The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost

I know that people spend a lot of time fixating on how to write a good opening line for their books ("It was a dark and stormy night", etc.), but Paradise Lost has I think the most beautiful closing passage of any book (spoilers for The Bible):

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate

With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:

Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

HN discussing this link in old thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38876560

It's also on Standard Ebooks, in case one considers the annotations distracting: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost

"the main story was Satan's rebellion against God"

so Satan rebelling against being enslaved?

> At least through a contemporary lens I didn't get the impression it was political whatsoever.

The poem has a strong republican sentiment (lowercase 'r') throughout. During Cromwell's control, he argued for republicanism; he likely composed much of the early elements of the poem while in hiding after Restoration, fearing very correctly for his life; and he remained a republican for all his life. Milton's characterization of Satan in the poem is incredible because of the way he chooses this unlikely figure to channel so much of his misgivings and criticisms of absolute and monarchical power.

In a modern context, it's fascinating to see how much sympathy Milton can make for Satan (a figure who, in most modern secular contexts, is far more commonly simplistically presented as pure evil incarnate) and how the poem poses evergreen questions about the role and nature of grievance, revolution, vengeance, power, and the masses in governance.

Yeah, the political or otherwise ideological nature is read into the work. It doesn't come out of the work. But, I think, precisely because PL is one of the greatest masterpieces of the English language, it becomes a focus for that kind of attention, where people want to construe it for their own objectives. See also the centuries-long debate running through the likes of William Blake, C.S. Lewis, and Philip Pullman on whether or not we should see Satan as the sympathetic and virtuous hero. That debate is a touchstone of religious ideological conversation.

As an aside, I find that PL fills the blanks in the biblical narrative almost too well! There are some aspects of our modern cultural understanding of what angels, demons, and Satan are like that come straight out of PL and have no foundation in the biblical narrative. It leads to a lot of confusion among religious persons because they end up believing in these details that don't come from the avowed authoritative source.

You may have heard a Christian try to claim that Adam ate the fruit after Eve did, with the express purpose of not being separated from her---that he knew she'd be exiled, so he intended to stay with her by being exiled himself. In that way, Adam acquires a sympathetic and heroic tint in his role in the Fall. But this is completely fabricated by Milton! It's straight from PL and nowhere to be found in the biblical narrative.