Readers’ Questions:
1.How does Milton present natural curiosity about things above human reason, such as the story of creation or the structure of the universe? What warnings and counsel does he sem to offer? how does this view of curiosity and the bounds of knowledge relate to his own stated project?
2. What is Milton’s anthropology ( theory of human nature)? How does he seem to define the “imago dei”?
3. How do man and woman relate, for Milton? Is woman fully in the image of God, or not?
4. At the end of Bbok 8 there is a serious warning about the nature of man and the possibility of sin. How does this frame the rest of the epic ( which we already know, as readers of Scripture, will tell the story of the Fall) How does this warning relate to Milton’s purpose of “justifying the ways of God to man”?
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TEXT
Book VII, lines 216 – 231 (Christ creates the world)
Silence, ye troubled waves, and thous deep, peace:
Said then th’omnific Word: your discord end
Nor stayed, but on the wings of chrubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos and the world unborn
For Chaos heard His voice. All his train
Followed in bright procession to behold
Creation and the wonders of his might
Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses prepar’d
In God’s eternal stroe, to circumscribe
This universe and all created things
Book VIII, lines 491-499 ( Adam sees Eve for the first time)
This turn hath made amends; thou hast fulfill’d
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign
Giver of all things fair, but fairest this
Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself
Before me; Woman is her name, of man
Extracted: for this cause he shall forego
Father and mother, to his wife adhere;
And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul.