Truthful, compassionate, and righteous; influencing by the traditionally widespread cognition of God, English poet John Milton composed a theodicy known as Paradise lost, which he retold the biblical story of the fall of man with the purpose to "justifie the wayes of God to men" (I, l.25). However, many readers weren't convinced by Milton's description of God. Instead, they evaluated Milton's "defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil” as a failure and claimed disagreement as to whether God was sculpted as a villain ("Theodicy"). Nevertheless, controversy is completely permissible in this issue. Furthermore, by examining arguments on both sides and compromising between two opposite positions, one should be …show more content…
Especially, when interpreting Paradise lost as a political allegory and relate to the contemporary politics that Milton experienced, the idea of God's kingship is valid and tenable. As a royalist, Charles firmly believed in the "divine right of kings", asserted that he deserved a natural sense of fealty from his people because his domination was divinely issued, and condemned the parliament as a party of "usurped authority" which its members have all gone "further from one sin to a greater [one]" through their untraditional, but a more humane opinion which rulers are required to have a contractual obligation to their people and rule without tyranny (King Charles, His speech). Relating to the content of Paradise Lost, readers sensed an analogy between God and Charles I for their similarly unlimited power and superiority in monarchy, or alternatively readers also experience that Milton and Cromwell's revolutionary struggles against the king could be connected with representation of Satan's innovatory war of liberation as a presentation in …show more content…
The reason is simple: there's a hidden plan God has arranged for humans in advance. Through the narration and demonstration of Incarnations, Deaths, Resurrections, and Ascends of mankind by Angel Michael at the hill top, it's clear that God's intention is to better Humans' understanding of good through the process of painful "suffering for truths sake" and gain a "fortitude to highest victorie" which they have never experienced before (X, l.1460-1461). Also, Based on God's acquaintance with the weakness of human's heart, he knew how easy humans could be controlled by transient lust and vanity, therefore, the only redemption for mankind is through the descent of a savior in a flesh to humans and permitted this Messiah to acknowledge all about faith and conscience, died for their sins, and rose again to lead men to their paths of regaining their "paradise within" (X,
Paradise Lost is John Milton’s epic poem about the battle between Satan and God. The poem is quite controversial due to the fact that this was written during the time period that the Catholic Church was facing major corruption. People were already having concerns about God and what was right from the Catholic Church; because of this and many other textual reasons Paradise Lost has a very controversial relationship with Christianity.
The seat of faith resides in the will of the individual and not in the leaning to our own reasoning, for reasoning is the freedom of choosing what one accepts as one’s will. In considering the will was created and one cannot accuse the potter or the clay, Milton writes to this reasoning, as “thir own revolt,” whereas the clay of humankind is sufficient and justly pliable for use as a vessel of obedience or disobedience (3.117). The difficulty of this acceptance of obedience or disobedience is inherent in the natural unwillingness in acknowledging that we are at the disposal of another being, even God. One theme of Paradise Lost is humankind’s disobedience to a Creator, a Creator that claims control over its creation. When a single living thing which God has made escapes beyond the Creator’s control this is in essence an eradicating of the Creator God. A Creator who would create a creature who the Creator would or could not control its creation is not a sovereign God. For who would not hold someone responsible for manufacturing something that could not be controlled and consider it immoral to do so? To think that God created a universe that he has somehow abdicated to its own devices is to accredit immorality to the Creator. Since the nucleus of Milton’s epic poem is to “justifie the wayes of God” to his creation, these ‘arguments’ are set in theological Miltonesque terms in his words (1. 26). Milton’s terms and words in Paradise Lost relate the view of God to man and Milton’s view to the reader. Views viewed in theological terms that have blazed many wandering paths through the centuries to knot up imperfect men to explain perfect God.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem portraying John Milton’s theological standpoints. The theme is knowledge and the fall of man. Milton uses his poem to state some of his theological beliefs and his personal reflections. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the 17th century but uses influence from classic poets. Milton’s epic is an extremely important piece of literature. The excerpt used in this commentary takes on the subjects of sin and the punishment with regards to the atonement from God’s point of view. Milton’s states many of his own theological opinions but wants the reader to know that God is justified in everything that he does, and also wants them to know that man has free will.
Milton’s Paradise Lost was written in a time period known as the Interregnum period. During this time period, “church attendance was mandatory” and the Puritans “generally garbed themselves in black and white” (UTPB Faculty “The Interregnum and Milton’s Paradise Lost”). The Puritans strongly believed there was a right and wrong answer for everything and rarely questioned anything. John Milton was a Renaissance man who wrote
Divine Evil and Justification in Paradise Lost.” Milton Quarterly 36.2 (2002): 87. Literary Reference Center. Web. The Web.
There have been many different interpretations of John Milton's epic, Paradise Lost. 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. 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.
