John Milton 's Paradise Lost

“...in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie,...” (Titus 1:2). The Bible gives the exact account of the history of the world.  John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a play off of the account given in The Bible of the war in Heaven, the creation of the world, and the fall of mankind.  He used the Bible as his inspiration and altered the events told in Genesis.  Though The Bible and Paradise Lost tell different accounts of the same story, they have many things in common, such as: Satan’s fall from Heaven, Adam and Eve’s fall from Paradise, and Adam and Eve’s dismissal from the garden.

“Satan as archangel, before his fall, is never shown by Milton, but this stage of existence is often alluded to, as is the fact that some of his archangelic powers remain”(Carey pg.162). Satan is a character within Milton’s “Paradise Lost” who exemplifies a being on a journey to achieve goodness for himself by getting back at the being who put him into eternal damnation. Satan is forced by his own mind to rebel against God for what he has done to him by ‘making him fall from the eternal kingdom’. Satan is allowing himself to take up a journey through hell, heaven, and earth for the sole reason of trying to gain the seat of heaven because of his yearning for revenge against God, “Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile stirred up with envy and revenge.”(I.34-35). Satan tempts other beings by using a powerful technique known as pathos through his rhetoric seen in the passage, “Look on me, me who have touched and tasted, yet both live.”(IX.687-678) which shows Satan’s style of tempting Eve to eat of the forbidden tree through pathos. He offers himself up as the supernatural being who will take up an adventure which he is hoping will lead him to gain heaven for his own wants and cast God off his heavenly throne. Satan uses the demons in hell to help him achieve his goal of casting out those in power of heaven, which is shown in the quote “We may with more successful hope resolve to wage by force or guile eternal war irreconcilable, to our grand foe”(I.120-122) giving the

   Satan's primary operational problem in Paradise Lost is his lack of obedience. The fundamental misunderstanding which leads to Satan's disobedience is his separation of free will from God's hierarchical power. In the angel Raphael's account, Satan tells his dominions, "Orders and Degrees/Jarr not with liberty" (5.792-93). Tempting as this differentiation seems, Satan is mistaken. Free will and hierarchical power are not mutually exclusive, as Satan suggests, but overlapping concepts. Even though Satan has been created with sufficient freedom to choose to disobey, he tacitly acknowledges God's sovereignty when he exercises his choice. Satan is constrained existentially, from the outset, by

Of Things Invisible to Mortal SightThe Holy Bible is in many ways a story of origins. The history recounted both in the Old and New Testaments has at its base the perception of a fallen humanity; beginning with the fall from Eden and the nature of evil, to the means of regaining Gods grace and the discussion of free will, it emphasizes humanitys inability to fully comprehend the nature of God and of the universe. In writing his epic Paradise Lost, John Milton is fully aware of his limitations as a mortal man; however, in an attempt to transcend the finite to the infinite, to describe the indescribable and to understand the unknown, Milton bases his arguments on Biblical theology to show that mankind has fallen from immortality to mortality

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2010 AP Literature and Composition)

Man above woman, or woman above man? For the entirety of human civilization, this question of gender hierarchy has been divisive issue. Regardless, Milton does not hesitate to join the heat of the battle, and project his thoughts to the world. Since the publication of Paradise Lost, many of Milton’s readers have detected in his illustration of the prelapsarian couple, particularly of Adam, a powerful patriarchal sentiment: “he for God only, and she for God in him” (Milton, IV.299). In essence, this idea declares that Adam and Eve possess unequal roles – Adam is better than Eve, as men are better than women, in accordance to the deeply conventional reading of the relations between the sexes. Eve’s purpose for Adam makes her less

God is described as the evil one in the story, because of how he allows mankind to have free will, but punishes all who displays free will. In the later books of Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve were punished because of

Even before reading Paradise Lost, I had always wondered why God allowed evil, and why he allowed death. After a while I had simply accepted that God was God, and what happens, happens. Basically an act of pure faith.

Throughout time, John Milton's Paradise Lost has been studied by many people and comprehended in many different fashions, developing all kinds of new interpretations of the great epic. There have been many different interpretations of this great epic. Milton's purpose in writing the epic was to explain the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Although the epic is similar to the Bible story in many ways, Milton's character structure differs from that of the Bible's version. All through out the epic Milton describes the characters in the way he believes they are. In book II of Paradise Lost, Milton portrays Satan as a rebel who exhibits certain heroic qualities, but who turns out not to be a hero.

     In Paradise Lost, the consequences of the fall and the change in relations between man and nature can best be discussed when we look at Milton's pre-fall descriptions of Eden and its inhabitants. Believing that fallen humans could never fully understand what life was like in Eden and the relationships purely innocent beings shared, Milton begins his depiction of Paradise and Adam and Eve through the fallen eyes of Satan:

Paradise Lost is a story of Genesis told as it normally would be, but with a protagonist focus on Satan. The story is told largely with Satan being favorably portrayed and God having little presence other than cursing things, which convinces the audience that Satan’s view of God as a tyrant may not be too far off. Still, Satan is portrayed as the villain of the story. However, he has characteristics of a classical hero; including flaws that make the audience relate to and feel sympathy for him. By using part of the black-and-white Genesis story which paints Satan as evil and juxtaposing a narrative which paints Satan as a sympathetic hero, Milton raises a question about morality that largely define the audience’s reaction to the story:

The most important characters in the epic poem, “Paradise Lost”, are Satan and Eve. These two characters are most responsible for the development and progression of events within the poem. Satan is the main figure throughout the vast majority of the plot. “Paradise Lost” follows Satan’s ultimately successful attempt to destroy God’s perfect creation, humanity, by forcing Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. In creating humanity, God set expectations and put in place boundaries for Adam and Eve, yet they were not particularly restrictive.

Milton in Paradise Lost illustrates God as the main creator of life. Milton also expresses that God’s real desire is power. God here used his own power of free will to make the decision to create life. From this, the reader can already see the ability of free will being practiced. He mentions that he gave all angels and man the power of free will so they can express their own individuality in

The concept of revenge has prevailed as an integral component of literature, exemplified in Paradise Lost written by John Milton among other works. In Paradise Lost, Satan acts as the main proponent of revenge. The actions of his character create the basis for a Miltonic ideal of revenge, later modified by Emily Brontë and Mary Shelley. Wuthering Heights written by Brontë presents Heathcliff as a modernization of Satan. The characters share the experience of evolving from their lives as outcasts within their societies by means of revenge. The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein romanticizes the Miltonic concept of revenge found in Paradise Lost. Although the creation and experiences of Satan and the monster differ, their premises for revenge become similar as the monster realizes his contempt toward his position within society and desires to retaliate. While the revenge exemplified in Paradise Lost shares similarities with both Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, the origins of the desire for revenge, as well as its function within each book, differ due to changing life and literary styles following the writing of Paradise Lost. While the roots of the revenge of Satan lay in a desire for power, Heathcliff and the creature use revenge as a means to chase love and companionship.

As Book VIII of John Milton’s Paradise Lost begins, the “new-waked” human Adam ponders the nature of the universe and the motion of the stars (ll. 4-38). When Adam has finished his speech, Milton takes the opportunity to describe Eve, who is listening nearby. We find Eve reclining in the Garden, but with grace, not laziness: “she sat retired in sight,/With lowliness majestic from her seat” (41-42). This “lowliness majestic” is the central phrase to understanding Eve’s character—she is both humble and glorious. Everything that beholds her is captivated by her “grace that won who saw to wish her stay” (43). Even in this paradise, every other beautiful creation is drawn to Eve. She walks