Milton's gods and the matter of creation

In Paradise lost Milton creates two Gods who are also one, placing a doubleness of identity at the source of being. Scholars have recognized that Milton identifies God with prime matter in the poem, but the relationship between the omniscient, omnipotent being in heaven and the inanimate matter of chaos has not yet been adequately explored. In this essay I argue that the two divine identities are constructed in terms of hierarchical oppositions that privilege God’s heavenly persona over his base material potency. The divine persona is male, where prime matter is female; the Creator is free, whereas matter is contained; and God describes his persona as “self,” implying that the matter of chaos is other. The binary structures that distinguish God’s self from prime matter support a masculinist ideology by ensuring the ascendency of traditionally masculine terms such as action, volition, freedom, and spirit. However, Milton’s identification of God with both terms of the binary oppositions projected in the poem partially subverts these traditional hegemonies by conflating the antithesis on which such relationships are based