Invocation - Paradise Lost - The Uncovered English

Paradise Lost Book - I

John Milton

Invocation - Paradise Lost: Book 1

Invocation or exordium is an essential and the first striking characteristic of an epic poetry established by Homer and followed by Virgil. Homer opens the Iliad by proposing the theme:-

"Of the wrath of Achilles..."

Virgil begins his Aeneid with:-

"Arms and the Man I sing"

In the persuance of this epic convention Milton begins his Paradise Lost with a statement of the subject

"Of Man's first Disobedience..."

But Milton's invocation is not a mere following of the convention but truely necessary thing without the creative spirit will not work. Here Milton has converted a pagan epic convention into Christian ornamental at the same time. This is why Cormican says, "The whole of Paradise Lost must be understood in the light of the exordium and the exordium in the light of the whole poem."

Milton invokes the Muse to help him to write the mighty epic on the fall of man. But unlike Homer or Virgil he does not ask for inspiration from the Muse, the Greek Goddess of Poetry who lived on mount Olympus. Being a Christian poet and Puritan, he does not belive in the classical mythology of Greece and Rome nor has he any faith in the Muses of classical poetry. Hence he decides to invoke the Muse of "Sacred Song," The Heavenly Muse who inspired Moses on Sinai and David on Sion. He also seeks the aid of the 'Holy-Spirit' - the spirit of God. Milton says in his "Christian Doctrine by this spirit he has meant as that impulses or voice of God by which the prophets were inspired.

In the invocation Milton insists upon the sublimity of his subject. He aims at not to the middle air, but to heaven. He will rise higher than Mount Helican and will write poetry upon a higher theme, than that chosen by Homer and any other Greek poet:-

"That no middle flight intends to soar
Abore the ANONIAN Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempt yet in Prose or Rhime"

He calls upon thy Holy Spirit to illumine the dark and elevate the low in him so that he can justify the ways of God to man

Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

The invocation of 26 lines shows that the subject matter is to be derived from the opening chapters of Genesis. The subject matter includes the disobedience of the men in being eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, his fall as a consequence, bringing of death into the world and origin of sorrows from which men has to suffer. However, it is also mentioned

"With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,"

In later invocation Milton gives his Muse a classical name 'URANIA', the goddess of astronomy. Here, however she is called 'Heavenly Muse' and is localised not upon Mount Olympus but on the secret top of OREB, or of SINAI associated here particularly with Moses:

"That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of CHAOS"

A Muse was invoked by a classical poet to help him in the task of writing his poem. Accordingly Milton asks his Muse to lead him higher than the Aonian Mount of the classical poets, because the subject of his epic is higher than theirs. The invocation in Paradise Lost begin as classical invocations but it rises to Christian prayer to the 'Holy Spirit"

There is a steady progression; a rising in the status of the role played by the poet. There is also a progression from the general to the particular, from large elemental terms to specify particular terms. The opening lines give us simple elemental words like 'Man,' 'Tree,' 'Death,' 'World.' Then Milton proceeds to particular individual place names like OREB, SINAI, SION, HILL, ANNONIAN Mount etc. Finally he comes to himself "I Thence invoke Thy aid, instruct me" etc.

The real function of these prayer is to give us the feeling that some great thing is now about to begin. If the poet succeeds in doing that, he will have full control over the reader for the rest of the book. Milton is successful in this prayer in the sense that there is the direct suggestion of deep spiritual preparation at two points : "O spirit who dost prefer and what if one is dark" "The virtue of this" is that it tells our logical faculty to sleep and enables us to accept what we are given without question.

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