satan; Adam; Eve; Raphael; Michael; the Son; and the

Father. They are the seven eyes, [. . . ] each expanding upon by correcting and

improving the vision of the other who inhabit Paradise Lost and, in their own voices,

not only convey a range of emotions, but also are endowed with different extents of

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consciousness expanding outward from Satan and ascending upward toward God

(Wittreich 89). Each of these characters manifests a singular voice that, voiced and

framed by the voice of the poet-narrator, brings different perspectives to the epic which

both broaden its scope and deepen its meaning.

In channeling these other voices, and in maintaining throughout the epic the

singular, sustaining voice of the poet-narrator, Milton utilizes at least two of the three

poetic voices recognized by T.S. Eliot in The Three Voices of Poetry. In his text, Eliot

identifies a first poetic voice, that is: the voice of the poet talking to himself or to

nobody; a second poetic voice, or the voice of the poet addressing an audience, whether

large or small; and the third poetic voice, the voice of the poet when he attempts to

create a dramatic character speaking in verse (6-7). For Eliot, the use of the third poetic

voice allows the poet to communicate not what he would ordinarily say as himself, in

his own person (7) in Paradise Lost, for example, when the poet-narrator, in second

poetic voice, inveighs against his blindness and political persecution (7.26-28) but to

disclose only what he can say within the limits of one imaginary character addressing

another imaginary character (Eliot 7). Raphael, in his role as Adams interlocutor,

embodies the third poetic voice. If the epic is read dramatically and Raphael is not taken

as a mere authorial mouthpiece, the third poetic voice allows Milton to endow the

archangel with the independence expected of a flesh-and-blood literary creation.

Raphaels is a voice that allows for possible narrative ambiguity, as well as authorial

representation.

Ferry identifies a tension between the perception of Paradise Lost when it is read

more as a dramatic poem than as an epic, noting that [w]e have assumed that the

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meaning of the poem was to be found in our response to the characters in it as to figures

in a piece of dramatic literature, whom we judge directly, by the values created in the

language of the drama in relation to the values assumed in the world of the audience

(Ferry 15). The confusion, mild or otherwise, concerning how to read Paradise Lost is at

least partially explained by the fact that Miltons earliest plans for the subject were as

tragedy1. Ferrys identification of the tension involved in reading an epic as if it were a

dramatic piece lies in the interpretive stress implied by a nuanced understanding of the

authorial or implied audience, that hypothetical ideal audience for whom the author

constructs the text and who understands it perfectly (Phelan 215). If the reader-as-

audience judges characters such as Raphael, Adam, and Eve, for example, as Miltons

nearly-independent agents, then that reader understands that Miltons synthetic

constructs (215) act in a separate, imaginary world that Milton has endowed with self-

contained autonomy. An epic, however, must have some sort of narrator who tells the

story, observes the characters, identifies the time, and describes the place (Ferry 14-15).

The fact remains that, although there is evidence that Milton originally conceived

of Paradise Lost as tragedy, its final form, in either ten or twelve books, is as epic. Even

though forearmed with this knowledge, the close reader of Miltons poem may still get

lost in a thicket of irresolution as to what, apart from the imposition of nomenclature, she

is reading an epic conceived as a tragedy, or a tragedy with epic proportions. There is at

least a partial answer, supplied by Allan H. Gilbert: Milton took a play and made it into

a heroic poem by adding half-extraneous material (26). The half-extraneous material

1 Allan H. Gilbert explains this history of the early Paradise Lost at length in On the Composition of

Paradise Lost: A Study of the Ordering and Insertion of Material (1947) (11-26). Pertinent to the

discussion here is his assertion that the epic contains [. . .] a large amount of dialogue, which is so combined with action as to seem suited for drama (21).

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concerning Satan and Raphaels narrative is not part of the primary plot but form[s] a

subplot. [. . .] Their narrators are the chief actors of the poem and they tell their own

adventures (Gilbert 26). Miltons employment of a narrator who draws attention to the

identity of the voice, its relation to the events of the poem and to the experience of its

readers (Ferry 17) keeps the poem firmly anchored in the territory of the epic, albeit an

epic whose dramatic overtones keep the reader engaged in what Gilbert calls something

new (26).

Raphael is the character who, among the seven eyes so christened by Wittreich,

occupies the epics structural center. Employing once again concepts contained in Eliots

notion of the third poetic voice, Raphael epitomizes a character in which the voices of

the author and the character [are] in unison, saying something appropriate to the

character, but something which the author could say for himself also, though the words

may not have quite the same meaning for both (34). According to Mark D. Cyr, Milton

advances Raphael as being directly inspired and directed by God himself (V 224-245).

