Milton says that he wishes to illustrate how the fall of man was, in fact, part of the greater plan of God and that it is justified. His muse and his poem intends to succeed beyond the wildest dreams of the Classical poets and accomplish things that they never hoped to do because his inspiration is more devout than theirs.Īt this point, Milton asks that the Holy Spirit fill him with the knowledge of the beginnings of the world. Milton says that his muse is the Holy Spirit itself, the divine inspiration that created the Christian Bible. He specifies that this muse is not one of the muses from traditional Greek legend but the same muse that inspired Moses to receive the Ten Commandments and write Genesis. Milton invokes a muse to sing this poem to him. From this, human beings lost their home in paradise until the day when Jesus comes to restore them to their former purity.

This original sin was not only the cause of Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden but also the cause of death being brought to human beings for the first time. This is a clever pun on the usage of the word 'fruit' to mean the consequences of someone's actions as well as an actual fruit. the consequences of Adam and Eve's actions. Milton asserts that the outcome of the original sin was the 'fruit' of the forbidden tree, i.e. This story first told in the first book of the Bible, Genesis is briefly recapped in the poem. The forbidden fruit hangs from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. The first act of disobedience is, of course, Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. The subject is mankind's first act of disobedience and betrayal toward God and all of the snowballing consequences that followed it. This epic poem begins with Milton declaring the subject of his poem. Throughout the poem, Milton frequently uses the narrative device of the muses to begin new sections and illustrate the themes and messages of the story. Throughout the poem, the reader is given Milton's interpretation of the fall of Satan from God's grace, the creation of God's son, Jesus, the temptation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

The poem tells the story of the fall of man through the eyes of muses that have given Milton the ability to see how such events played out.

Paradise lost by john milton