John Milton, Paradise Lost — Selections

Summary

Critical Introduction

John Milton (1608–1674) was a British poet and pamphleteer. His breadth of knowledge was amazing, allowing him to speak on everything from censorship, covered in his Areopagitica, to a history of England in six parts. Milton's reputation was, therefore, riding high by the 1650s, but his body was not. At over sixty years of age, in poor health, and having recently gone blind, he set out to create a poem that, in his words, would “justify the ways of God to men.” Styled as an epic, Paradise Lost (1667) begins in media res with the fall of Satan and follows his desire for revenge on God via the corruption of Adam and Eve. The later books deal more heavily with the first couple as they begin to understand what they have done, ending with their expulsion from Eden.

Milton took Homer and Virgil as his models for an epic, and so seriously did he take them that he reorganized the second edition into twelve books (instead of the ten of the first edition) to better match the epic form. Though Paradise Lost may reflect the form of an ancient epic, the subject matter differs markedly. In some instances, elements have been adapted: for example, working in a monotheistic religious tradition, Milton turns to God, Christ, and a host of angels to provide the sort of divine intervention seen in The Odyssey and The Aeneid. In many other respects, the poem departs completely from the classical epic: Paradise Lost, for instance, does not follow its predecessors in recounting the great deeds of a legendary hero or king.

One sticking point, however, stands out when trying to view Paradise Lost through an epic lens: Satan would seem to be the hero. It is Satan, not Adam or Eve, who fights the battles, undertakes the journey, and tries his strength against long odds. In this way, the poem is conflicted. If we listen to Milton, it is a poem about God, Adam, Eve, and explaining the Fall. If, however, we follow his implied instructions and read it as an epic, it is a narrative of Satan's journey and Milton is, as William Blake said, “of the Devil's party without knowing it.” The conflict at the heart of Paradise Lost and, possibly, in Milton himself have made the poem one of the lasting contributions to English literature.