Maddie James

It’s long been common practice to reinterpret Shakespeare’s plays in performance in multiple ways. Contemporary, anachronistic and futuristic settings in different parts of the world expose or create fresh meanings in the text. Gender, nationality and even species switches do the same. And a new relevance emerges – perhaps worlds and times and philosophies away from what the Bard intended, but valid and challenging in their own right. Can we do the same with Milton?

The near-natural rhythm of the blank verse of Paradise Lost – like much of Shakespeare – lends itself to dramatic reading. Couple with this with some playful textual tampering and you can put a new spin on the text with a class (and maybe on Milton in his grave). Take this extract from early in Book 3:

Now had the almighty mother from above, 

From the pure empyrean where she sits 

High throned above all highth, bent down her eye, 

Her own works and their works at once to view: 

About her all the sanctities of heaven 

Stood thick as stars, and from her sight received 

Beatitude past utterance; on her right 

The radiant image of her glory sat, 

Her onely son; on earth she first beheld 

Our two first parents, yet the onely two 

Of womankind, in the happy garden placed, 

Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love …

Do new insights emerge or is it just a travesty of the original?

God’s gender change is startling, even shocking, and can provoke very different reactions according to each listener’s own gender, age and background. And the fact that these are all legitimate responses and of value can free a class from the limitations of thinking there is only one correct interpretation of the (original) verse – i.e., the teacher’s divine message (preferably in precise Powerpoint bullet points for rapid revision).

My own response is that immediately there is a transformation of the paternal and patriarchal God of the Old Testament and into a more nurturing and sympathetic figure with, perhaps, more emphasis on her works’ visual impact (‘her eye’, ‘to view’, ‘sight’) and beauty (‘thick as stars’, ‘radiant image’, and even an accidental pun inside ‘beatitude’). The nurturing aspects of a Mother Nature figure seem stronger through connotations with ‘earth’, ‘garden’ and ‘fruits of joy and love’. And does the term ‘womankind’ inspire an image of two lesbians or are we sufficiently modern to realise the term might (should?) apply to both (all) sexes?

But that’s just one personal reaction. I hope you disagree with it. The joy comes from the potential abundance and variation of reactions of readers from different backgrounds and of different ages. And there is the freedom for students to criticise and evaluate their own and each other’s responses, safe in the knowledge that there is no ‘right answer’ to uncover, as the starting premise is flawed and not a piece of Milton’s unassailable art.

And, if this approach is a travesty, is that a bad thing? If it encourages students to, innocently and without blame, try out new things; think for themselves; appreciate twenty-first-century thinking is centuries different from seventeenth-century; and, above all, have some fun with ‘holy’ literature, maybe we’re on the way to regaining paradise of a sort in the classroom.

Having fun with Milton should not be anathema: it can remind us that reading literature is a creative act as each makes her/his/their own meaning from the text; it encourages individuality, independence, initiative and probably quite a few other things beginning with ‘I’.

And other games can come from such a start. Like setting students to write their own blank verse,

And realise the sweat and skill built in

To writing ‘Lost’. And, so, respect Milton

As college fellow and a fellow human

To justify the study of books by woman.

Yes, I know those lines are faulty in scansion and plagiarism (or is it homage?). Fine! As teachers, we should be willing to share and show how we learn from our mistakes. But that’s a topic for a hole diffrent article.