Thus [. . .] Raphael possesses a higher degree of theological, and hence narrative,

authority, a position which Milton bodies forth dramatically (309-10). Cyrs assertion

would appear to present evidence of Raphaels position as, if not a stand-in for God, then

a stand-in for Milton, so that Milton could use Raphael as a kind of double to assert

theological trains of thought. This is not to say that Raphael is equivalent to a

ventriloquists dummy or a mouthpiece (Eliot either alludes to or uses both of those

terms) but a unitary voice, an unreduced vocalic whole that allows the audience to

understand that Raphael and Milton are uttering the words in unison, though perhaps

with somewhat different meaning (Eliot 34-35). This is one position, and it is a stand

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that Cyr argues for strongly. There is evidence in the epic, however, that when closely

read the poem will demonstrate that, in spite of the Archangel Raphaels apparent

authority, a case can be made that he is, in a number of ways, an unreliable narrator.

Before entertaining the question of whether or not Raphael fills the role of an

unreliable narrator, it is necessary to define that term and also ascertain what kind of

narrative voice Raphael possesses, within the epics framework, on a level perhaps even

deeper and more resonant than third poetic voice. In The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne C.

Booth terms a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms

of the work (which is to say, the implied authors norms), unreliable when he does not

(158-59, emphasis in original). Mere use of difficult irony does not render a narrator

unreliable, nor does the fact that he or she lies (159), although, later in his text, Booth

also avers that many of the works in the unreliable mode depend for their effects on

ironic collusion between the author and his readers (391). Referencing Henry James,

Booth states that the true unreliable narrator must have a quality that James called

inconscience; in other words, the narrator is in error or considers himself to be vested

with characteristics he does not possess (159). Critical to Booths conception of the

unreliable narrator is that [a]ll of them [unreliable narrators] make stronger demands

on the readers powers of inference than do reliable narrators (159). If a narrator is

revealed as unreliable, or untrustworthy, it follows that the total effect of the work he

relays to us is transformed (158). Crucial to the examination of Miltons Raphael is what

the reader may infer from a character that is endowed with such narrative authority that

author and character are, as Eliot asserts, in unison (34). Even if these two voices are in

unison, they are the voices of two distinct characters: one, the poet-narrator Milton,

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narrates the epic but does not take part in it; the other, Raphael, is a narrator embedded

within the primary narrative centrally located, as asserted in the introduction to this

paper and the teller of stories that are themselves embedded in the epics primary

narrative.

Terminology developed by Grard Genette in Narrative Discourse: An Essay on

Method, and expanded upon by Genette in Narrative Discourse Revisited and by Richard

Walsh, will be helpful in categorizing narrative precedence in Paradise Lost. Among

other nomenclature, Genette originated the following terms in narrative discourse:

intradiegetic, or diegetic, both of which concern a narrator who speaks inside a primary

narrative (Genette, Narrative: An Essay 228); and extradiegetic, which refers to a narrator

who is outside the first narrative and, although fictive [. . .] addresses the actual public,

just like Rousseau or Michelet (229) Existing outside the first narrative of Paradise

Lost, the primary narrator Milton, or the poet may be identified as an extradiegetic

narrator and the embedded narrator Raphael, who exists purely within the first narrative

may be identified as an intradiegetic narrator, as are, for example, Adam, Eve, Satan,

and Michael. To deepen further the complexity of the narrative layering, the angel

Abdiel, who speaks within Raphaels narrative, may in turn be characterized as an intra-

intradiegetic narrator (Herman and Vervaeck 83) or as metadiegetic (Genette, Narrative:

An Essay 228); in other words, a character that narrates incident but who is voiced by the

intradiegetic narrator. The extradiegetic narrator may, like Huck Finn, be identified with

a character in a story and be at least as strongly characterized in the telling of [his] tales

as [he is] in the role of protagonist (Walsh 497). In Paradise Lost, the poet-narrator may

even be comparable to a character in a monodrama, a kind of created character, a

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persona for John Milton (Rollin 30). In this sense, the poet-narrator of Paradise Lost

continues in the role of provider of, as Booth describes it, the artificial authority [. . .]

present in most narratives until recent times (4). However, this Miltonic created

character is an extradiegetic narrator who, although he is never an actor in the many

dramas of the epic, is nevertheless a persona with whom the sensitive and perceptive

reader can identify. This engaged extradiegetic narrator introduces his emotions, his

insights, his fears, his rages, even his politics, into each book of the poem. This persona

is someone about whom, as Roger B. Rollin writes, [e]nough information [. . .] is

supplied for [readers] not only to know him and to believe in him as a character, but

ultimately to empathize with him as a hero (30, emphasis in original). It is a reasonable

if arguable point that, given the emotional investment a reader might have in the persona

of the poet-narrator, that emotional investment apart from whatever religious or

political investment that hypothetical reader might also have could translate into

emotional investment in, or even emotional attachment to, a character such as Raphael.

