SOURCE: "Milton and the Fit Reader: Paradise Lost and the Parliment of Hell," in Milton and the Revolutionary Reader, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 177-223.

Below, Achinstein examines Milton's political and ethical concerns in Paradise Lost and his belief that perceptive readers who possess self-knowledge are key to the maintaining of liberty in England.

… Paradise Lost is no squib nor a polemical barb in some pamphlet war; it is, rather, an extraordinary epic poem, encompassing far more than simply a topical political intention. Marvell summed it up best by listing the ingredients of Paradise Lost as an almost unimaginable heap: " Messiah Crown'd, God's Reconcil'd Decree, / Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All."⁵⁶ In that frail "All" hangs the entire tale. However, in its mission to justify the ways of God to men, and also to find a "fit audience … though few," Milton's poem is consistent with the ethical concerns voiced in...