Paradise Lost AO5

Critical Interpretations of John Milton's Paradise Lost

C.S. Lewis (on Adam)

“Adam fell by uxoriousness”

Frye (on Adam)

“The real hero of the poem is Adam … [his] choice is a tragic act of love”

Whitfield (on Adam)

“Adam’s language is riddled with misogynistic remarks”

Burden (on Adam)

“The tragedy is more his failing than hers”

Danielson (on Adam)

(Adam’s) “love does not excuse responsibility”

Ricks (on Adam)

“Even Adam’s prelapsarian speech becomes ethically strained”

Hill (on Adam)

“Adam’s obedience reflects Milton’s wider concern with authority and resistance”

Fallon (on Adam)

(Adam’s fall is) “enabled by self persuasion”

McColley (on Eve’s mistake)

“Eve’s error is not stupidity but ambition”

McColley (on Eve’s fall)

“Temptation works because Eve is capable of sophisticated thought”

Gilbert & Gubar (on Eve)

“Eve is a patriarchal idea of womanhood deprived of her autonomous identity”

Bierman (on Eve)

“Eve’s character in Paradise Lost surpasses that of Eve’s character in the story of Genesis”

McGlovely (on Eve)

(She has a) “wicked seductiveness”

Hill (on Eve)

“Milton’s attitude towards Eve is as full of paradoxes as his attitudes towards women in general”

Giamatti (on Eve)

(Eve’s) “fall is cognitive before it is moral”

C.S. Lewis (on Satan)

“Satan is the opposite of a hero … his grandeur is a theatrical illusion”

Blake (on Milton’s portrayal of Satan)

(Milton was) “of the devil’s party without knowing it”

Blake (on Satan)

“The energy of the poem belongs to the rebel … Satan’s energy outshines divine order”

Empson (on Satan)

“The most intense sympathy of the poem is with Satan”

Shelley (on Satan)

“Milton’s Devil as a moral being is far superior to his God”

Fish (on Satan)

“Satan succeeds through rhetoric, not force”

Evans (on Satan)

(Satan) “must corrupt what he cannot possess”

Weston (on Satan)

“His words are of a courtly lover”

C.S. Lewis (on God)

“God’s justice is not arbitrary”

Bush (on God)

(God is) “a tyrant against whom it was glorious to rebel”

Woof (on God)

(God) “presents two aspects of fatherhood - stern justice and love”

Danielson (on God)

“Milton presents God as morally coherent, not ambiguous”

Waldock (on God)

“In Book 9, divine authority feels conceptually distant from the action”

Goldberg (on Milton’s portrayal of God)

(Milton) “resists fixing God as a single coherent figure”

C.S. Lewis (on love)

“Love divorced from God becomes destructive”

C.S. Lewis (on Milton’s portrayal of the Fall)

“Milton avoids sensationalising the Fall … the catastrophe is inward, not spectacular”

Frye (on morality)

“Good and evil briefly seem confused”

Frye (on the consequences of the Fall)

“Tragedy matters more than blame”

Carey (on the Fall)

“The Fall alters perception itself”

Carey (on authority)

“Authority proves fragile under pressure”

Empson (on free will and sin)

“Milton’s insistence on free will forces him to make sin appear genuinely attractive”

Fish (on freedom)

“Freedom is only meaningful with the possibility of error”

Fish (on obedience)

“The poem teaches obedience by allowing disobedience to feel persuasive first … to misread is part of Milton’s design; to recover is the lesson”

McColley (on free will)

“Men fall by choice, not necessity”

Lewalski (on gender)

“Gender order is tested, not overturned”

Lewalski (on Milton’s portrayal of free will)

“Milton dramatises the burden of freedom … responsibility lies wholly with humanity”

Reimer (on femininity)

“What is truly being ‘lost’ in Milton’s poem is … femininity as a negative attribute”

Ricks (on the Fall)

“Obstinacy leads to the Fall, since abandoning the one restraint means abandoning all restraints”

Revard (on free will)

“Happiness cannot exist without liberty”

Eagleton (on equality and freedom)

“Desire and difference - for gender equality, for social change, for freedom - refuse to be eradicated”

Hill (on the Fall)

“The Fall can be read as a crisis of political as well as moral hierarchy”

Parker (on persuasion)

“Persuasion depends on rhetorical ambiguity rather than truth or falsehood”

Fallon (on sin)

“Sin emerges through self-persuasion rather than sudden corruption”

Nyquist (on obedience)

“Book 9 exposes the fragility of ordered subordination”

Traister (on the Fall)

“Attachment drives the action of the Fall more than rebellion”

Carey (on Milton’s writing style)

“Milton makes us admire what we ought to condemn”

Danielson (on Milton’s writing style)

“Milton writes as a committed Christian poet”

Steadman (on Milton’s writing style)

“Milton revises epic tradition through Christian purpose”

Belsey (on Milton’s writing style)

“Meaning in Milton is never fixed or stable”

Graham (on Milton’s writing style)

“Milton is currently either reaffirmed as the archetypal misogynist, or, at the other extreme, presented as some sort of proto-feminist”

Hill (on Milton’s writing style)

(Milton’s) “simple language can conceal radical ideas”

Fallon (on Milton’s writing style)

“Milton’s style reflects moral psychology … language becomes a vehicle for internal conflict”