The question here, of course, is not whether the poet-narrator of Paradise Lost is

reliable or not. However, as has been noted, Cyr characterizes Milton as wanting to

portray Raphael as being directly inspired and directed by God (309), which would

tend to invest Raphaels character with an implied narrative authority that could militate

against any charge of unreliability. This narrative authority, Cyr contends, would allow

Raphael to serve as a conduit for the theological magnitude of [Miltons] message and

as a way to bypass the absence of biblical authority for his account by creating his own

internal heavenly authority (310). Cyr goes on to assert that the doctrine of Christs

agency in the creation of [a]ll things (5.837), put forth by the angel Abdiel in his

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confrontation with Satan in book 5, would have been challenged by Miltons

contemporaries (310-11). This assumption, posits Cyr, caused Milton to locate Raphael

as the voice of this doctrine and others and what might otherwise be taken as

supposition or argument is conveyed in Raphaels voice as holy doctrine. Or so, at least,

Milton seems to intend (311, emphasis added). Raphael becomes an intradiegetic

narrative voice that allows Milton to avoid putting controversial words in the mouth of an

extradiegetic narrator whose persona may be construed by Miltons antagonists, or even

by a possibly friendly readership, as a stand-in for the poet himself. However, as

indicated by Cyrs italicized caveat, there is some room for ambiguity, if not unreliability,

in Miltons casting of Raphael as an intradiegetic narrator.

Cyrs interpretation of Milton and Raphael as, to use Eliots phrase, in unison,

stands in apparent contradiction to Rollins conception of the poet-narrator as a separate

persona, a character worthy of the readers empathy as a kind of hero, a hero who, as

Rollin continues, is committed to a quest for Things unattempted yet in Prose or

Rhyme (I, 16) (30). Although he does not appear to concede that there is much, if any,

ambiguity in Miltons epic text, Cyr does allow for some interpretive room when, as

noted above, he writes that Milton seems to intend, rather than intends, that Raphael

play the part of Miltons theological proxy in certain scenes in the poem. Cyrs argument

places Raphael in a very defined role, one that finds antecedent support in the work of

Earl Miner who, in 1983 Cyrs essay was published in 1987 wrote that Milton

composed within a consistent tradition of Protestant English narrative in the seventeenth

century . . . (11). Miner also avers that [r]eliable narrative requires a reliable hearer as

well as relater, and both are assisted by that singular Protestant virtue, faith in grace

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(Miner 11). Miner also writes that: Claims to truth imply possible falsifiability (10),

which leaves open numerous interpretive windows, at least one of which could cast light

upon the arguable unreliability of Raphael as an intradiegetic narrator. Mouthpiece,

proxy, substitute, and stand-in: these expressions might very well characterize the

Archangel Raphael if his character is, in fact, a narrator Milton devised to interpolate

controversial theological doctrine into his epic poem. Raphael might be, after all, more of

an authorial proxy than a character with whom one may identify, and certainly not a

counterpart to the Satan that Rollin describes, the Satan who is not an [e]veryman

although everyone can recognize something of himself in him (15, emphasis in

original); the evidence will tell.

The poet-narrator introduces Raphael in book 5, line 221, with God calling the

archangel to his side after observing Adam and Eve, beheld with pity (5.219-220),

tending to the Garden of Eden in their innocence. Raphael is referred to as the

. . . sociable spirit, that deigned

To travel with Tobias, and secured

His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid. (5.221-23)

This allusion presages Raphaels position as Adams friendly interlocutor, referencing as

it does Raphaels role as the healer who cured Tobits blindness and the angelic

intercessor who found Tobits son, Tobias, a wife (Tob. 3.17); Raphaels role as a

healer may be traced to his name, which in Hebrew means Health of God (Milton,

PL n. 221-23 424). The allusion to the seven-times-wedded maid recalls the condition

of Tobiass prospective wife who, although married multiple times, remained a virgin

because all of her husbands were killed on their wedding night by a jealous and lustful

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spirit that possesses her (Sherry 231); one is reminded of the fact that, at this point in the

epic, Eves sleep has been invaded by Satan (231), causing Raphaels visit to assume

greater importance. Even before Raphael takes the stage, he is not merely presented as a

member of the angelic host, but as one who is possessed of skills appropriate to the role

which God is prepared to give him.

