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British Poetry

Notes could choose to be disobedient, but Raphael explains that Adam was created as perfect yet mutable,
endowed with the power to maintain his perfection but also the power to lose it. Adam desires to
know more, and asks how disobedience first came into Heaven. To answer, Raphael relates the
story of Satan’s fall.
When Heaven was still at peace, Raphael explains, all the hierarchies of angels were obedient to
God. One day the Father announced to them that he had begotten a son, who was to rule at his right
hand. While God’s announcement pleased most of the angels, one of them was angry. That angry
angel lost his heavenly name, and is now called Satan. Proud to be one of the highest archangels,
Satan felt that he deserved the same powers as God. Jealous of the Son, he persuaded one third of
the other angels in Heaven to join him. Satan erected his own throne in heaven, and told his followers
that they should not allow themselves to be unjustly ruled. One of these followers, however,
disagreed. He was named Abdiel, and after arguing with Satan he faithfully returned to the side of
God, braving the scorn of the other rebellious angels.

Analysis
Eve’s dream, created by Satan’s whispering in her ear as she sleeps, foreshadows her ultimate
temptation and downfall. God’s decision to send Raphael to warn Adam about the dangers ahead
also foreshadows their fall, although the fact that it does so is paradoxical. After all, the ostensible
purpose of sending Raphael is to arm Adam and Eve with knowledge, so that they won’t fall from
sheer ignorance. We might expect Raphael’s visit to give Adam and Eve a fighting chance, creating
more suspense and doubt as to the outcome, but this is not the case. Every Christian reader already
knows that Adam and Eve will fall, so instead of creating suspense, Raphael’s words of instruction
only heighten our sense of the gravity of their sin and the tragedy of their disobedience.
There is a further paradox in the fact that even as Milton foreshadows the fall and makes it seem
inevitable and predestined, he strives to prove that the fall was anything but inevitable. Paradise
Lost insists that Adam and Eve had free will and were protected by adequate knowledge and
understanding. In fact, Milton’s poem goes much further in this regard than the Bible, which does
not include Raphael’s warning visit or God’s own assurance that Adam and Eve have free will.
These parts of the story are Milton’s invention, and his insistence on humankind’s free will flew in
the face of what most Puritans believed. Since we know the end of the story from the first line of the
poem, this emphasis on free will does not generate an impression of greater possibility, but rather
informs our understanding of what Adam and Eve’s sin means.
When Raphael begins to tell Adam about the war in Heaven, he first admits that explaining these
events presents a challenge, because the spiritual beings involved are beyond human comprehension,
and it may even be unlawful for him to tell of these things. Raphael here describes problems that
Milton himself has to confront in Paradise Lost, including how to narrate religious mysteries in a
form that will be understood, but also the problem of what authorizes Milton to explain these
mysteries at all. Much of Paradise Lost is based on the Book of Genesis, but much of it is Milton’s
invention. Moreover, Milton presents his epic not as a fiction based on Christian scripture, but as a
divinely inspired Christian document. We may well wonder why Milton, a devout Christian, thought
he could presume to explain such matters as the origins of Christ and Satan and the details of life in
Paradise. Part of the answer probably is that Milton truly believes that his poem is divinely inspired,
and that the Holy Spirit, as the source of all creativity, speaks through him. Another part of the
answer may be that Milton does present Paradise Lost as a fiction that conveys truths not literally
but allegorically. Thus, he adapts his subject matter to the conventional expectations of an epic
poem, thereby using a literary form that his audience was already familiar with. The truth of his
poem lies in its interpretation rather than in its plot.
One way in which Milton follows the conventions of epic poetry is by having Raphael narrate the
long background story of the origin and course of the war in Heaven. The great Greek and Latin
epics begin by situating their characters in the middle of the story and then turning backward to

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