THE THEME OF “PARADISE LOST”
The theme of Milton is not primarily Satan, nor even God and angels, but humanity. Not only do the opening lines of “Paradise Lost” proclaim the subject “man’s disobedience,” but throughout the epic it is the fate of man that is made the issue of every event in the universal creation. Thus Milton begins his story, not when Satan is conspiring against God, but when the defeated devil turns his revengeful thought toward the future inhabitants of the earth. Of that new world man is solemnly made the lord, God himself descending to breathe into him a spiritual life. It is to warn man against his fall that the rebellion in heaven is related; and in the central books it is the glory and the weakness of human nature that we see displayed. Finally, the future history of the world is communicated to Adam, not so much to manifest the absolute power of God or the futility of Satan’s hate, as to assure the children of God of his eternal love toward them. In short, the subject is not theology but religion—not the nature of God and of Satan, but the relation of the powers of good and of evil to ourselves. Could a poet deal with a problem of more compelling and everlasting interest to us? The reader who focuses his attention upon the human beings in “Paradise Lost” will do what the poet did, and will, though accidental details may elude him, follow Milton’s essential thought. The descriptions of heaven and hell, which may not correspond precisely to the reader’s notions of the states of bliss and of misery, will recede into the background, where they belong; and gradually there will rise before him Milton’s idea of the true meaning of human life.