God assigns Raphael his task almost immediately, describing the escape of Satan

from Hell, his presence in Paradise, and how [he] disturbed / This night the human pair,

how he designs / In them at once to ruin all mankind (5.226-28). Raphael should half

this day as friend with friend / Converse with Adam [. . .] and advise him of his happy

state (5.229-34). God emphasizes the freedom that Adam possesses, a freedom that can

secure Adams happiness: Happiness in his power left free to will, / Left to his own free

will, his will though free, / yet mutable (5.235-37). God who is, here, an intradiegetic

narrator within the extradiegetic narrative of the poet stresses Adams freedom of

choice five times in those two lines: in his power; free to will; his own free will;

his will; and free. This rapid juxtaposition of synonymous phrases in Gods

admonition to Raphael regarding Adam and Eve, and succeeding generations of

humankind, correlates with the numerous times the Father uses the same or similar terms

in his conversation with the Son, in book 3, concerning the fallen angels and man (3.80-

134). Indeed, God employs language referring to freedom or free will no fewer than

seven times in those fifty-five lines; the number might certainly be increased to eight, if

one counts the phrase reason also is choice (3.108).

Exposition of Miltons moral investment in free will and freedom of choice is

found in his Christian Doctrine. He provides a brief summary of his thinking in book 1,

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chapter 3: By virtue of his wisdom God decreed the creation of angels and men as

beings gifted with reason and thus with free will (Milton, CD 1157). It is notable that, in

this passage, Milton refers to both men and angels as having been endowed with the same

two rational faculties reason and free will putting both species on a similar plane.

This being the case, both men and angels should each be equally responsible and equally

culpable for their own respective slippages from grace; one significant difference is that:

The first sort [angels] by their own suggestion fell,

Self-tempted, self-depraved: man falls deceived

the other first: man therefore shall find grace,

The other none . . . (3.129-33)

With these words, God is doing more than casting aspersions; he is defining whom to

blame and apportioning the quality and extent of punishment for transgression against his

commands.

Since both men and angels have been endowed with free will, and both are free to

choose their fates, both must be held accountable for turning their backs on God through

disobedience. However, because the fallen angels slipped from grace through self-

deception, convinced by Satan through his dissembling that they should rebel rather than

pay tribute to both the Father and the Son (5.772-802), they will never find grace. Men,

tricked by those who have already fallen, are not exempt from blame or from

punishment; however, because they were duped into choosing, they will have the

opportunity to find grace. Benjamin Myers writes: The gracious providence of God

does not leave human nature in its fallen state, but brings forth good from evil by

triumphing over the power of original sin and liberating the human will from its dark

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enthrallment (Myers 21). At the conclusion of book 10, Adam and Eve yearn for

forgiveness. Adam speaks on his own behalf and on behalf of Eve as well:

What better can we do, than to the place

Repairing where he judged us, prostrate fall

Before him reverent, and there confess

Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears

Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air

Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign

Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek. (10.1086-92)

Myers goes on to say that [t]he fact that Eve and Adam become penitent at all, after all

that has taken place, bears witness to the intervention of the grace of God (22). Such

penitence is not in the hearts of the fallen angels; even if they were penitent, God would

not pay attention to them. It might be safe to say that, just as Abdiel in his zeal turned his

back on the multitude of rebel angels at the close of book 5, God would turn his back on

any fallen angel who begged for forgiveness. This distinction between the possibility of

redemption through grace and eternal damnation is central to determining the difference

in kind between the angels fall and that of Adam and Eve, and the distinctions

significance bears exploration in Raphaels dealings with Adam and with Eve.

