Disobedience
The central theme surrounding Paradise Lost – as well as its source text, the book of Genesis in the Bible – is disobedience, specifically man's disobedience of God's commands. When Adam and Eve are created and placed in Eden, God warns them never to pick from the tree of knowledge. Eve's (and later Adam's) disobedience of this command is what leads to what is known as the "fall," or the creation of man's original sin. This disobedience is also what ushers in a slew of new, distinctly human experiences like shame, misogyny, and physical pain.
Justification of God's Ways
While it may at times be difficult to believe, Paradise Lost was written as a means of "justify[ing] the ways of God to man" (1.25-26). Milton announces this goal in the introduction to the epic, framing it as a lengthy explanation of God's behavior in the Old Testament (which man consider particularly harsh), and His ultimate benevolence in the New Testament. Because of the fraught religious atmosphere in which Milton was writing, Paradise Lost was written as a reminder to early modern English society about the importance of continued and unwavering faith in God.
Gender and Misogyny
Many have noted that Paradise Lost draws distinct lines between the sexes by considering Eve the "weaker" of the two, and thus making her Satan's target. However, feminist scholars have maintained that the misogyny and gender disparity that exists in Paradise Lost is associated with Satan's perspective, aligning the degradation of women with Satan and the fall rather than with God or Adam. Indeed, readers may note that Adam's misogynistic rant against Eve after she convinces him to eat from the tree of knowledge occurs after the fall, suggesting that it was man's disobedience that ushered in troubling and unjust phenomena like misogyny and sexism.
Love and Sex
Despite – or likely because of – its Christian framework, Paradise Lost places profound importance on love and especially on sexual union throughout its first six books. Indeed, part of the bliss of Adam and Eve's life in Eden is their perfect, uninhibited, entirely satisfying sex life. Readers later hear about the sexual unions of angels in heaven, something described to Adam and Eve as so transcendent that they could not possibly wrap their own human minds around it. As such, sex without shame or power struggles is a distinct feature of life before the fall of man. After Adam and Eve disobey God, however, their abundant and luxuriant sex life gives way to blame, defiance, and resentment toward one another.
Satan's Relatability
In his famous monograph, Surprised by Sin, Stanley Fish argues that one of the defining features of Paradise Lost among other Christian narratives is its ability to essentially create a sympathetic protagonist out of Satan. Indeed, a large portion of the narration is dedicated to exploring Satan's own troubled psychology, specifically his feelings of ostracism, pain, loss of power, and sadness. While readers may not immediately identify Satan as the protagonist of the epic, there are numerous instances throughout the poem where Satan's arguments about God and man might resonate with the audience.
Eloquence
Working in tandem with Satan's ability to stir sympathy in the reader is his infamous skill in elocution and persuasive speech. Satan is a character who represents temptation, and as such he speaks with eloquence unparalleled in the poem and likely in the whole of English literature. Indeed, critics to this day consider Milton's Satan the best rhetorician within the entire English canon, and with good reason: Milton takes care to feature some of his strongest poetic skills in Satan's speeches, often lacing his monologues with "s" sounds to mimic the presence of a snake, as well as relying on enjambment to keep a steady, lulling flow to Satan's arguments. The poem ultimately suggest that the audience beware of this type of easy and seductive eloquence, showcasing how Eve easily fell victim to the specious arguments Satan presented to her.
English Politics
While one can read Paradise Lost as a distinctly Christian text, Milton's background as a political activist offers more nuanced ways to interpret the poem. At the time Milton was writing his epic, Charles I had been executed in 1649 and the restoration had occurred in 1660, bringing the monarchy back to England and doing away with commonwealth rule. Milton, an advocate of a "mixed monarchy" and a firm dissenter against absolute power, was a vocal supporter of the commonwealth at the time of the English Civil War. In Milton's view, the only entity with absolute power was God himself, and those who sought to assign themselves absolute power were nothing but despotic imposters. As such, many read Paradise Lost as a profound political commentary, in which Milton associates the notion of absolute power on earth with the narcissism and persuasive power of Satan.
