Body Lost, and Body Regained

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the body establishes a corporeal link between spiritual and physical corruption; the spiritually figured and physically manifest body of Satan – as opposed to the more simple human bodies of Adam and Eve – enacts a performative signification for his self-corruption and as the vehicle for the corruption of the mortal bodies of Adam and Eve. The increasing physicality of Satan’s body in Paradise Lost calls to mind the significance of corporeality to the pollution of the human body; as Satan becomes increasingly rooted in his own body, his own degeneration becomes increasingly irrevocable, trapping a formerly-celestial being within an earthly form. In fact, the predominant source of corruption for both human and angelic kind lies within the realm of the body as a physical projection of rather than a mere vessel for the soul. As Paradise Lost progresses, Satan’s language and form become increasingly tangible as his spiritual nature degenerates. Satanic discourse assumes the mantle of corporeal signification as temptation, desire, and rebellion are inscribed on the outward form and function of the fallen angel’s body. The deeper Satan falls into corruption, the more physical his language and his form. Though Raphael insists on the intangible nature of the angelic body, Satan’s introduction to pain and the subsequent body of the text, articulated as it is within the discourse of the physical body, supplants the angelic body with a mortal form capable of both (sexual) pleasure and pain, the hallmarks of Fallenness in Milton’s epic. It is from the body and through the body that Sin and corruption enter into existence, and it is, therefore, through the body that divine punishment must act; ultimately, though, the body is also the site and source of redemption. While Satan’s increasingly tangible and corruptible body serves as the vehicle for Sin and Death (both literally and figuratively), the physicality he introduces into Eden is also the means by which Adam and Eve may ultimately be redeemed; the body – site of pleasure and pain, corruption and salvation – enables its own redemption even as it allows for the entry of corruption, revealing, finally, the intrinsic physicality of the soul.