PARADISE LOST AND THE FALL FROM GRACE: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE REDEMPTION POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

Paradise Lost is the most theological of all English poems. The Bible is the fountain head of this epic which deals with Man‟s disobedience, his loss of paradise, and the prime cause of his fall constituting the doctrine known as the Fall of Man. The subject of this epic ―the Fall of Man―is directly drawn from the Bible. The narrative of the creation of Adam and Eve, their prelapsarian life in Paradise, Satan‟s enticement of the mother of mankind, Eve‟s succumbing to the temptation of Satan and her eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, her sharing the fruit with Adam, and their final expulsion from the plain of Paradise ―find expression in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. Milton takes up this narrative and gives a new shape to it in the form of an epic poem. But the point of paramount importance here is that Milton goes beyond the Biblical texts and gives an expanded version of the narrative in Paradise Lost. In many important aspects, the epic does not conform to the Biblical positions. This present research has endeavored to survey how far Milton has maintained his loyalty to the Bible in the process of composing the epic and how far his appropriated Biblical contents are authentic or accurate