Paradise Lost quotes

"I must now change those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach disloyal on the part of man."

Line 5 - 7 : Milton quote, saying that the last 8 books have been a build up to now.

It is becoming much more human and therefore he sees it as more important.

sing heavenly muse

-Poem’s opening

-he deliberately recalls classical epic

-he claims to be an intermediary between the divine and men

-IN BOOK 9 he refers to the muse (‘celestial patroness’) but does not envoke her, signalling a more sombre mode

Milton’s goal

to ‘justify the ways of God to men’

Influence of epic

-Epic is characterised by Aristotle as a long narrative poem where noble men do noble things

-Renaissance poets were situating themselves within the great trad of epic poetry

-boldly rejects military and imperial models- takes his own spiritual thinking where the text is a channel of exploration

-Each generation of epic seeks to transform and subsume the last.

>The Aeneid absorbed the liad and the Odyssey and aspired to go beyond them both. It also offered a new form of heroism, centred on future and empire, while the old centred on war and violence.

>Milton encapsulates classical epic while trying to outdo it. Many qualities of the ancient heroes are given to Satan, who seeks 'empire enlarg'd'.

>rallies men, has a hamartia

"Not less but more heroic than the wrath of stern Achilles..."

• comparing to other epics but saying his is more heroic as it shows more human qualities.
  

• Milton redefines heroism—not as military might (Achilles or Turnus), but as moral and spiritual endurance.

• This shift can be compared to the Duchess, who resists tyranny not with arms but with dignity.

  >Her quiet resolve and Christian martyrdom make her, like Adam and Eve (especially postlapsarian), a new model of the tragic hero.

  >defies the expectations of female passivity by asserting agency in love and death.

Martin Evans >’Milton promises to revolutionise our idea of heroic action’

How many days does Satan circle the earth?

Line 63-64 : Narrator about Satan - showing his determination and focus to achieve what he wants.

-He circles for seven days and enters on the ‘eighth’ mirroring God’s creation of the universe

"The serpent subtlest beast of all the field."

“in whose mazy folds

To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.

O foul descent!”

Line 86 : Satan choosing to become a serpent. Sibilance used to link to the sinister personality of Satan and the snake.

>Satan’s lament that he has been reduced to a beast reflects his awareness of his moral and spiritual degradation.

>Despite his ambition, he becomes something base and animalistic.

• Deception and disguise our key themes in Malfi- Satan’s shifting appearance reflects this

>much like the hypocrisy in The Duchess of Malfi. The Cardinal, a supposed man of faith, is the most corrupt.

• Chooses the snake as a disguise because it is subtle and the snake is wily and thus wont be questioned as Satan

• Focusing on Satan brings a sense of the Fall’s ominous inevitability before returning to Adam and Eve (parallels Malfi where the duchess’ intro is built up and the social world to present the appalling consequences of bad leadership, postlapsarian world v a world about to fall to contextualise the poor decision making)

• We too lose ourselves in the maze of his arguments

• Openly resents his fall (uses language of height) 

• The word incarnate is associated with higher beings- blasphemous! And reminds us of a perverse incarnation- ‘prelude to the fall parodies the first stage of redemption’ Evans

• The way Satan embodies animals and Bosola is compared to them

• Webster reflects this degeneration in Ferdinand’s lycanthropia—he believes himself to be a wolf.

  >Though his is less literal with his wolf within him- a split between his private self and public role as punisher

  >It is a literal and metaphorical descent into beastliness, echoing Satan’s transformation. Both characters are ruined by ambition, envy, and unnatural desire.

"Fearless"

"Mediated fraud and malice, bent on man's destruction"

"cautious of day"

"stealth"

"bursting passion"

Quotes to initially describe Satan - (5) - can show first reader impressions and can be linked to characters in the Duchess of Malfi

-’fearless’ is immediately contrasted by his actions, fleeing Eden at night

O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred

More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built                                  

With second thoughts, reforming what was old!

• Implies earth must be logically better than heaven (first pancake theory)

• Can be seen through (his arguments are persuasively structured but flawed) as earth isn’t made for God

• Sense of yearning for what he’s lost and pettiness clear in his assumption this rivals that which he has lost

  >marveling at it as a “terrestrial Heaven,” suggesting divine perfection and order is quickly curdles into bitter envy.

  >His inability to enjoy Earth’s pleasures becomes a source of inner torment.

• Ferdinand also struggles with an obsessive, paradoxical desire—he’s simultaneously fascinated by and disgusted with his sister’s sensuality and autonomy.

  >The Duchess, like Earth here, is beautiful and “productive” (literally, in bearing children), but for Ferdinand, this is unbearable.

  >His fixation mirrors Satan’s twisted relationship with Paradise—wanting to possess or destroy what he cannot control.

"but I in none of these find place or refuge; and the more I see pleasures about me, so much more I feel torment within me."

Quote from Satan about the beauty of Earth and how he doesn't fit in. Shows that he too has pain and feelings and perhaps helps the reader to sympathise with his character.

• Hell is his own mind, cant appreciate the beauty of nature

  > In fact, beauty intensifies his inner suffering (reminding him of what he cant access)

  >His torment is psychological and existential—he is alienated from all good.

• meloncholy echo of hell, describes it as “fens, bogs, dens and shades of death”

• Ferdinand’s own mind is hell, cant escape his desire for his sister

  >After orchestrating the Duchess’s death, he is not satisfied but instead plagued by a diseased conscience.

  >Like Satan, Ferdinand cannot enjoy what he has destroyed. The good he perverts (the Duchess’s love and fertility) becomes a source of self-torment.

"For in destroying I find ease to my relentless thoughts."

Quote from Satan to show that his only solace comes from destroying that which denied him. Satan's point of view can show injustice from God - he is turning his pain into revenge.

>Satan takes comfort in the idea that if he cannot enjoy Paradise, neither shall Adam and Eve: destruction as solace.

• Loses his heroic status in his desire to bring everyone down to his state (Ferdinand is the same)

• Ultimate hubris

• His sense of power comes not from creation but from corruption.

>perverse god

• Ferdinand’s cruelty, particularly in the psychological torture of the Duchess (e.g., the waxwork “dead” bodies), is driven by a similar urge to find ease in destruction.

  >His actions are not merely punitive—they are revelatory of inner torment and perverse desire.

