Humanism of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

Milton eloquently describes man’s Fall and here appears Milton’s diversity. According to the Bible legend Eve commits the sin and Adam follows her. However Milton could not accept that gaining of knowledge could be a sin. The bliss of Paradise is only an illusion which does not coincide with the human nature. Physical and spiritual aspect should be in harmony within a man. Adam’s and Eve’s life in the Paradise lacked the physical aspect. When they understood what was right and what was wrong they gained cognition of their physical nature. However, this fact did not kill their spirituality. Therefore, Adam consciously had chosen the fall because he loves Eve and shares her fate.

Milton excuses Eve’s sin because she did it according to natural human’s thirst for knowledge. This idea is expressed in Adam’s speech after exile from Paradise. Eve in despair thinks about the suicide, but Adam soothes her saying words about the value of life. He admits that they are doomed to suffer but despite all the difficulties life from Adam’s point of view is not joyless:

[…]to thee [ 1050 ]

Pains only in Child-bearing were foretold,

And bringing forth, soon recompensed with joy,

Fruit of thy Womb: On me the Curse aslope

Glanced on the ground, with labour I must earn

My bread; what harm? Idleness had been worse;

My labour will sustain me…

An active life and labour are the integral parts of human’s destiny not a curse. Here Milton again corrects the Bible from the point of view of humanism for the sake of confirmation of life and human dignity.

Thus, bridging the Renaissance interest in classical antiquity and the Reformation interest in the Bible, John Milton's “Paradise Lost” is an important work of Christian humanism in England. By attempting to disrupt the so-called wisdom of the classics and the Bible, Milton's work asks important questions about the role of literature in the pursuit of knowledge and ways of knowing.