PoliticalMilton:A New Historicist Reading of Paradise Lost

Abstract

Abstract Paradise Lostis a fictional work thatportrays the carnal nature of man since the fall. Although the poem is religiously based,Milton takes many liberties with thedestructiveness of man’s pride and lust.Milton uses angels and otherworldly characters to reveal the relationships between man,morality, freedom and divinity.Milton justifiesthe ways of God to man. Justify here means to explain and defend, and ultimately to vindicate, God’s course of action in dealing with Adam and Eve after they succumb to the temptation of Satan and eat forbidden fruit.At the end, Adam and Eve enter the imperfect world with hope; they can yet attain eternal salvation.Thepapers also describethe significance on political portfolio beyond the historical overviewwith Milton's perception about hell and heaven. It also analyzesthe assumptions of some scholars' whoclaimed that Milton'stranslations of Paradise Lostarean epic. Paradise Lostisnot, of course, a thinly disguised allegory designed to interpret the tumultuous events of seventeenth century England. Milton's explicit purpose of justifying the ways of God to men leaves little ground for considering the poem to be mainly political. The bareOldTestament story of the creation and the fall hardly afforded scope for a narrative whose ambitiouspurpose is to justify the ways of God, to men. Although Adam was created superior to Eve and Given "Absolute rule" over her, few, if any, directly political implications are involved in Adams Acquiescing in her wish that he, too, taste of the apple; throughout most ofParadise Lostour first parents live, in the state of innocence and consequently. Like God, are far removed from the world of mundane politics. Key words: Postlapsarian,John Milton,Paradise,Interregnum,ontology,antinomian