Milton’s Homeric Bible

• In Event: Early Modern Christian Readings of the Hebrew Bible I: Milton and the Bible

Abstract

Milton is often considered the ultimate Protestant poet, for whom Scripture is the sole authority. Unlike contemporaries like Bunyan, however, he also invested deeply in Latin and Greek Antiquity, a potential conflict of interests sometimes explained by the label “humanist.” I propose that the conflict was real, and that in Milton’s imagination Hellenic inheritance went deeper and stronger than the Hebraic. In practice if not in theory, Milton selects aspects of Scripture that resemble the titanic achievements of Greek literature, especially Homer. My examples come from autobiographical prose passages and Paradise Lost. Satan expropriates Homeric epic to glorify his own campaign, but I will show the same appropriation on the other side, particularly in Milton’s depiction of the loyal angels and the Father, whose wrath is like that of Achilles.

Author

• James Grantham Turner, University of California, Berkeley