Raphaels admonition to Adam may be considered faulty on two grounds, both

arguable but, if the evidence warrants, sufficient to find that, at least to some extent,

Raphael is an unreliable narrator. The first cause for questioning Raphael is the fact that,

although he warns (or advises) Adam, and thus Eve, his partner, of the consequences of

disobedience, he does not tell them the whole truth. That is, he leaves out the fact that

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even though disobedience will prevent mankind from attaining the same ethereal nature

of angels, and . . . at choice / Here or in Heavnly paradises dwell (5.499-500), man has

one method of escaping from eternal damnation that the angels do not have: the

possibility of redemption through grace (3.129-33; Myers 21). There might be, of course,

good reason for Raphael to withhold such information, which he must have known,

having been present when God, speaking to the Son, related both the angelic and human

consequences of their respective Falls (3.130-34). If Adam and Eve knew beforehand that

they could find redemption even though they had sinned, what would prevent them from

willfully sinning and then begging God for forgiveness? Armed with this type of

foreknowledge, Adam, Eve, and their progeny could live in a riot of license, and then go

down on their knees and pray for grace, hoping against hope for Gods mercy. As

illogical and irrational as this might seem, humankind might still make this choice. It

might be that God understood the possibility that man, being free to choose, could make

such an irrational choice because, as Milton himself states, God himself has made man

his own master (CD 1156). Such mastery does not preclude making decisions that would

be detrimental to mans own cause, and God, having created man in his own image

(4.567-68), might desire to avoid such moral confusion.

Is Raphael withholding information from Adam and Eve that could essentially

damage, if not alter, the carrying out of Gods plans? Is Miltons archangel doing this so

subtly that a casual reader would also be tricked? Is the archangel acting as an unreliable

narrator? Cyr states that Miltons readers that is, his contemporary readership would

have regard[ed] Raphael as inherently truthful and divinely knowledgeable (310);

therefore, the idea of Raphaels lying, even to facilitate the proper enactment of Gods

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plan, would not be possible for them to believe. Miltons readers might, as Cyr asserts,

question [. . .] statements coming from a human agency (Cyr 311), but not from a

divine being. An audience of our own day, which does not recognize the significance of

his narrators character and how this affects the narrative (315), and which is used to

interpretive situations where [t]he author and reader are secretly in collusion, behind the

speakers back, agreeing upon the standard by which he is found wanting (Booth 304),

might come to conclusions that contradict those of Miltons contemporaries.

Perhaps a more plausible rationale for Raphaels withholding of information from

Adam and Eve lies in the archangels role as celestial teacher, a topic pursued by Michael

J. Allen in Divine Instruction: Of Education and the Pedagogy of Michael, Raphael, and

the Father (1990). Allen describes Raphael as a skillful pedagogue who explains things

eloquently, draws Adam willingly into discussion, and inflames his love of learning

(114). Here is Milton on the skillful pedagogue, whom Allen paraphrases on page 115 of

his article:

But here the main skill and groundwork will be to temper them such

lectures and explanations, upon every opportunity, as may lead and draw

them in willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learning and the

admiration of virtue, stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men

and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages. (Of Education

974)

A good teacher, therefore, must be more a temperate, guiding master than a mere friend

who comes to impart knowledge. If this is, indeed, part of Raphaels charge, then God

wishes more for the angel than to be a knowledgeable friend (5.229) to Adam.

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However, it is questionable whether Raphael can do this maintain his transitory, hours-

long friendship with Adam and still have tricks in his repertoire.

Allen avers that, notwithstanding Raphaels words and his subtle skills as a

teacher, Adam is not convinced of the magnitude of the danger that he faces (114). Adam

does pay rapt attention to the archangels brief yet event-filled lectures even if, in the

final analysis, Raphael proves a pedagogical failure if judged pragmatically, for Adam

ends up doing exactly what Raphael warns him against (115). At the very least,

however, Adam and his Eve end up truly penitent, which might not have been the case if

Raphael had told them the whole truth about the possibility of redemption. This line of

inquiry may not lead to the conclusion that Raphael is an unreliable narrator; however, he

may be a narrator with a benign trick up his sleeve a trick that, with its undertone of

prevarication, could guarantee Adam and Eves sincerity and true contrition.

The second ground for considering Raphaels admonition to Adam faulty may be

found in a line of inquiry pursued by Peter C. Herman in Whose fault, whose but his

own? : Paradise Lost, Contributory Negligence, and the Problem of Cause (2012).

Herman posits that the collective failure of Miltons angels to perform competently also

contributes to the story of the Fall (60). Herman cites Allens listing of Uriels failure to

penetrate Satans disguise, which thus allows the fallen angel to ascertain where Eden is

located; Herman notes also the misreading by Gabriel and his troop of Satans designs

on Eve: the guardian angels allow Satan to escape from Eden, and then negligently

permit him to return (60). As if permitting Satan to slip the angels successive grasps

were not bad enough, Herman points out that their failures are underscored by the fact

that, when Satan returns to Hell, his children, Sin and Death, recognize him easily, which

