SOURCE: “Thir Sex Not Equal Seem'd’: Equality in Paradise Lost,” in Of Poetry and Politics: New Essays on Milton and His World, edited by P. G. Stanwood, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1995, pp. 172-85.

In the following essay, Wilding argues that in Paradise Lost Milton is less concerned with the issue of sexual equality than with the revolutionary aim of achieving total human equality, “of restoring us to that still unregained blissful seat.”

The first description of Adam and Eve is a crucial passage for our understanding of Paradise Lost:

… but wide remote From this Assyrian Garden, where the Fiend Saw undelighted all delight, all kind Of living Creatures new to sight and strange: Two of far nobler shape erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native Honor clad In naked Majesty seem'd Lords of all, And worthy seem'd, for in their looks Divine The image of...