{"id":348,"date":"2017-03-03T09:07:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T15:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/?p=348"},"modified":"2017-03-03T09:12:10","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T15:12:10","slug":"supprest-in-night-god-women-and-secret-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"“[S]upprest in Night”: God, Women, and Secret Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Book VII, prefacing his account of Earth’s creation, Raphael cautions Adam against asking for knowledge beyond the \u201cbounds\u201d (120) deemed appropriate for him by God. He warns Adam not to \u201clet thine own inventions hope\/ Things not reveal\u2019d, which th\u2019invisible King,\/ Only Omniscient, hath supprest in Night\u201d (VII.121-123). Since Night is both personified and portrayed as female in multiple parts of Paradise Lost<\/em>, I would like to explore some possible implications of this comment.<\/p>\n

The statement seems to say that God conceals certain knowledge of the most powerful or profound variety within \u201cNight.\u201d On the simplest level, the phrase could be merely a metaphorical way of saying that certain ideas are known only to God Himself, and thus shrouded in figurative darkness to everyone else.<\/p>\n

However, since Book II, \u201cNight\u201d has been a personified female figure. In fact, Adam has just reinforced the idea, only a few lines before Raphael\u2019s statement, by saying that \u201cNight with her will bring\/ Silence\u201d (VII.105-106). If we consider the “Night\u201d in which God suppresses these \u201cThings not revealed\u201d as the same female Night from previous sections, then a female figure occupies an intriguing role here, acting as the repository for some of God\u2019s most profound knowledge\u2014knowledge \u201cTo none communicable in Earth or Heaven\u201d (VII.124).<\/p>\n

If this second interpretation holds, then what exactly is Night\u2019s role in the relationship? Does she have any agency, or is she merely a passive device under God\u2019s authority, which He uses as a means or location to store \u201cthings not revealed\u201d? Even if she is passive, though, she still seems to occupy a powerful role\u2014If God is \u201csuppres[sing]\u201d these things \u201cin\u201d her, then she would appear to have possession of them. And how might this image relate to Eve\u2019s story: considering that the Fall will result from a woman taking in profound (and forbidden) knowledge, why might Milton have included this earlier scene of God deliberately placing secret knowledge within a female figure?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Annemarie Lisko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Book VII, prefacing his account of Earth’s creation, Raphael cautions Adam against asking for knowledge beyond the \u201cbounds\u201d (120) deemed appropriate for him by God. He warns Adam not to \u201clet thine own inventions hope\/ Things not reveal\u2019d, which th\u2019invisible King,\/ Only Omniscient, hath supprest in Night\u201d (VII.121-123). Since Night is both personified and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,17,16,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edificeproject.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}