'The correct answer to every moral question'

In a recent essay, Philip Pullman recalls the story of a semi-literate courtly squireIn history, a young nobleman, or the chief landowner of an area. around 200 years ago who, listening to Paradise Lost being read aloud, exclaims "By God! I know not what the outcome may be, but this Lucifer is a damned fine fellow, and I hope he may win!". This is the moral labyrinth of Milton's masterwork, which depicts good as a close and sometimes overlapping neighbour of evil. Milton wrote once that "In moral evil much good may be mixed, and that with singular craft", and the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called Milton's Satan "a moral being... far superior to his God". Deciphering the moral code of Paradise Lost has troubled critics for as long as the poem has existed, and the text demands a reader with an attentive eye for moral reasoning.

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Paradise Lost takes marriage as one of its central themes following the creation of Adam and Eve. For Milton, marriage is built as a strict hierarchy, emphasising firstly love of God over romantic love, and secondly the supremacy of the patriarch over his wife. Eve can only commune with God through Adam, and she is no match for his wit or physical strength. Church doctrine penned in the 17th Century stated that in matrimony, a man should act as head of the household and a woman should remain subservient to his desires. However, it was thought that marriage should also be based on mutual companionship and enrichment, and many critics have read the relationship between Adam and Eve in this poem as a "partnership", with some even alleging that Milton's views on marriage and gender were progressiveIn a political context, the belief that society can be transformed in the interests of ordinary people. It is normally associated with the politics of the left. for his time.

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Paradise Lost is a canonically religious work written with genuine belief in the truth of the writer's subject. From Milton's perspective, he was elucidatingMaking something clear. on a true story. Nowadays, we tend more towards interpreting it as a work of fiction, but his audience at the time and for a long period after read the poem as a devotional act. Protestant Christian positions are at the fore in this text, which focuses on Christ's salvationBeing saved from harm or ruin, or in a religious context, sin. and mankind's unworthiness.

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Paradise Lost centres broadly around the ideas of kingship and tyrannyCruel and aggressive use of power, often used to describe countries under the grip of a single oppressive leader., something which many critics believe positions Milton's text as a discourse with politics of the time. Milton was an anti-royalist who argued against the divine right of kings and stated that "it is Lawfull... to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked king... and put him to death." However, critics are split on how Paradise Lost accounts for these views. Some say that Satan represents the destructive power of tyranny, though others point out that Satan appears to reject the idea of absolute power, speaking out against the "Throne and Monarchy of God".

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When God watches Satan approach Earth, his omnipresenceBeing found everywhere. allows him to be aware that mankind will prove corruptible and will use its free will to disgrace itself. And so when Satan, in the form of a serpent, convinces Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge (followed quickly by Adam), it is clear that this is both an act of fate and a symbol of free will.

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