Critics of the Romantic Period have claimed that John Milton was unconsciously allied with the forces of evil. In Paradise Lost Milton’s accounts of “Devils & Hell” are much more elaborate and awe inspiring than those of “Angels & God.” Hell and Satan are portrayed extensively whereas the reader is given brief and inconclusive glimpses of Heaven. The apparent dichotomy is explained by William Blake: “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & Gods, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s Party without knowing it.”
The very first words of the poem “Paradise Lost” indicate that the main theme of the poem is disobedience to God’s will. Milton begins his poem with a question directed to the reader, which serves the poet well; as it attracts the reader’s attention and makes him think about the answer to that question. When reading the beginning of the poem the reader gets the image of a commander addressing a crowd. The poet represents the hero of the poem as the devil. This gives an image of a commander of a huge army that has just lost a battle. In the first couple of lines, the devil as the hero of the poem directly addresses the audiences in the present tense, which gives the reader the feeling of the actual presence among a huge crowd of soldiers and leaders waiting for hope from their king, after the defeat in the battle. The battle in the poem is understood to be between hell and heaven, and heaven won the battle. The speaker says:
John Milton's great epic poem, Paradise Lost, was written between the 1640's and 1665 in England, at a time of rapid change in the western world. Milton, a Puritan, clung to traditional Christian beliefs throughout his epic, but he also combined signs of the changing modern era with ancient epic style to craft a masterpiece. He chose as the subject of his great work the fall of man, from Genesis, which was a very popular story to discuss and retell at the time. His whole life had led up to the completion of this greatest work; he put over twenty years of time and almost as many years of study and travel to build a timeless classic. The success of his poem lies in the fact that he skillfully combined classic epic tradition with strongly held Puritan Christian beliefs.
During the seventeenth century John Milton dared to write an epic poem like no one had ever seen before. This work displays Milton 's genius because he wrote this epic after he became blind, yet he is very deliberate and crafty the way he develops the characters and the plot. Paradise Lost became a representation of a famous story from the Bible, specifically the book of Genesis which tells a story of the first man and woman that lived on Earth. This story however lacks many details that people automatically assume when they read this tale. Milton 's Paradise Lost is the reason for these assumptions. He interprets this story
In conclusion, Paradise Lost can be seen through a historically contextual lens that allows us to see the parallels between Milton’s life and experiences during the reign of Charles I, and the predominant themes in his epic poem. Many of the themes in Paradise Lost, from the broader situational occurrences to the behavior of individual character’s and their attitudes toward the situations in which they find themselves can be seen as directly influenced by Milton’s time as a Parliamentarian in 17th century England.
In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton presents Satan as a complex and multifaceted figure. As Jeffrey Burton Russell describes in The Prince of Darkness, Milton’s goal in writing this epic poem was to “justify the ways of God to men” (Russell, chap.12, p.15). With this in mind, it is easy to interpret the character of Satan as a mere foe, the evil at the opposite of God’s goodness, and to see God as the obvious protagonist of the poem. Things in Milton, however, are not quite as black and white, and while the justification of God’s actions is at the centre here, it is the character of Satan who drives the poem forward, as a protagonist should.
In the opening lines of Paradise Lost, Milton wastes no time conveying to his readers what his purpose in writing the epic is. He writes in the beginning that he intends to “assert Eternal Providence, / and justifie the wayes of God to men” (I. 25-26). What exactly does this mean though? In order to be able to clearly judge and evaluate what these lines imply, it is important that one understands what exactly Milton’s thoughts we regarding “Eternal Providence” and the “wayes of God”. Stemming from this idea, it is important to also realize how the idea of free will intertwines with the omniscience of God. For Milton, God’s omniscient did not constrain the free will of Adam and Eve. However, this idea presents the reader with a paradoxical situation that Milton as an author was fully aware of. Paradise Lost presents the reader with eternal providence and free will as being part and parcel of each other, neither constrains the other, and it is these two aspects, along with that of knowledge that lay the groundwork in understanding Paradise Lost.
Reichert, John. Milton's Wisdom: Nature and Scripture in Paradise Lost. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press. 1992
Paradise Lost is one of the finest examples of the epic tradition in all of literature. In composing this extraordinary work, John Milton was, for the most part, following in the manner of epic poets of past centuries: Barbara Lewalski notes that Paradise Lost is an "epic whose closest structural affinities are to Virgil's Aeneid . . . "; she continues, however, to state that we now recognize as well the influence of epic traditions and the presence of epic features other than Virgilian. Among the poem's Homeric elements are its Iliadic subject, the death and woe resulting from an act of disobedience; the portrayal of Satan as an Archillean hero motivated by a sense of injured merit and also as an Odyssean hero of wiles and craft; the description of Satan's perilous Odyssey to find a new homeland; and the battle scenes in heaven. . . . The poem also incorporates a Hesiodic gigantomachy; numerous Ovidian metamorphoses; an Ariostan Paradise of Fools; [and] Spenserian allegorical figures (Sin and Death) . . . . (3)