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The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'

Chapter 33: FOOTNOTES:
By Thomas Nathaniel Orchard
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About This Book

The author surveys astronomy from ancient observations through seventeenth-century developments, then analyzes the astronomical knowledge present in Milton and his engagement with Galileo. Subsequent chapters treat seasons, stellar structures, and specific celestial objects cited in the poem, offering technical descriptions and identifying phenomena such as sunspots, nebulae, lunar features, and binary stars. The final section assesses the poet's imaginative use of astronomical material. The work integrates historical overview, scientific explanation, comparative readings, figures, and plates to show how contemporary astronomy informs and enriches the poem's imagery.

For wonderful indeed are all his works,
 Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all
 Had in remembrance always with delight!
 But what created mind can comprehend
 Their number, or the wisdom infinite
 That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep?—iii. 703-708.

It is very pleasant, as Milton says, to

sit and rightly spell
 Of every star that heaven doth show.

It is also pleasant to know the astronomy of his ‘Paradise Lost,’ and to linger over the delightful and harmonious utterances associated with the sublimest of sciences, expressed in the melodious language of England’s greatest epic poet.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Chambers’s Handbook of Astronomy.

[2] Brewster’s Martyrs of Science.

[3] The transit occurred on a Sunday, and the ‘business of the highest importance’ to which Horrox alludes was his clerical duties.

[4] A fresco by the late Mr. Ford Maddox-Brown, depicting Crabtree observing the transit of Venus, adorns the interior of the Manchester Town Hall.

[5] William Crabtree died on August 1, 1644, aged 34 years.

[6] The constellation Virgo.

[7] Life of Galileo (Library of Useful Knowledge).

[8] Miss Clerke’s System of the Stars.

[9] Miss Clerke’s System of the Stars.

[10] Miss Clerke’s System of the Stars.

[11] Ibid.

[12] An expression in Book VIII. 148-49 would seem to indicate that this was inaccurate, but the lines

‘and other suns perhaps
 With their attendant moons, thou wilt descry,’

are an allusion to the planets Jupiter and Saturn, whose satellites had been recently discovered.

[13] Mr. E. W. Maunder, in Knowledge, March 1894.

[14] Though not a celestial body, it is considered desirable to describe the Earth as a member of the solar system.

[15] See diagram, chap. iii. p. 96.