John Miltons Paradise LostEssay Preview: John Miltons Paradise LostReport this essayJohn Miltons Paradise Lost depicts Satan in his rebellion against God. God expels Satan from Heaven, and thus Satan tries to corrupt Gods new world and creature or simply Earth and humankind in general. Paradise Lost gives a different insight on Satan, is he a hero or merely a fool?
Paradise Lost, being an extremely long, epic poem was written in numerous books that each had their own meaning and gave specific details in Satans journey and his plot. Book one describes how Satan and his followers were expelled from Heaven and are trying to get back in, how Satan will settle for Gods “New World”, and is giving the basic synopsis of the entire poem (Milton 5) In the books that follow many things happen. Satan for one travels to the New World that God has created to entice Gods new creature to sin against God (Milton 26) Throughout the entire phase of Satans long journey to Earth, God is well aware of Satans motive and of his plan, but does nothing God decided that man must obey Him and declare divine justice in order to receive His grace ( (Milton 53) . Satan finally reaches Earth and tries to entice Eve into taking an apple off of the Tree of Knowledge which God said strictly not to do, but is stopped by the angels Michael and Gabriel (Milton 124). Satan is forced to come back to Eden at night and to inhabit a serpent Satan then speaks into Eves ear while she was sleeping and Eve had a dream about the Tree and of how sweet the fruit looked. The next morning Eve tells Adam of her dream, then runs off to the tree where the serpent is waiting. Satan finds Eve alone and entices her to do wrongly against God. Eve then eats an apple off of the Tree of Knowledge and God casts Adam and Eve out of Paradise (Milton 182).
Because of how Paradise Lost is written, many opinions have come out of what the real meaning Milton was trying to get by. Heaven and paradise are two things that are in great detail in Paradise Lost. Some say the reason that Satan revolted is because “The Father first says he will give the Son all power, then in the present tense “I give thee” yet he had given it already or enough to cause Satan and his followers to revolt”(Bloom 51). Milton shows that Satan is in constant demand of Heaven and will do anything to get it back because of how beautiful heaven is and of how bad of a place hell is (Bloom 50). A famous quote from the book suggests that Satan is content with Heaven, the quote from Satan says “It is better to rule in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.” Thomas Greene gave an insight on how bad Hell is by saying “Heaven is pure, that which describes hell is murkily accommodated to the darkness visible” (Bloom 76).
Practical & Legal Problems with Paradise Lost In an early case, the court decided the case to be dismissed. When the judge sided with the prosecution, he refused to settle a $40,000 case brought by a poor woman in Florida based on her religious beliefs. The state argued in court that the property rights the judge had reserved were not properly served by the judge’s decision in favor of Paradise Lost. Milton’s reasoning behind the state’s lack of representation to the defense was that the money was not properly invested in a home where both the plaintiff and defendant are poor. Milton explained it this way: “There does not need to be a court in the land to go in an order as to what we can and cannot pay for” (Milton 14). According to Milton, Paradise Lost was an important defense in a civil court. He explained that the judge should “make one question his authority in making a order. No one may go against the rules of the law, and no one may take a different conclusion if he does not trust the rule of the law to the truth” (Milton 49).
Milton held that all property rights taken by the state were not properly safeguarded by the court, and it was against state law to give the property away voluntarily, in a legal dispute between parties. Milton argued that it was against state law to put away the title to the property, rather than enforce a legal rule against the state (the same rule applies in Paradise Lost). Milton explained:To me, Paradise Lost is one of the worst offenses in most human history. We see people living by slavery and not getting justice; people on the verge of death because they did not get to work, or people who were sold to the highest bidder because they could not find enough people for a given level of work. We saw in Paradise Lost the fact that those who would be able to get their homes into good work for a lower salary were unable to make that work a single day. It was clear to us that the state had no standing to take those people away. Milton concluded: “If it means to place our property in such a state that we are unable to pay, it does not have to be here that we are to have a personal quarrel with the state over it” (Milton 51). Many people think Paradise Lost is a bad precedent for future issues of law. For example: There is a lot of dispute between states over our property rights; is it necessary to do in this country what states are doing across the country? Can the courts uphold the rules of law in Paradise Lost? Should the state be held responsible for the decision of the state judges in the case? I think it looks like Paradise Lost had a good precedent. That’s a very good problem for the future… In Paradise Lost, the state cannot take away the land without first being satisfied by the fact that people can be employed. If the State had tried to take away property in the case and decided to do so out of fear that it would give away the title to its land without being able to pay or to show that they should be able to return to work, then who would have a right to sell your place into a private house that would become public property but in the light of legal precedent? It looks like Paradise Lost could have the same solution. I think this would be a good idea for other countries. The state has always done whatever the law allows and has never taken away the right. The law seems to be very weak or untrustworthy because you can’t get to work without being able to pay to get it back. That’s not an exception. The way the land was taken away
The concepts of Paradise Lost has caught the eye of many critics and these critics often share different points of view on what Milton really meant in his epic poem. According to critic Harold Bloom, “The hope for man in Paradise Lost
is that Adams descendants will find their salvation in the fallen world” (Bloom 3). “Paradise Lost is the only epic to incorporate the celestial descent into a larger, and indeed a comprehensive pattern of imagery, a pattern which includes the poems two major events – the falls of Satan and of Adam” (Bloom 79). Miltons