  >destroys himself in the process, and in death he appears to finally accept his darkest qualities

• Auden‘the religious passion in reverse’, shares Christs desire for self destruction but wishes to corrupt all othersa

But what will not ambition and revenge

Descend to? 

• Bosola similarly aspires to climb the hierarchy and is willing to use any methods (the duchess also when faking a pilgrimage)

• These characters who do awful things to better themselves criticises the concept of hierarchal degree whilst instating it by saying those born in these positions cannot climb (do they act in this way as they are forced to or because they only can)

• Milton says preordained hierarchy are unproblematic, God is up there but any imposed human authority must be questioned

-This rhetorical question crystallizes one of Paradise Lost's main moral points: ambition and revenge degrade the soul.

>The higher one aspires through wrongful means, the lower one eventually falls.

-This resonates with Antonio’s warning in The Duchess of Malfi:

“Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness.” (Act 1, Scene 1)
And again, Ferdinand is the clearest embodiment: his ambition to control the Duchess leads to moral insanity and self-destruction. His revenge, rather than satisfying him, completes his ruin.

"Revenge, at first though sweet, bitter ere long back on itself recoils Let it; i reck not."

Quote about revenge and it's long term downfall. Can be linked to the Duchess of Malfi in terms of how the revenge of each character results in pain or death.

• Recognises that revenge is followed by punishment

• his monosyllabic response reveals his perverse willingness to act regardless- it is worth it to him because of who he is talking

• His pettiness is unheroic, though fairly human

• Auden‘the religious passion in reverse’, shares Christs desire for self destruction but wishes to corrupt all othersa

‘He, to be avenged,

And to repair his numbers thus impaired’

‘More Angels to create, if they at least

Are his created, or, to spite us more’

‘A creature formed of earth, and him endow,

Exalted from so base original,                                          150

With heavenly spoils, our spoils’

• Characterises God as spiteful claiming he’s made humans for revenge (humans are worse- made from earth- not very good- and get everything taken from angels) and to strengthen his numbers post the loss of Angels (maybe he cant make them anymore)

• Referring to ‘numbers’ suggests he is thinking militaristically 

• Diacope suggests his resentment at what they’ve gained using ‘spoils’- militaristic language, and ironically prophétises the incarnation of JC (who is exalted from human spoils) and envoies Snakes skin, foreshadowing how he will be debased and man exalted

’yielded with coy submission, modest pride’ Eve

-pride suggests power in fulfilling her duty

-‘modest pride’ oxymoron, could reveal 

>seed of sin within her, even in the prelapsarian context shes clearly susceptible 

-‘coy’ aware of how her submissiveness is viewed

-Sense that she is virtuous but has a problematicalluy strong self perception

>Eve is still unfallen, and her femininity is portrayed as naturalized within hierarchy, not yet corrupted.

-sign of her potential pride or vanity that may lead to temptation

-alarming self sufficiency which is shockingly absent in Adam

-‘methought less fair’, he doesn’t quite compare to her and her eyes

-came to realise the beauty she was drawn to is less significant than his virtue- “i yielded, and from time see//how beauty is excelled by manly grace”

-**Webster’s Duchess** actively chooses to marry Antonio, her social inferior, secretly and against the will of her brothers.

- She reverses traditional gender roles by proposing marriage herself:

>Her desire is framed as assertive, autonomous, and transgressive, especially within the Jacobean tragedy's moral and religious landscape.

>Eve submits willingly to the gender hierarchy where The Duchess defies patriarchal authority to pursue her desires |

’not equal, as their sex not equal seemed;//for contemplation he and colour formed,//for softness she and sweet attractive grace,//He for God only, she for God in him’

-clearly different purposes

>Adam is made for contemplation and action (valour)—linked to rationality and public life.

>Eve is made for softness and grace—linked to beauty, emotional influence, and domesticity.

-thinking rationality (said to have a big forehead indicating intelligence), associated with Adam, softeness with Eve

-The Duchess acts independently, remarrying without her brothers’ permission, asserting autonomy in love and desire

• the Duchess claims spiritual and moral agency herself

  “I am Duchess of Malfi still.”
  Even as she faces death, she asserts her sovereign identity, separate from male authority.

• Webster complicates the idea of feminine virtue by showing how the Duchess’s beauty and sexuality are both celebrated and punished by the male characters

  >anxieties surrounding female autonomy and sexuality are influenced by the fall

‘Her adorned golden tresses wore//dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved// as the vines’

-image suggests they are unbowned- no issue in a prelapsarian world, but signals that her fall is associated with sensuality

-loose hair is an image consistently associated with sexuality

-linked to nature and wilderness

-MALFI LINK She notes that she has sexuality and isn’t a ‘figure of alabaster’, but her brothers suggestion that she is a harlot- sense of female rebellion being linked to their sexuality (‘flesh and blood’)

‘so hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair’

-POST FALL

-Sense of them connected not only to each other but the world around them

-presented as being a pair 

-uxoriousness suggests that you privalege love for your wife over God- as a rational superior being why allow your rationality to go to waste, being influenced by desire for wife instead of being ruled by her

‘the lion ramped, and in his paw// dangled the kid’

-notion of a flat animal kingdom without hierarchy

-there is such a thing as a hierarchy but in Eden it is productive and all is in its place (great chain of being), the issue is when the natural predation is broken down

-CONSIDER MILTON THE ULTIMATE LAPSARIAN WRITER focusing on succubus images

‘Let us divide our labours’

-Eve

-Does she want distance? Is it simply for practicality as she claims? why is she trying to use reason? shes a woman!

 “to short absence i could yield” "The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, safest and seemliest by her husband stays, who guards her."

-Adam is conscious of the danger of being separated

-‘yield’ foreshadows that he in the fall will yield to her- but this language is supposed to be saved for Eve, she should submit to him

-he is powerful in his capacity to see multiple perspectives, understanding Eve and the wider context of the devil- quality of his reason that he can weigh up situations

-considers Satan as having multiple motives ‘whether his first design be to withdraw// our fealty from God, or to disturb//Conjugal love’

-doesn’t fall because he’s tempted but because he chooses his wife

-masculine rigidity is absent

-Quote to say a woman's place is with her husband. Sexist - a man is the woman's protector.

-Like Eve, the Duchess refuses to be “guarded”. She says:

“If all my royal kindred / Lay in my way unto this marriage, / I’d make them my low foot-steps.” (1.1)

"I dissuade thy absence from my sight, but to avoid th' attempt itself, intended by our Foe."

