SOURCE: “Milton's Counterplot,” in Milton: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Louis L. Martz, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968, pp. 100-108.

In the following essay, which was originally published in ELH: A Journal of English Literary History in 1958, Hartman claims that there are two plots in the epic that work to contrapuntal effect and which serve to emphasize God's remoteness and power.

Milton's description of the building of Pandemonium ends with a reference to the architect, Mammon, also known to the ancient world as Mulciber:

                                                  and how he fell From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the Crystal Battlements: from Morn To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve, A Summer's day; and with the setting Sun Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star, On Lemnos th'ægæan Isle 

(Paradise Lost I, 740-6).

These verses stand out from a brilliant text as still more...