Sound and Emotion in Milton's Paradise Lost

Abstract

This research was designed to test the hypothesis that Milton's poem Paradise Lost is meaningfully patterned with respect to sound. Thirty-six segments from 12 Books of Paradise Lost were scored (Whissell, 2000) in terms of their proportional use of Pleasant, Cheerful, Active, Nasty, Unpleasant, Sad, Passive, and Soft sounds. Paradise Lost includes more Active, Nasty, and Unpleasant sounds and fewer Pleasant, Passive, Soft, and Sad sounds than a representative sample of anthologized poetry. The way in which emotional sounds are patterned (e.g., the rise and fall in the proportion of Pleasant sounds across Books) suggests the presence of three narratives within the work: Sin and Salvation — Foreseen in Heaven (Books I — III), The Fall of Man (Books IV–IX), and Sin and Salvation — Foretold on Earth (Books X–XI). The poem analyzed had updated spelling, and the author's exact intentions when creating it are not accessible to direct investigation, for this among other reasons.