On The Morning of Christ's Nativity: An Application of The Bible to the Work of John Milton.

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P. Rienguette

Paula Rienguette

ENGL 2116

Prof. Richard Schell

November 12/ 2002

On The Morning of Christ’s Nativity: An Application of The Bible to the Work of John Milton.

Milton’s Nativity Ode contains a “theory of all things” in respect to his vision.  This theory deals greatly with the idea that the human body is merely a tomb for the soul. While in the Bible we have been taking the body of the King to represent the whole land. The death of the King is in comparison the death of the land.

Like the Kings of Christ’s time, Milton writes to bring attention to the three types of liberty he hoped to achieve in England: Liberty from the Church [tyranny of the bishops], liberty of the individual [divorce and education], and liberty from the state [King].

The poem can be broken down into four parts: the first eight verses deal with the coming of Christ, the next ten with the mystery of music, verse nineteen and forward focus on the silencing of the oracles and concludes with verse twenty-seven and the birth of Christ.  In “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” Milton sees both Christmas and Easter as the same thing since it is impossible to have one without the other. The baby in the cradle is the man on the cross.

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John Milton’s “On The Morning of Christ’s Nativity” uses the idea of the Jesus of history and the Christ of fact to relay his ideas of the creation of the world and the synonymous events.  Comparison can be drawn between John Gospel and “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” for it is an intensely symbolic book. John’s version of Christ is a Christ of Faith, which has a plays a large part in the Ode.

In the fifth verse of the “Nativity Ode” Milton declares that the saviour would come and sacrifice himself for mankind and work with his father ...

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