Critical Analysis of the Paradise Lost

Authored by John Milton, the paradise lost is a critical reading that explores various themes attributed to the biblical understanding and knowledge based in Judaic culture. The Christian culture forms the basis in which Milton draws his plot, characters, and approach to writing. It majors on the tale of how human race fell in Garden of Eden. Milton uses various characters in the poem with the main ones being God, Jesus, Satan, and the first persons that are Adam and Eve. Also, he incorporates the Archangels Raphael and Michael. The author includes the biblical understanding of the fall into the apparent thoughts of humanism, political and domestically understandings to generate his ideas and meaning. The book contains various thematic issues that create a thrilling and interesting flow of ideas.
The paradise lost presents the justification and the reasons that lead to the fall of man. He describes the God punishment and strategies that God employed in a bid to reconnect with humanity. The experiences and the whole epic demonstrate rightfulness of God following the various occurrences that man passed through. He points out that the primary causes of the fall of man resulted from disobedience and sin. Eve succumbed to temptation, and they substantially overcame her ability to right reasoning and later gave in to passions. These occurrences, therefore, describes the significance of logical thinking in human beings. Despite people being noble by nature, they contain the ability to choose between right and wrong and therefore held responsible for the outcome of their actions (“Paradise Lost: John Milton – Summary and Critical Analysis” N.

p). According to Milton, God was justified to leave human beings make decisions despite being exposed in evil circumstances and later punish them upon neglect of his set ways. He holds that people are super creatures who have liberty and adventurous abilities. He, therefore, disputes the Calvinism belief that God lays down a man’s life and destiny upon his birth.
An insight into the flow of events and structure of occurrences reveal that Eve plays a critical role in the final fall of Adam. The fall is on the ability of Eve succumbing to temptations which lead to consequential succumbing into temptations by Adam. It reveals that Adam led a straight life with real focus and would have never tasted the tree of knowledge if it were not for his wife Eve. The occurrences demonstrate that the control of one’s passion establishes a spiritual rebirth gained upon one’s control of desires. The power will ultimately lead to a resultant paradise within them. It indicates that the powers of bringing out the best in man are vested within an individual, and it is only through his actions that he will find a paradise with himself. The lack of reason, therefore, led to eve’s sin whereas Adam sinned as a result of lack of will. The works by Milton, however, fails to recognize the critical identity of some of the characters in the development of various themes as there exists a disproportion in the considerations. For instance, the complexity of character Satan and his frequency in the setting appears to be greater than that of Adam thus putting higher importance in Satan than Adam and the fall.
The works by Milton shows that he holds the orthodox idea of redemption. The idea holds that at end times, men will move to higher levels of paradise and which are better than the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve lived. He contemplates that Adams actions of sin were tactful and could, therefore, be useful in the rise to better levels from the “paradise lost.” He describes the paradise lost as a captive, prison and bears a mental pilgrimage. Adam and Eve only possessed a “fugitive and cloistered virtue” (Milton 25-26). Despite the man’s actions annoying and dissatisfying God, they were far better as the man grew, developed spiritually and acquired knowledge. Therefore, man lost only the state of innocence and ignorance (“Paradise Lost -Literary Criticism Enotes” N.p).
The style of writing adopted by Milton in the paradise lost is a grand style with high elevations, seriousness, craftiness and much different from the usual speech. His paper contributes to the development of literary English language though his work was heavily Latinate. The grand style of writing makes use of the blank verse in the generation of poem rhythm. The method adopted reiterates his convenience and its purpose. The lines in the paper have been developed using the traditional techniques of variation. Moreover, the diction in the poem is mostly in Latin to the extent that most of the English words used contain Latin connotations. The English in this masterpiece is therefore extremely unfamiliar and pedantic. Also, the words in the poem include both literal and symbolic meanings (Smith N.pag). The author masterly uses shifts in tone to depict a different setting and description which facilitates the variations in emotions thus avoiding monotony throughout the structure.
The paradise lost has a beautiful and depressing scene in the ending. It presents an illusion of Adam and Eve getting the ideas of getting back to the haven, and all humankind is given an opportunity to have a perfect world. The instance of angel Michael guiding Adam across the mountains to the earth marks an end of the paradise and beginning of human race. The fall humankind as emphasized by Milton is much further from the disobedience of God and a decision to love Eve. The text further reveals that the fall of humanity isn’t important than the recreation of relationships between all the entities in the story.
Works cited
Milton, John. Paradise Lost (Books I. And II.). 1st ed. New York: American Book Company, 1895. Print.
“Paradise Lost: John Milton – Summary And Critical Analysis”. Bachelorandmaster.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.
“Paradise Lost – Literary Criticism – Enotes.Com”. eNotes. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.
Smith, Nicole. “Paradise Lost By John Milton: A Critical Reading Of Adam’S Fall”. Articlemyriad.com. N.p., 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.