Paradise Lost Under Heaven: Milton's Surveillance Society

Abstract

Abstract:There is a curious imbrication of two distinctive ocular matrices in Paradise Lost: the omniscient spectator-deity of theatrum mundi ("world as stage") whose eye surveys all action, and a network of angelic surveillance that is fallible and inefficient when compared with the divine gaze. Such conjoining has an insidious effect on the fallen angels and the humans in the poem, who tragically tailor their actions to suit (or hoodwink) the guards and surveillants rather than their panoptic God. The result is a disquieting examination of paranoia, duplicity, and the radical failure of both angelic surveillance and heavenly witness.