-Underlying tones that Adam does not trust Eve to be by herself, or is rightfully suspicious of Satan

> In a way it can be argued that this is romanticising the possession of a man over a woman

"Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce angels, nor think superfluous of others' aid."

-it is not Adam's lack of trust of Eve that makes him want to stay together but rather the idea that it is Satan's strength he fears.

>Since Adam believes he will be the first target, perhaps it is more self-doubt. He portrays it in a way of protecting the woman because it would be frowned upon for a man to show his emotions.

-points to a hubris in Eve that she doesnt consider that angels were persuaded by Satan and yet she believes she may resist

-In The Duchess of Malfi, the brothers hide behind roles and spies, such as Bosola’s false identity, to manipulate and destroy.

>evil is often masked behind persuasive rhetoric and respectable fronts.

"Go in thy native innocence, rely on what thou hast of virtue, summon all, For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine."

Quote to show Adam giving in to Eve's wishes to separate in the garden.

-Adam’s words stress individual duty: Eve must “summon all” of her virtue, a call to self-reliance in moral trial.

>The Duchess famously declares,

“I am Duchess of Malfi still” (Act 4, Scene 2)
in a similarly defiant act of moral self-definition before her death. She too summons inner strength and maintains dignity amid adversity.

Contrast: Milton emphasizes a pre-fall ideal of virtue under God’s order; Webster shows a post-fall worldwhere virtue often leads to destruction

>in both, female characters are expected to rise to the demands of a flawed or hostile world.

-Both women are framed as exercising choice under the watchful pressure of an implicitly male authority figure (Adam / Ferdinand).

>D defies her male authority, marrying in secret

>Eve is punished by a divine framework, D is punished by a manmade one (open to corruption and error)

"Touched only, that our trial, when least sought, may find us both far less prepared, the willinger I go, nor much expect a foe so proud will first the weaker seek."

Quote from Eve - saying that she would rather go out knowing that she will be put on trial

>can link to the Duchess in terms of stubbornness and independence.

-doesn’t see that because they cant sin or die she is more vulnerable to Satan- have no strong concept of it and are less deterred, are they able to protect themselves without access to knowledge?

-doesnt see any flaws in the image of her own robustness- parts ways with Milton’s critical view on the importance of testing virtue as she overestimates her capacity

"O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve, of thy presumed return! event perverse!"

Quote where narrator steps in to build up tension after Eve leaves to separate the workload.

• He emphasises her a victim of poor thinking and her womanly mental weakness

• Positions her as misfortunate

• Sense of helplessness, we are led to lament

• Homeric address

“Soft she withdrew, and, like a wood-nymph light [...] goddess-like deport"

-This simile idealises Eve’s beauty and grace, likening her to classical nymphs and goddesses,

>suggesting both purity and a touch of seductive autonomy.

>Milton sets her apart as a natural and divine presence.

>Her “withdrawing” from Adam, however, foreshadows her vulnerability—separation from her “prop” makes her susceptible to corruption.

-Like Eve, the Duchess is idealised and associated with nature and purity but she disrupts and denies her position as paragon

(e.g., “this goodly roof of yours is too low built; I cannot stand upright in’t nor discourse, without I raise it higher”).

>Yet her assertion of independence (choosing to marry Antonio) leads to tragic vulnerability—Eve and the Duchess both suffer for separating from patriarchal authority or divine/natural order.

"Found'st either sweet repast, or sound repose; such ambush hid among sweet flow'rs and shades" ‘hellish rancour immenant’

Quote by narrator - talking about Satan waiting for Eve -> sibilance and juxtaposition used to contrast Eve and Satan.

• Bicolon suggests prelapsarian harmony- the elegant Sibilance is cut through by Satan

• The sense if a plan plays on Eve’s utter ignorance and contributes to the predatory semantic field (in which Eve is implicitly victimised)

• Hell follows satan

‘Eve separate he spies,

Veil’d in a cloud of fragrance where she stood

half-spied, so thick the roses bushing round

about her glowd’

• Links to how Satan entered Eden in a mist

• She functions as a beautiful counterpart (Gilbert ‘his double’)

• Foreshadows her being consumed by sin and Satan

• Didn’t expect to find her alone- Eve played into his desire, they are aligned, Adam was right

• Her beauty is disorientating

• Images of concealment

>she is both seen and veiled, half-hidden by the “roses bushing round.” This implies a tension between modesty and erotic allure.

• Eve’s flaws are concealed partially in Adam’s eyes due to his uxuiousness

• DOM often falls into voyeuristic images surrounding the Duchess

• The idealised beauty is critiqued within the narrative

’oft stooping to support

each flower of tender stalk whose head 

[…]hung drooping unsustain’d’

• Analogy for Eve, though beautiful she requires Adam to support her or else she will collapse into sin

• Adam is her ‘best prop’

• The Duchess also chooses to act alone—“If all my royal kindred / Lay in my way unto this marriage, / I'd make them my low foot-steps”.

  >Her agency is admirable, but it leads her into the “storm” of her brothers’ vengeance. Both characters are punished for acting independently in a patriarchal world.

flowers aren’t as big in MALFI as they dont rot and isn’t an effective image

"Her graceful innocence’' ‘overawed his malice’ ‘abstracted stood from his own evil, and for the time remained stupidly good’

Quote about Eve's beauty and the way Satan almost gives up on his plan due to her innocence. she is the epitome of feminine beauty (literally). Perhaps links to Bosola and the Duchess.

• Satan is so transported by her beauty that he almost forgets evil

• She has a unique allure- plays into logical fallacy of novelty

• He is stupified- he is nothing if not evil

• The Duchesses innocence in death leads to Ferdinand’s anagnorosis, he is distanced from his malice and perversion and cannot conceive of, or accept, his motives

  >Like Satan, he can’t separate his fascination from his destructive intent. His line “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle: she died young” suggests a complex, unresolved emotional conflict.

" for the time remained stupidly good... but the hot hell that always in him burns...soon ended his delight."

Quote to show how Satan's jealousy quickly brings him back to his original plan of destruction after being entranced by Eve's beauty.

