Little Words, Big Ideas
Fate and Free Will
Fate and free will are major topics in
Paradise Lost. God reveals that he knows what will happen to Adam and Eve, but
resolutely denies that there is any such thing as fate. Huh? God knows what
wil...
Sin
Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve's fall,
the original sin! So it's no surprise that sin is a prominent theme in the
poem. Don't forget that we also learn a lot about Satan's major sin (he
tried...
Pride
Ah yes pride. Doesn't it seem like we're
always talking about pride? Satan is the exemplar of pride par excellence. In
Paradise Lost, he is too proud to accept God's Son as the boss in Heaven; he
t...
Innocence
Paradise Lost takes place almost exclusively
in a time and place when death, sin, and lying didn't exist. In other words, it
deals with a time when humanity was still innocent. While Milton is very...
Lies and Deceit
In Paradise Lost, Satan is the ultimate
trickster. He flat out lies to Eve, telling her the Forbidden Fruit has powers
that it doesn't. Beyond that, however, he is somehow able to convince a
third...
Revenge
In many respects, Paradise Lost is a sort of
revenge tragedy. Adam and Eve are the innocent victims of Satan's attempts to
seek revenge against God. He sort of feels bad about it – he even cr...
Language and Communication
In Book 5 of Paradise Lost, Adam asks the
angel Raphael a lot of questions, and he mentions several times the difficulty
of describing and explaining heavenly matters in mortal language. Raphael's...
Sex
There's not a lot of sex in Paradise Lost,
but Adam and Eve do have a famous love-making scene in Book 4. After the Fall,
they have a slightly steamier sex scene that is more lustful and less lovey...
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