Osborne 20

causes Herman to wonder why, if Sin and Death could recognize Satan, why couldnt

Uriel? (60). Citing the failures of these erstwhile protective angels, Herman declares that

the poem provides mixed evidence on how effectively Raphael follows Gods

instructions (61). Herman characterizes Raphaels warning to Adam that he must

remain obedient in order to remain in either the worldly or the heavenly Paradise (5.500-

01) as an oblique hint and one that Adam has to inquire about further in order to get a

more enlightening answer, an answer which does not include any reference to Satans

wicked designs on Adam and Eve (Herman 61). This not only questions Raphaels

position as Adams forthright interlocutor; it also implies a questioning of the archangels

conversing with the first man as friend with friend (5.229). Hermans inquiries into the

questionably efficacious nature of Raphaels conversations also strengthen, even if only

to a small degree, the notion that the angel might have a trick or two up his sleeve;

whether or not those tricks include the withholding of all the pertinent information

concerning human and angelic possibilities for redemption, as well as the somewhat

grudgingly provided information about Satans plot, is an open question. Considering that

a narrators withholding of information might make him unreliable in the sense of

being potentially deceptive (Booth 159), this might be the case. Raphaels potential

deceptiveness begins with Adam but, as Herman goes on to say, it also concerns

Raphaels treatment of Eve (63).

Herman characterizes Raphaels attitude to Eve as indifference (63) and

Herman faults God on this point as well, relying on an interpretation of the development

of the doctrine of negligence in English law (49-55). Whether or not Raphael has a duty

of care regarding Adam and Eve, Raphaels assumption that what he says to Adam,

Osborne 21

Adam will pass along to Eve (64), has serious consequences. For Herman, Raphaels

indifference reveals especially poor judgment [on the part of Raphael] because Eve, not

Adam, has already been the object of Satans machinations (64). It stands to reason that,

if Raphael truly wanted to warn, or at least advise, both Adam and Eve or Eve through

Adam the angel would have made specific reference to Satans already-manifested

designs on Eve. If Raphael was truly duplicitous and there is really no evidence in

Miltons text that he is he would have specifically withheld the information from Adam

in order to ensure that they would eventually fall. Since it cannot be said that Raphael is

acting out of any malice why would he? he is at the very least negligent in his duties

as a teacher. Raphael may be, to the best of his ability, attempting to draw Adam into

what Milton terms willing obedience, inflamed with [. . .] the admiration of virtue (Of

Education 974). Perhaps he is being too oblique for Adam who is, though intelligent,

rational, and curious, possibly not imaginative enough to see through the layers of

Raphaels subtleties, although Adam does catch on fairly quickly when Raphael says that

the only way that Adam will continue to enjoy the paradisiacal life is by remaining

obedient (5.513-18).

However, this does still leave Eve, close by but not part of the conversation,

marginalized and dependent upon Adam to convey the substance of Raphaels words to

her. If Raphael for whatever reason has given Adam only partial information and Eve

was not properly advised, how is blame to be apportioned? Herman suggests that Milton

created a pattern in his narrative in which the assignment of blame may be divided in

such a way that nearly everyone in the poem obviously Satan, but also Adam, Eve, the

angels, and even God is caught in an ever-expanding web of accusation (64-65).

Osborne 22

Isolating Raphael, the angelic pedagogue, within this line of analysis raises the question

of whether he is, in fact, working to draw Adam into willing obedience (Milton, Of

Education 974). If Raphaels mission was to prevent the Fall, then in that respect he

failed to accomplish it, and even helped Adam and Eve in their misadventure, imbuing

his own persona with another level of ambiguity, and of unreliability as narrator, teacher,

and guide.

The angel Abdiel first takes the stage in Paradise Lost as the lone member of the

contingent of Satans rebel angels who dares to question Satans authority. Abdiel enters

the epic in book 5, line 805, immediately after Satans speech to his own contingent of

angels (5.772-802) and, in a flame of zeal (5.806), launches into a tirade against his

mutinous commandant:

O argument blasphemous, false and proud!

Words which no ear ever to hear in Heavn

Expected, least of all from thee, ingrate,

In place thyself so high above thy peers. (5.809-22)

The seraph thus establishes himself as the one voice of loyalty, the one member of

Satans legions to stand up against him, daring to be insubordinate to one who preaches

insubordination. Abdiel is also the loyalist angel who strikes the first blow in battle

against his former commander, a noble stroke (6.189) that sends the rebel leader

reeling backwards ten paces (6.193). Once Abdiel renders the opening blow, and

[a]mazement seized / The rebel Thrones (6.198-99), he ceases to be an active

participant in the epic.