• Psychological state

• MALFI Ferd comparison (more visceral v poetic)

• Ultimately seeing beauty causes him distress as he cannot obtain it (as seen with God that distresses him)

“She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods

Not terrible, though terror be in love”

• Hyperbolic

• Not aweinspiring, she is feminine and that is appealing

• She lacks sublime depth we may anticipate in love (the force which allows it to be transformative)

’Not with indented wave Prone on the ground’ ‘Fold above fold, a surging maze’, ‘never since of serpent kind lovelier’

‘And of his torturous train

Curld many a wanton wrath in sight of Eve

to lure her eye’

• His movements are sinuous and sneaky reflecting how he invades Eden

• Hes upright, glowing red eyes 

• He appeals to Eve’s shallowness (eg images of him with her face)

• Just as she is the most beautiful of her kind he is the most beautiful of h’s

• Snake is better than others in classics- primacy of Milton

• He performs deference as a prelude to the temptation

  >He appeals to her vanity in terms of status 

  >He establishes hierarchy, linking to what he’ll ask her to do- to aspire for higher

• MALFI people climbing the ladder of status

• Divine hierarchy is fine before the fall, but after we are distanced from God’s plan and mortal ambitions overrule

• Nautical simile suggests haphazard

• The physical maziness linked links to his labyrinthian logic

• Echoes eve in his description - ‘wanton’

‘He, bolder now, uncall’d before her stood

But as in gaze admiring’

‘Fawning, and licked the ground where on she trod

His gently dumb expression’

• His performance has a tension- trying to convince that he’s an animal

• Peforms humility and innocence

• Deliberately submissive, weirdly sexual act (the tongue is a  seductive instrument, through both language and intimacy- snakes Tongues are forked suggesting the duality and deception, saying one thing and doing another)

• MALFI Julia ‘you will see me wind my tongue about his heart’ to Bosola- the tongue is Seductive and deceptive

• Antonio describes the Cardinal as ‘speaking with others tongues’

QUOTES FROM EVES TEMPTATION

“Wonder not, sovran mistress... Thee all things living gaze on…a Goddess among Gods…”

-Satan begins by flattering Eve, elevating her status with hyperbolic praise.

>He calls her “sole wonder,” “Empress,” and a being worthy of angelic worship.

-This preys on Eve’s vanity and desire for recognition, which Milton previously hinted at when she admired her own reflection in the pool (Book IV).

>taps into her latent pride and isolation, similar to how characters in The Duchess of Malfi manipulate the Duchess’s autonomy for their own purposes.

“What may this mean? Language of Man pronounc’d / By tongue of brute…”

-Eve is startled yet intrigued—her rationality is already under pressure.

>She doesn't reject the serpent outright but demands an explanation

>revealing her intellectual curiosity and innocent credulity.

-This parallels the Duchess, who also acts independently but sometimes naively, particularly in trusting Bosola.

“Till on a day roving the field, I chanc’d / A goodly tree...I spar’d not; for such pleasure till that hour / At feed or fountain never had I found.”

-Satan lies that he gained reason and speech from eating the fruit.

>This empirical evidence lends credibility to his deception.

-His argument echoes Machiavellian logic, which is central to The Duchess of Malfi

>especially in the way Bosola (eg via peach) and the Cardinal use persuasive reasoning to justify morally dubious actions.

“Queen of this Universe! do not believe / Those rigid threats of death. Ye shall not die…”

“Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, / His worshippers?”

-Satan now undermines God’s authority, appealing to Eve’s sense of justice and desire for truth.

>He argues that the threat of death is an unjust scare tactic meant to suppress knowledge.

>reframes the prohibition as tyrannical oppression.

-This rhetoric mirrors the Duchess’s defiance of her brothers’ patriarchal control—they forbid her remarriage not for virtue but power.

>This directly ties to The Duchess of Malfi, where the Duchess’s brothers restrict her freedom under the guise of moral duty but are actually driven by pride and envy.

“He, leading, swiftly roll’d / In tangles, and made intricate seem straight… / So glister’d the dire Snake, and into fraud / Led Eve…”

-The sinister tone is heightened through deceptive imagery

>the snake leads Eve like a will-o’-the-wisp, a false light that lures travelers to doom.

-Milton makes Satan's evil tangible through metaphor, much as Webster does with shadows, echo, and darkness in The Duchess of Malfi to depict deceit and moral corruption.

"Wonder not, sovran mistress“

-’Sovran’ suggests the capacity for self control, ironic considering he is actively manipulating her (imperative), and post fall she will lose this capacity

-Praetitio (wonder not) pushes her to wonder

“Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair” “celestial beauty”

-Polyptoton framing the line emphasises the link between the creator and beauty

>by foregrounding the superlative ‘fairest’ he subtly suggests her to be superior to the creator- warped logic

>suggests she is the most beautiful creation and thus more beautiful than the creator 

-implicitly connects beauty with divinity to suggest she could achieve more

“In this enclosure wild, these beasts among”

-he suggests that they are not truly free on earth- gilded cafe

-Satan is truly enclosed in his own mind

-contradiction between enclosure and wild (points to incongruity)

“one man except

Who sees thee (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen

A Goddess among Gods, ador'd and serv'd”

-the interjection suggests one/Adam is an inadequate audience

-hyperbole of ‘godess’ encourages hubris and subversion of the great chain

-foregrounds flattery, praising her and elevating her to a position of power she should not be capable of accessing

“A goodly tree” “Of tasting those fair apples”

“For high from ground the branches would require

Thy utmost reach or Adam's”

-he refers to the tree obliquely as to not alarm eve before she is fully intrigued

-only Satan refers to the fruit as apples- fruit’s vaguerity causes it to appear the more powerful than apple which is unassuming in its specificity

-they are designed for her and Adam alone to be able to access

-MALFI some have the ability to achieve greatness, others only to aspire

“A Goddess among Gods, ador'd and serv'd” “What thou command'st, and right thou shouldst be obey'd.’

“And gaze, and worship thee of right declar'd“

-treats her like a god, claiming it is right for others to submit to her

-hyperbole of ‘godess’ encourages hubris and subversion of the great chain

-foregrounds flattery, praising her and elevating her to a position of power she should not be capable of accessing

-proposes idolatry (in that Eve resembles God and he wishes to praise her)

Not unamaz'd "What may this mean? Language of Man pronounc'd

By tongue of brute, and human sense express'd?”

"Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt

The virtue of that fruit”

-she is shrewder than her biblical counterpart, being surprised and inquisitive as opposed to a neutral observer

-Her capacity for observation emphasises Satan’s rhetorical ability

>perhaps problematic that she doesnt connect the dots and realise that this is Satan

-’overpraising’ suggests both wonder and sceptisism

(if what is evil Be real)

-Augustine privation of good, Satan perverts it 

"O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant[...] Queen of this Universe! do not believe

Those rigid threats of death. Ye shall not die.”

-tricolon emphasises importance of the tree

-though praising her as ‘queen’, ‘godess’ he still uses imperatives, commanding her and not treating her as above him

-monosyllabuc ‘ye shall not die’- forceful

-does not refer to God by name but as the ‘Thret’ner’ (afraid to invoke him, emphasises the extent of his fall)

“Meant me, by vent'ring higher than my lot.”

-theme of aspiring to greater- appeals to her desire for more

>the Duchess is not satisfied by her lot, desiring for that which is beyond her

“New part puts on...as when of old some orator renown’d / In Athens or free Rome…”

-Milton presents Satan as a master rhetorician, adopting the posture and emotional appeal of a classical orator.

>This connects with the performative manipulation seen in courtly settings in The Duchess of Malfi, especially Bosola’s shifting allegiances and the Cardinal’s polished duplicity.

Lewalski on Satan + epic

The most Achilles-like character in the poem is Satan, whom Milton surrounds with "epic matter and motivations, epic genre conventions, and constant allusions to specific passages in famous heroic poems" Lewalski,

BUT

-In the Aeneid Turnus represents a bygone ideal, perhaps Satan accomplishes the same?

“Greedily she ingorg’d without restraint, / And knew not eating death.”

-Eve’s action is not just disobedient—it is insatiable.

>“greedily” connotes not only hunger, but moral excess. Her desire has overpowered reason.

-This foreshadows the tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi, where characters like the Duchess and Antonio act out of love and personal desire despite the fatal consequences imposed by an oppressive society.

>Both acts—Eve’s eating and the Duchess’s marriage—are framed as rebellions, motivated by deeply human impulses (desire, love, and agency), but ultimately leading to ruin.

>But a protestant audience may read the Duchess’ marriage as in line with God, though defying the imposed hierarchy

“Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, / Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe / That all was lost.”

• Milton personifies Earth and Nature, showing a cosmic reaction to Eve’s transgression.

  >The image of a wounded world echoes the sense of a world disordered by moral failure.

• Earth groaned at the fall of Dido, mortal sin has been completed, visceral reaction 

• The natural world in The Duchess of Malfi also responds to human corruption—Bosola speaks of unnatural events ("a comet, a very blazing star") foreshadowing doom.

  >Like the Fall, the Duchess’s murder is not only personal tragedy but cosmic violation. Both works suggest that political and moral corruption deform nature itself.

“How can I live without thee? how forgo / Thy sweet converse...?”

-Adam’s internal monologue is steeped in emotion, marking the tragedy of his fall not as pride or ambition, but love.

>He chooses Eve over God—“flesh of my flesh” becomes his idol.

-Adam’s fall into an act of solidarity, later when he weaponises her state as a subordinate of him against her he is succumbing to Post-Lapsarian rhetoric

“Our state cannot be severed, we are one, / One flesh. To lose thee were to lose myself.”

>sentiment of becoming one mirrored in Malfi

-The introduction of the internal monologue ushers us into the fallen world (Martin Evans) where people do not necessarily articulate what they mean

-mirrors dramatic irony in Webster's play, particularly how Antonio remains largely unaware of the full danger the Duchess faces, blinded by domestic love.

>aware of the dangers—social, political, and spiritual—yet he commits fully to love

“Not deceiv’d, / But fondly overcome with female charm.”

-Milton makes clear that Adam’s fall is not due to temptation by falsehood, but due to overwhelming affection.

>The word “fondly” (meaning foolishly) makes this tragic, not villainous.

>His love makes him vulnerable.

-Antonio too is “fondly overcome”—he is not blind to the risks of marrying the Duchess, yet chooses to join her fate.

>Both works suggest that men, though often cast as rational, are deeply susceptible to the emotional pull of women, for better or worse.

“On my experience, Adam, freely taste, / And fear of death deliver to the winds!”

-Eve invites Adam into disobedience not by malice, but by love and mistaken reasoning.

>She believes what she’s doing leads to life, not death.

-This parallels the Duchess’s encouragement of Antonio to remain confident and hopeful, despite their precarious situation. Like Eve, she does not fully grasp the catastrophic consequences that her boldness might bring—not because she is naïve, but because she believes in love and justice over fear.

while Adam took no thought,

Eating his fill, nor Eve[…]

As with new wine intoxicated both […'] they feel divinity within them

• Intoxicated with hubris (plays into rabbinic theory that the tree was a vine), seen in both

• Distracted by their corporeal desires- fall appears to exacerbate the full expression of their sinful tendencies, his uxoriousness her vanity

• Feel birth of divinity but it is undermined by carnal desires

"If such pleasure be

In things to us forbidd'n, it might be wish'd

For this one tree had been forbidden ten.

[…]For never did thy beauty, since the day

I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorn'd

With all perfections, so inflame my sense

With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now

Than ever: bounty of this virtuous tree!"

-Wishes for things in excess- attributes the enjoyable quality to the fact that it was forbidden, faulty in his reasoning

-No longer thinks first of God or moderately, 

-Flannagan Pandora ref in ‘adorned/with all perfections’, idea E was created to catalyse the hall

-Focuses on her as comething consumable (hedonistic) to satiate his appetite- before sex was a spiritual act, where here it is a bestial act

flow'rs were the couch,

Pansies and violets and asphodel

And hyacinth[…] of their mutual guilt the seal,

The solace of their sin, till dewy sleep

Oppress'd them, wearied with their amorous play.

-SEX IN FLOWER BED Echoes Iliad where Hera seduced Zeus with the bodice (to invite her to bed) or Paris’ invitation to Helen

>Adam falls into a sleep like state consumed by uxioriousness- ZEUS

>Adam thinks he’s inviting her out of free will suggests he’s drawn against his well, PARIS A is making a decision which ignores the humiliating failure

>MALFI Bosola acts as though he’s pushes by forces but gradually becomes aware that even if circumstances are suboptimal you can resist

-Before they had sex at night time, now they do it anywhere anytime- controlled by lust

>No restraint in terms of sexual impulses

>Asphodel connection to death- fields of it in normal person underworld

‘their minds How dark'n'd. Innocence, that as a veil

Had shadow'd them from knowing ill, was gone’

‘naked left To guilty Shame—he cover'd, but his robe

Uncover'd more.’

