‘Darkness Visible’: Modes of Coal Smoke in Milton’s Hell

There has been a current of literary criticism that approaches Milton's Paradise Lost from an environmental and ecological perspective. Such criticism has connected images of sulphur and smoke in Hell with the experience of coal smoke in early modern London. However, most of these works have not gone beyond establishing the connection. This paper argues that proceeding further to examine Milton's depiction of Hell and fallen being in the light of the early modern experiences of coal smoke, and the different modes in which these registered in the discourse, both imagery and language, of early modern London reveals that the representation of Hell and the fallen angels richly drew in a variety of ways on these sources, both overtly and implicitly. It also reveals an imagistic subtext that manifests the ways of fallen being and effort, expressing these as simultaneously insubstantial and pernicious, and derivative. Finally, it suggests the implication of Milton's epic in common Royalist narratives of coal smoke.