Wednesday 11 January 2017

Paradise Lost - John Milton



Paradise Lost
-        John Milton



       ‘Paradise lost’ is an epic poem written by john Milton. Paradise lost written in blank verse and first published in 1667. The poem is based on the episode ‘Genesis’ from the Bible. The Bible is the “God-centric” and Milton’s Paradise Lost is “Human-centric”. As it was a time of Renaissance, the world was changing its perspective.
       
    The poem narrates the episode in which Adam and Eve lost the Eden garden and cursed by God. The difference is in the narrative style and character’s sense of questioning. Milton has presented Eve with the power of questioning. Serpent or we can say Satan as a lover of Eve but he also changes his mind from love to revenge.
     
     Eve was tempted by Satan to eat the fruit, but she was not easily tempted. After along question answer and arguments she was ready to eat the fruit. Her way of thinking in the book is rational. In ‘Genesis’ Adam was convinced by Eve but in Milton’s book he was driven by the emotion of love,

"Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart. No, no! I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe." 
(Book IX, Paradise Lost)

       This clearly suggests the love and human emotions. At the end God punished all the three sinners. We have several questions in our mind while reading the poem,

What was the sin? The sin was disobedience of God.
If the fruit was prohibited why the tree was there?
Why Satan easily entered in the pace of God’s Eden garden? Why God has not protected them? Why the curse was not only for Adam and Eve but also their children which is indirectly whole human race?
What was important fruit, disobedience or suffering of Adam and Eve? How God can be so cruel to his children?

The major question is of freedom of human being, as Eve asked,
If inferior, Who is Free?
For presentation of Human and Divine perspective - Click Here 


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