• ’Minds darken’ this kind of knowledge is dark, emphasises by Caesura, not an enlightenment 

  >They’ve lost the comforting veil of ignorance 

• Shame is personified

  >’robe uncovered more’ in putting it on the extent of his shame are obvious

• Negative consequences makes the tree of knowledge appear less appealing, shattering Satan’s illusions, and making the reason the knowledge was kept from them clear

• MALFI Psyc split, Ferd has an awareness of his self understanding that his desires are an infraction of good that had he been a wolf he wouldn’t have

“O Conscience! into what abyss of fears / And horrors hast thou driv’n me…”

“Why comes not Death, / Said he, with one thrice-acceptable stroke / To end me?”

-Adam is tortured by guilt and conscience, echoing Ferdinand's descent into madness, driven by his role in his sister's death. Conscience is a corrosive force in both texts.

Duchess link:

“My imagination will carry me / To see her in the shameful act of sin.”
Ferdinand’s torment is internal as well, shaped by guilt and warped conscience.

-Both Paradise Lost and The Duchess of Malfi portray the human experience of suffering after transgression—Adam after the Fall, the Duchess after defying her brothers.

• Moral responsibility: Adam accepts his guilt, as does the Duchess.

• Divine or corrupt justice: Both texts question the fairness of punishment.

• Death and legacy: The fear of leaving behind a cursed or doomed legacy haunts both characters.

• Suffering and endurance: Both endure inner torment, but the Duchess does so with defiant grace, while Adam is submerged in grief and regret.

-Adam yearns for death as escape, echoing the Duchess’s own physical and spiritual preparation for death. Both encounter the delay of death as a form of psychological torture.

“I am not mad yet….”
Her composed anticipation of death contrasts Adam’s anguish, yet both engage death directly.

“All that I eat or drink, or shall beget, / Is propagated curse.”

-Adam recognizes the generational impact of his sin, invoking a legacy of suffering.

- This mirrors the inheritance of sin, guilt, and corruption in The Duchess of Malfi, where the Duchess's children are targeted for symbolic and literal eradication.

“Justice divine / Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.”

-terror of divine indifference.

> It has a parallel in Malfi when Bosola reflects on the futility of morality in a corrupt world:

Bosola: “We are merely the stars’ tennis balls.” (Act 5, Scene 4)

Both Milton and Webster express a cosmic bleakness, a sense that justice is either slow, absent, or inscrutable.

‘ So rose the Danite strong,

Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap

Of Philistean Dalilah, and wak'd

Shorn of his strength:-they destitute and bare

Of all their virtue.’

• Likens both Adam and Eve to Samson- Eve is not the malicious temptress but rather someone who has equally been taken advantage of and should have been obedient to the lord

"O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear

To that false Worm, of whomsoever taught

To counterfeit Man's voice’

true in our fall,

‘Both good and evil, good lost and evil got’

‘And in our faces evident the signs

Of foul concupiscence!’

whence evil store,

• He speaks first due to his higher reason- makes sense he would be the first to articulate it

• ‘False worm’ ‘whomever’ the snake is reduced to a lesser form, he suppresses recognising the snake as Satan, evidence of ignorance though the knowledge is in his grasp

• Delayed realisation of its awfulness (progressed from wanting ten trees)

• Emotive language, not as rational as he was, the fall has changed them- saw Eve’s reasoning breakdown through rhetorical questions, here in exclamatories his grief is clear

• Balanced sentence ‘both good and evil…’

• anaphora and asyndetion emphasises extent of fall

How shall I behold the face

Henceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy

And rapture so oft beheld? Those Heav'nly Shapes

Will dazzle now this earthly with their blaze

Insufferably bright. O might I here

In solitude live savage

• dazzle>blaze- cant tolerate brightness 

• imperatives ‘cover me’ shows desperation

• ’unclean’ baptism as cleansing

• There’s a divide between them, she isn’t the beneficiary of his uxoriousness, as the shame and greater awareness makes him harder to manipulate

• Wishes to live in shadows, impenetrable to heaven

Thus fenc'd and, as they thought, their shame in part

Cover'd, but not at rest or ease of mind,

They sat them down to weep. Nor only tears

Rain'd at their eyes, but high winds worse within

• Post fall true comfort is unachievable as they are distanced from unity and harmony with God

• ’tears rained’ they now reflect their environment (pathetic fallacy)

• they become like mini ecosystems 

To sensual Appetite, who, from beneath

Usurping over sovran Reason,

• Reason personified as a ruler in the mind- sensual pleasure overwhelms all

"Would thou hadst heark'n'd to my words, and stay'd

[…] We had then

Remain'd still happy—not, as now, despoil'd

Of all our good, sham'd, naked, miserable!"

• Newfound animosity

• Pointing blame begins 

• Asyndetic tricolon, emphatic

• had you listened and not wandered off we wouldn’t have fallen, why prove goodness all the time, that just invites trouble

• He did it willingly but sources the blame in her decision 

• Ends proverbially- Adam isn’t in the postlapsarian mindset, clearly in Ariapagittiga this isn’t his view

"thou couldst not have discern'd

Fraud in the Serpent” ‘Of wandering, as thou call'st it’

“As good have grown there still, a lifeless rib!

Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head,

Command me absolutely not to go,

Going into such danger, as thou saidst?”

• ’wandering’ now tainted, lustful connotation instead of more naive ladeedaahing

•  ‘Lifeless rib’

• ’Command me’ should’ve played God- unconvincing

• She rates herself as on the same level of reasoning- he still would be fallen though, earlier he said angels fall who are we not to

• Fall exacerbated their tendencies, Eve’s will towards independence 

• Tension between benefits of independence and the negatives 

• Blames him for not being stable and solid in his virtues

perhaps

I also err'd in overmuch admiring

What seem'd in thee so perfect that I thought

No evil durst attempt thee;

for what can scape the eye 

Of God all-seeing[…]

Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the mind 

Of Man, with strength entire and free will arm'd 

• Direct acknowledgement of God’s nature and his place in the book, Satan did not defy God

• The ref to ‘hindered not’ suggests not that Satan was following a plan God cautiously constructed but rather some conscious engagement from God suggesting there was an array of possibilities (Arminian) and free will in a more traditional sense 

  >God allows the Fall not out of negligence, but to preserve human free will.