Osborne 23

Abdiels first-person recounting of his stand against Satan is told intra-

intradiegetically; that is, Abdiels voice is filtered, in the style of a story-within-a-story,

within Raphaels recounting to Adam of the prelude to the War in Heaven in book 5, and

of the actual war in book 6. If, as Cyr posits Miltons contemporaries as believing,

Raphael is inherently truthful and divinely knowledgeable (310) and Raphael

essentially speaks for Milton, it may reasonably be assumed that Abdiel, speaking

through Raphael, also speaks for Milton, and also relates certain truths. The possibility

that the angel Abdiel is a kind of ventriloquized Milton sequestered within the persona of

the Archangel Raphael is an intriguing thought, and one that bears further investigation.

Numerous scholars have viewed Abdiel in various ways, and these approaches

have provided Abdiel with significantly different guises. George W. Whiting sees Abdiel

as a prophet, specifically as a version of the minor prophet Abdias, whose character

Milton adopted [. . .] adapt[ing] the name of Abdias and his prophecy against Edom,

altering both to suit his purpose (215). Whiting views the opening salvo of Abdiels

final words to the assembled rebels, shortly before he turns his back on them, as a

correlative to Abdiass prophecy concerning Edom, a vision of the inevitable ruin of

Satan and his rebellious crew (214). Whiting quotes extensively from Abdiels prophetic

tirade on page 214 of his essay, which begins:

O alienate from God, O spirit accursed,

Forsaken of all good; I see thy fall

Determined, and thy hapless crew involved

In this perfidious fraud, contagion spread

Both of thy crime and punishment . . . (5.877-81)

Osborne 24

In Whitings reading of Abdiel and his embedded prophecy, he equates Satan with Edom,

and sees Edoms pride as Satans pride, compar[ing] Edoms rocky fastnesses with

Satans lofty seatbearing in mind always that both Edom and Satan are arch enemies of

God (220). Abdiel the warrior angel takes on the role of prophet, anchoring himself in

the world of prediction, cursing Satan with a punishment that is well-deserved for the

rebel angels pride, and for his disobedience (5.888).

The reader of Miltons epic should remember Abdiels zeal, which Milton

(through Raphael) mentions four times during the seraphs initial confrontation with

Satan, and also consider that Abdiels name means servant of God (Whiting 214) and

that Abdias is the Greek form of the Hebrew Obhadhyah or Obadiah (the usual form in

the title of the prophecy) [and] means the servant or worshiper of Yaweh (215, emphasis

in original). Christian zeal is theologically important for the Puritans, and for Milton,

preferable to both the other extreme [lukewarmness] and the mean (Kranidas 423;

426). It is curious that zeal could also be the fire that burns in the belly of Satan, and that

he is zealous in a contrarian way, against God, against the decree that sets both God and

the Son over the angels: . . . prostration vile / Too much to one, but double how endured,

/ To one and to his image now proclaimed? (5.782-84). Satan is extremely zealous in his

own cause, ready to wage war for injured pride. His actions are a reminder that zeal, or

zealotry, is a trait that cuts both ways; in a manner of speaking, when Abdiel confronts

Satan, he is confronting not his opposite, but a distorted mirror image of himself.

Abdiel story may also be seen as a significant element in Raphaels pedagogical

relationship with Adam, a point that is alluded to by Mason Tung (596), evidence for

which can be found in Of Education, wherein Milton encourages teachers to instill in

Osborne 25

their students the admiration of virtue, stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave

men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages (Of Education 974). As an

example for Adams education, it is not so much Abdiels bellicosity and willingness to

confront Satan that would be emphasized in a pedagogical context; rather, emphasis

would be given to Abdiels patriotism and loyalty, traits necessarily called upon in war,

but also important to proper everyday living. Viewed as mere loyalty, Abdiels zeal could

even be portrayed as something akin to stubbornness, or blind adherence to the powers-

that-be (God and now the Son), as opposed to zealous opposition to the rebellious angels,

no matter the merit of their rebellion, or the righteousness (or lack of same) in their

leader. Such a diminished form of zeal might, in fact, be very useful on the part of a foot

soldier rather than a leader, and also quite appropriate in the case of Adam, whose charge

is, after all, to remain obedient, docilely accepting things as they are in order to

maintain the paradisiacal status quo.

