Milton

Knowledge is a major theme in paradise lost.

Milton despised the monarchy. Milton defender of the puritan cause. Puritanism as a religious movement is not well served by looking at it through the modern sense of the word "puritanical". The puritans were iconoclasts.

Freedom of the will and conscience is a recurring preoccupation of Milton's. He believed in religious liberty for every one it seems except for Catholics. His anti monarchical views also share his views about liberty. He does not think the monarchy is important.

Milton uses extended similes and mirrors Homer in this way.

Milton's Satan mirrors Odysseus in its craftiness. At the same time he is Odysseus' opposite because unlike Odysseus he will never return home - and despite moments of pining he doesn't not desire to (home being heaven.)

Satan is like Achilles in his rage, his pride, his sense of injustice and of being wronged. Like Achilles Satan is proud and has a desire for revenge. Just as Achilles wants to make the women and children of Troy weep over the deaths of their loved ones, Satan wants to make heaven weep over the fall of mankind.

Satan is like Anaeus from Virgil's Aneid just as Aneus founded a new Troy from the remnants of the fallen Troy so does Satan forge hell in the fallen from Heaven.

Satan uses cunning in disguising himself as the form of a serpent and entering Eden in bringing about Eve's and Adam's downfall. Just as Achilles listens to the men of Troy to find out how to infiltrate Troy so does Satan listen to Eve to find out how to infiltrate her conscience.

Milton is purifying the epic and in doing so is setting himself above the great epic poets of antiquity. He shows that the pagan gods from the classical epics are in fact fallen angels.

The basic plot of Paradise lost is: Man's fall through consumption of the fruit which comes after Satan's fall after the angels fall in heaven after a great battle.

The poem describes as well the way in which human kind will be saved and suggests some of the reasons why man, and not the fallen angels, will be given a second chance. Milton argues and describes the sexual intercourse Adam and Eve enjoyed befall the fall. Concupiscence is the first vice that Adam and Eve fall into.

Adam's quest for knowledge raises some concerns in Raphael the angel. Raphael is worried where this pursuit of knowledge is going to lead Adam (a psychological explanation that Milton offers and represents as the fall). Eve's curiosity and pride are factors in the fall. Eve lacks prudence and coupled with her curiosity this is what the serpent appeals to.

Satan is aware it seems of a plan that God has to create creatures in his image.

The Odyssey and the Iliad and Paradise Lost all begin by evoking the muse. The heavenly muse is evoked as distinct from one of the nine muses from antiquity. He is evoking the spirit of creation. The upright heart and pure and in doing so he contrasts himself with the pagan poets.

Why has Satan fallen? He wanted to equal the most high. As God is perfect goodness he is going to become perfect hate. He will never change his will his will is fixed. There is a great dynamic interaction between fate and human freedom.

Milton represents Satan as both having a fixed will, as he is condemned to eternal flames, but he also chooses to be there.

Satan calls God a tyrant. He is saying "I could know bow and soothe for grace but that would be worse than the suffering I am feeling now".