  >God reasserts that human beings fall not by predestination soley, but by their own inclining.

• Connects to the lines post fall- the cosmic consequences persist

• ’armed’ as though it was a weapon to use

• Both texts challenge us to examine how freedom and accountability coexist within systems of power.

  >Ferdinand is torn apart by his incapacity to accept the truth

  >the Duchess feels solace in her decision to marry Antonio

• echoes the dramatic irony in The Duchess of Malfi where the audience knows that despite the Duchess’s moral integrity, she is doomed by her environment—but it’s still her choice to love, marry, and resist.

“Love was not in their looks... but apparent guilt, / And shame, and perturbation, and despair, / Anger, and obstinacy, and hate, and guile.”

-This moment captures the psychological and emotional devastation post-Fall.

>Adam and Eve’s inner disintegration mirrors their moral fall—alienation from each other and from God.

-In The Duchess of Malfi, guilt and psychological unraveling are particularly evident in Ferdinand.

>His incestuous desires and role in his sister’s death culminate in lycanthropic madness—mirroring the moral disfigurement seen here in Adam and Eve.

>Both texts explore how sin corrodes identity and reason.

thus divinely answered mild: v the son will hurl Sin and death ‘through chaos’

• Mildness in JC, is central to scripture

• JC appears a classical hero or God as opposed to a humble man

  >there is a violence and victorious mess to the imagery

  >closing the entirety of hell in one swoop

  
  

"Where art thou, Adam, wont with joy to meet 

My coming, seen far off? I miss thee here, 

• Zeigelmacher on divine irony

• God/JC plays along, feigning ignorance

• Comedy in the futility of their actions

• Satan more damned cause absent- they seek to avoid responsibility 

• Shame is common to depictions of the fall

"I heard thee in the garden, and of thy voice 

Afraid, being naked, hid myself." 

• MALFI when the duchess (done rebelling) there is a dignity to her ‘the Duchess of Malia still’ a sense of resolved, rebelled for the right reason DIFFERENT TO OTHERS, Cariola(lack of dignity), when the Cardinal fails he wills himself to disappear (‘and now I pray let me be laid by and never thought of’ a desire not to be seen as a product of shame), Bosola (disguises himself during execution, cant bare to be seen), Ferd (cant bare to see the duchess but in the dark)

• Response of shame

“This Woman, whom thou mad'st to be my help 

“Myself the total crime, or to accuse / My other self…”

And gav'st me as thy perfect gift […] from her hand I could suspect no ill

• Incongruity- she's perfect and yet does wrong, flattery and blame

• quick to blame

• Contrasts with Eve’s humble directness

• Adam's conflict reflects moral cowardice masked as tragic dilemma. His decision to blame Eve under pressure shows the fragility of masculine virtue under judgment.

• A LOT OF ADDED STUFF FROM GENESIS- all the extra stuff emphasises his lack of responsibility despite his better qualities, conveys genuine distress over Eve (both passing the blame and remorse over his love for her)

• The Duchess, in contrast, maintains moral clarity and courage under persecution. She never betrays Antonio nor pleads for herself.

  >Her dignity under judgment starkly contrasts Adam’s equivocation, making her a more heroic figure.

 God set thee above her[…]Adorn'd 

She was indeed, and lovely, to attract 

Thy love, not thy subjection

Son

• Calls him out for uxoriousness and idolatry, defying his role for her, using his reason, ignoring his true perfection. and thus letting her down

• Ref to divine order

• thy love not thy subjugation, balanced syntax reflects how he twisted their intentions 

• expands on the simple text of the Bible

• Accuses Adam of violating the hierarchy and idolatry 

• This reinforces Milton’s hierarchical gender politics: man's rule is natural and divine; deviation leads to ruin.

“Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey / Before his voice?”

“Was she made thy guide, / Superior, or but equal, that to her / Thou didst resign thy manhood…?”

• This reflects the Duchess’s own defiance of patriarchal authority.

  >While Milton condemns Adam for submitting to Eve’s influence, Webster subverts this, portraying the Duchess’s assertion of will in marrying Antonio as admirable, even tragic.

  >God’s critique aligns more with the Cardinal and Ferdinand's view of feminine autonomy as disorder.

• The Duchess’s actions reject this premise. Her autonomy is both her glory and her doom. Webster interrogates such ideology, exposing the danger when power systems use "natural order" to justify oppression.

"The Serpent me beguil'd, and I did eat."

• Simple directness, humble

• bible plagiarism ‘the serpent deceived me, and i ate’

• MALFI the duchess is not chastened in this way as she isn’t proven wrong

"Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply

By thy conception” and “he over thee shall rule." 

Son on women’s punishment

• The addition of multiplying sorrows makes the punishment feel more personal, as though her humility hasn’t absolved her in the slightest perhaps

• Excluded the section ‘your desire will be for your husband’, emphasis is different

“To thy husband's will / Thine shall submit: he over thee shall rule.”

• Eve's punishment formalizes gender hierarchy post-Fall, suggesting subjugation as a consequence of transgression.

• Webster critiques this idea through the Duchess’s resistance.

  >She marries below her status and governs independently (which is arguably justified as ultimately good because of their protestant foundation in love or for balancing the class difference), suggesting a proto-feminist challenge to divine or societal ordination.

  >Milton’s view reflects theological patriarchy; Webster dramatizes its cruelty.

"Out of my sight, thou serpent!"

-Adam likens Eve to Satan himself—rejecting not just her act but her entire being.

>This dehumanization reflects deep betrayal and male anger, reshaped into misogyny.

-Ferdinand's language toward the Duchess when he discovers her pregnancy is similarly vicious and gendered

>“Damn her! That body of hers…”

>His incestuous possessiveness twists to hatred, as Adam’s love turns to venom.

>Both men weaponize language to reduce the woman to a body of sin.

then should have been refused

Those terms, whatever, when they were proposed.

-He admits some level of blame, unlike Satan, recognising that as he accepted the terms the punishment is fair (can accept god as just)

>admits he should have refused the terms

Those terms, whatever, when they were proposed.

