In 1967, Milton scholars were largely divided on the subject of Milton's sympathies in Paradise Lost. On one side were those who thought that Paradise Lost portrayed Satan as a sympathetic protagonist, thereby aligning Milton with the party of the Devil. On the other side were those who argued that Milton was clearly aligning himself with God and man. When Stanley Fish's influential monograph Surprised by Sin was published, it helped unite these two camps into an argument that has influenced critical interpretations of the text for decades.
Fish argued that it is the reader, not Satan or God, who is the primary subject in Paradise Lost. His governing ideology was that Paradise Lost seeks to explain to the reader how they came to be the way they are – that is, fallen – by creating a sympathetic character out of Satan. As such, Fish argued that the reader is constantly reminded of their own fallen state through the sympathy they might develop for Satan. Any time Satan does or says something that might resonate with readers, Fish asserted, this is Milton's way of dramatizing how man came to succumb to the temptation Satan presented.
Fish's work has continued to influence scholarship on Paradise Lost since its publication. Many now accept Fish's argument as the precise reason why Milton's Satan is at once so vindictive, relatable, and rhetorically skilled. In other words, the very act of reading Paradise Lost becomes a temptation for readers to give in to Satan's arguments about God, Heaven, and power, thereby recreating the story of the fall for each reader.
