Milton's "Eco-Eden": Place and notions of the "Green" in Pradise Lost

Yet for every potentially "anti-green" notion or attribute underlying Paradise Lost, there is an equally important green one being displayed. Lending support to this observation is Ellen Goodman, who makes a compelling distinction when defining the human-nature relationships of Milton's Eden. Comparing Milton's conception of Eden to those of earlier writers, Goodman asserts the following:

In portraying the unfallen world, then, Milton continuously employs the notion of human mastership, grounded in the vision of nature as an orderly hierarchy of ends.Yet he uses these concepts for distinctive new purposes. The authority Adam and Eve exercise over the natural world stresses their responsibilities as masters and the responsiveness of subjects to beneficial dominion. The ethics of mastership in Milton's Eden thus emphasize the integration and interaction of man and nature. (Goodman 1992, 13)

This human-nature "integration" and "interaction" is what seems to fuel much of Adam and Eve's happiness in Eden. Indeed, while in the midst of learning about all the horrors that will plague the postlapsarian world, Adam after the Fall is relieved and rejuvenated upon hearing from Michael that most of the qualities and creatures of nature will be spared. Knowing this puts Adam's mind to ease:

O thou who future things canst represent

As present, Heav'nly instructer, I revive

At this last sight, assur'd that Man shall live

With all the Creatures, and their seed preserve. (Milton 1998c, 11.871-74)

There is no sense of supremacy revealed in Adam's words here, no sign of an outwardly domineering attitude being taken towards the "lower" forms of nature. On the contrary, Adam expresses a deep, solicitous concern for and attitude towards his fellow creatures-a compassion commonly found in today's most ecologically minded of individuals.

The finishing stroke of Milton's green aesthetic comes in a narrative passage that directly compares the values of nature and art. Here, the angel Raphael, on his way to give his warnings to Adam and Eve, enters Earth's bounds as the epic narrator describes Eden's natural "Wilderness of sweets" (5.294):

Nature here

Wantond as in her prime, and plaid at will

Her Virgin Fancies, pouring forth more sweet,

Wilde above Rule of Art; enormous bliss. (Milton 1998c, 5.294-97)

This rather remarkable statement supplies Milton's (or, at the very least, the epic narrator's) ultimate testimony to nature's ineffable, evocative powers. Resisting definite description, these forces of "Wilde" nature can, according to the passage, never be appropriately harnessed by the reigns of language. As Flannagan notes, "the implication [here] is that man's art will never come close to the sweetness of the art of nature or the bliss" (1998, 484-85). Sensory events produced by immediate experiences within nature are privileged over the more abstract, aesthetic experiences provided by art. Subordinating the value of his own trade and his passions for the poetic arts to the powers of nature, Milton (through his narrator) projects strong affinities and a distinct respect for the natural world.