Tung pursues the idea that Abdiel represents a paradigm of the one just man,

that is, the man with the ability to refrain from succumbing to evil, in full cognizance of

the true nature of evil even under great duress or against great odds (607). As additional

examples, Tung provides Samson, who stood fast in his solitary resistance against the

Philistines and even against his own people; and Jesus, in his stalwart opposition to Satan

in Paradise Regained (607). Tung also references Abraham, labeled just by Adam

(12.273) and the one just man Noah (607), whom Adam acclaims, in a passage from

book 11, which is quoted by Tung on page 607:

Far less I now lament for one whole world

Of wicked sons destroyed, than I rejoice

Osborne 26

For one man found so perfect and so just. (11.874-76)

Tung goes on to say that Abdiel endure[s] a great deal of suffering from scorn and

persecution as a result of his contesting Satan and his troops (607), although one could

question the extent of Abdiels true suffering. The ostentatiously righteous seraph not

only turns his back on the enemy multitudes (5.906), but does so with an almost

unbelievable stolidity, remaining unmoved, / Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified (5.898-

99) against the raging insurgent third of the heavenly host.

Not only does Abdiels apparent indifference to Satans legions indicate a lack of

fear, it might also point to the possibility that the seraph does not even believe he has a

reason to fear. At this point, before the actual War in Heaven, angels are not aware that

they can be hurt Satan himself first knew pain (6.327) when he was horribly wounded

by Michael on the first day of the war let alone die, which angels soon find that they

cannot (6.434). Again, Abdiels indifference might just point to his rigidity and

stubbornness, his willingness to take risks when the consequences, though dramatic,

might not be that dire, rather than indicate a sense of justice, or of zeal.

Elie Wiesel, in a story contained in his Holocaust memoir One Generation After

(1970), provides what may be a more powerful example of the just man, one who acts

according to what he knows is right even when the odds are truly hopeless. This nameless

just man enters Sodom with the intention to save its inhabitants from sin and

punishment and he utterly fails; a child then asks him why he continues on (72). The

man replies: Ill tell you why. In the beginning, I thought I could change man. Today, I

know I cannot. If I still shout today, if I still scream, it is to prevent man from ultimately

changing me (72). Wiesels just man continues to scream, to rage against injustice,

Osborne 27

even though he knows it is hopeless, and in doing that clings to what he knows is right,

bracing himself against any efforts to change him; he stands, and walks, alone. The angel

Abdiel, although manifesting a certain amount of courage, or at least nerve, manages with

relative ease to desert Satans mutinous troops, join the loyal angels, and fight on

surrounded and aided by his comrades. The true just man, in Wiesels view, fights on

not only knowing that the odds against him are infinitely bad, but that he is doomed.

There is no ambiguity in what Wiesels just man chooses to do. Does Abdiel resist the

rebel angels knowing that the odds are hopeless, or does he resist with at least a small

understanding that what he is doing will not have any dire consequences? That is where

the ambiguity lies.

3. Conclusion

In Paradise Lost, the complexity of Miltons creative process is evident in an

analysis of the epics structure, its characters, and the levels of doubt created in a close

reading of the text. The architecture of the ten-book 1667 edition is a repository of

recondite clues, and Biblical and historical arcana, that enrich the poem and serve to

deepen its mysteries. The poems center, its narrative core, in both the 1667 and 1674

editions are the books in which Milton foregrounds the Archangel Raphael, his visit to

Adam and Eve, his relation of the War in Heaven and of creation, and his admonition to

Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. In the 1674 edition this core narrative is

contained in books 5 through 8, pivotal texts-within-the-text that anticipate in their drama

the action of the Fall and the first parents expulsion from Eden, which Milton relates

through Raphaels intradiegetic narrative, a narrative whose nuances reveal intellectually

intriguing possibilities concerning Raphaels narrative reliability.

Osborne 28

Within Raphaels intradiegetic narrative Milton has placed the angel Abdiels

intra-intradiegetic narrative of his desertion of Satan and his rebel multitudes. Abdiels

arguably zealous confrontation with Satan, his lonely but steadfast walk away from the

mutinous legions, and his duel with Satan himself, raise questions of intent and of

consequences, known and unknown, that foreground ambiguity over certainty and raise

questions about Miltons intentions concerning that stalwart seraph which, in their turn,

reflect the questions raised previously concerning the Archangel Raphael. The

conclusions reached in this paper only serve to reveal ever more layers of doubt

concerning the poem and the characters within it. Indeed, if uncertainty is the beginning

of wisdom (Ulreich 31 Oct. 2012), then the uncertainties contained in the narratives of

Raphael and Abdiel will serve as starting points for deeper investigations of their

personae and how they relate to the text as a whole. This is but the beginning of the

journey.

Osborne 29

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