With Spirits masculine, create at last

This novelty on Earth, this fair defect

Of Nature,

-questions why god created the defective creature that is Eve (see Aristotelean talking points)

>He questions the very need for women, imagining a world of men alone—idealized, untainted.

-Suggests God should have acted differently and created a homosocial paradise without women

-Despite earlier taking accountability he now positions the blame on women/woman

>he manifests male rage

-The Cardinal and Ferdinand similarly see women as either sexual threats or political liabilities.

>The Duchess is punished simply for acting independently as a woman.

>Milton here gives voice to despair that is theological and psychological; Webster exposes how this despair becomes systemic misogyny.

"Rather than solid virtue: all but a rib / Crooked by nature..."

-Adam doubts Eve’s moral substance, suggesting her sin proves inherent female weakness.

>The “crooked rib” metaphor, drawn from her origin story, becomes an accusation.

>’a rib is a crooked thing …and women are crooked by nature’ Swetnam 1615

-This mirrors the Duchess's brothers' belief that women are naturally deceitful and untrustworthy.

>The Duchess is also punished for supposed moral weakness, though she shows moral strength.

>Milton’s Adam gives voice to a theology of gender hierarchy; Webster critiques it by showing its cruelty.

"Satan, our great author”

Sin

• ’The great author’ typically refers to God, he has taken on the role in their eyes- perverse God, inverted parodic creator - as a creator we can see why Milton finds solidarity (though Milton credits the muse)

• Resentful tone

“Thou, my shade

Inseparable, must with me along”

• Sin and death intrinsically linked

• Two way passage- bad people can come to hell and demons from hell

• Foreshadows JC who can separate them through his sacrifice 

“

Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven—

‘unhide bound’

“The way, thou leading: such a scent I draw

Of carnage, prey innumerable” “living carcasses”

Death

• ‘Living carcasses’ the oxymoron emphasises the inevitability of death

• Sin has to go first d’or death to follow- logically sound

• Absolutely rapacious, nothing will survive its ravenous jaws- bestial image and semantic field of consumption 

• MALFI Cardinal and meat

-Body without limits ‘un hide-bound’ a predator without corporeal confines 

the work by wondrous art

Pontifical—a ridge of pendent rock

• Pontifical means bridge, pun on pope who was referred to as the bridge maker bridging heaven and earth (popes bridge compared to hells)

At last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head

And shape star-bright appeared, or brighter, clad

’Of that bright star to Satan paragoned.’

He reveals himself slowly

-The theatricality of his reveal emphasises his hubris- conveys a sense of delight and his ignorance to his consequences

-He acts as though returning from battle, but there is nothing noble about his actions

>disjunction between soldier to trickster through reference to the star he once was (Lucifer)

-By revealing himself through deception there is a sense that, despite his military language, the pride will come before the fall and his motives aren’t as pure

-Reminiscent to Charles only claiming land that was his after a period of not

-That change and the greed that comes from it reflects Eve

-There are lots of trees but in place of fruit is ash- used a similar image in Iconaclastes where he compared Charles’ rhetoric to ‘the apples of Asphalis’ that looks appealing but ‘touch them, and they turn into Cinders’(Satan is punished for how he speaks, flip of the word)

-Thought that this happens every year

-Parody of the HS - speaking in tongues, they can’t speak

-Part of justifying the work of God to man- in the Bible there was no need to punish Satan and Serpant separately

-The parodic incarnation reflects how we are brought closer to God threough the salvation/sacrifice of JC, his companions (in 500their snakification) are divided, imprisoned in themselves, unable to commune or speak, unlike our continuous access to JC

hid in gloomiest shade,
[…]
And, in a troubled sea of passion tost,

-retreat into darkness

>reversal of light coming from darkness

-nautical image emphasises his inner turmoil and passivity

>image suggests the movement in human experience which moves narratives 

>he no longer has reason in the same way or control, being tossed by circumstance and incapable of navigating clearly 

>idea that chaos has been let loose in the world (water image associated with chaos)

“Did i request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man’’ > Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,

-Unhappy that he has been born

-It is a bleak nihilistic image (suicide is a sin against God- this has similar self abnigating qualities)

-It is not that goodness has been removed but that evil has been introduced- he doesnt recognise this

>as though by being a sinner he is exempted from good- relinquishes free will MALFI Bosoloa

-Adam misses the point which he will later grasp- it is genuine repentance and atonement - an appeal to God's grace - which will save him.

> Adam is unaware of the possibility of salvation.

-Adam is plagued by guilt- 17th Century Puritans it was an integral part of one's relationship with God (he resembles them)

>Webster presents the Catholic corruption as warped (RCC work can be put on, easy to deceive through eternal behaviour v puritain focus on internal faith which cant be faked

As in my mother’s lap! There I should rest,

-Pathos created

>humanity added to- desire to die and end pain of waiting

>doesnt even have a mother

>sleep, uses common euphemism of death, familiar

h, why should all Mankind,

For one man’s fault, thus guiltless be condemned?

But from me what can proceed

But all corrupt—both mind and will depraved

-His line of argument is different to Satan’s

>he questions why his descendants will be punished but unlike Satan he acknowledges that God’s punishment is just for him

>answers his own question within God’s framework- because they are his ‘issue’ they are innately corrupt (seminally present)

rough mazes, lead me still

But to my own conviction: first and last

On me, me only, as the source and spring

Of all corruption, all the blame lights due.

-Maziness used previously to reference satanic form and argument

>here he acknowledges though by answering and proposing questions he enters a circular conversation he returns to the crux of his argument 

>Anadiplosis ‘on me, me only’- draws attention to how it all circles back to him, powerfully centres his wrongdoing, (messes with the iambic pentameter, the early caesura forces another stressed syllable/spondee, disrupts iambic pentameter creating an inverted spondee)

>MALFI and stagecraft Bosola uses disguises and masks as a precursor/indicator of his own guilt, whereas with Adam this is indicated through verse

>anaphora ‘all’ has a similar effect

To Satan only like, both crime and doom.

O Conscience! into what abyss of fears

And horrors hast thou driven me;

-He draws the link between himself and Satan

-MALFI ‘how tedious is a guilty conscious’ v Adam who epistophises- difference in tone, C exasperated flippantly, A more profoundly laments a great depth (abyss) and cant escape his own guilt (F lacks A’s self awareness, cant make sense of his grief through reason, feeling to be a monster because of transgressive desire is articulated as I’m a wolf)