The Rebuke of Adam and Eve. Painting by Charles Joseph Natoire, 1740.
Milton’s Paradise Lost is one of the most splendid and influential works ever written in English. What is it about, how did it come to be, and how can today’s readers approach this wonderful work? In a two-post series, our guest writer David E. Miller tells us all about Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost Part I
Voices in Paradise Lost
Some authors become their characters. Charles Dickens is a conspicuous example. Reading a Dickens novel is like watching a one-man play. It’s as if, in the mind’s eye, Dickens himself does all of the voices and each antic and somber gesture.
But not all authors become their characters. Sometimes it’s more like the characters become their author, by becoming spokespersons for his different points of view. In the case of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667/1674), the characters we meet—Adam, Eve, even Satan–are various adaptations of Milton the man. Like Milton, they all have rich intellects and strong reasoning skills. They all are persuasive and utterly committed to their causes.
But more than that, just as did Milton the English citizen, all the major characters place great importance on individual freedom.
David Elias Miller graduated from Miami University (Oxford, OH) with an M.A. in English Literature. A “cultural conservative” who sees great literature as an inheritance, not a problem to be deconstructed by cultural, gender, or other theoretical studies, David is setting a career path outside the university while continuing to learn and enjoy literature as a personal passion.
