The Poet of Paradise

John Milton is sometimes known as the "poet of paradise." This name comes, of course, from his classic epic poem Paradise Lost and its follow-up, Paradise Regained. Milton wrote many other works and lived an eventful life.

Milton was born in 1608 on Bread Street in London. He was trained at Cambridge and sided with the Puritans in their disputes in the Church of England. In the 1640s, he was clearly on the side of Parliament during the English Civil War, as Parliament was fighting the forces of King Charles I. The Parliamentary forces, led by future Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, would eventually emerge victorious. Also during the 1640s, the ministers and theologians now known as the Westminster divines gathered at the Palace of Westminster and drafted the Westminster Standards. Milton was busy writing tracts in support of the Puritans and Parliament during these exciting times.

The 1650s were a very difficult decade for John Milton. He began to lose his sight, and by the end of the decade he was completely blind. Also, his first wife died in 1652; they had four children together. He remarried in 1656, but two years later, his second wife died from complications during childbirth. The child born from his second marriage also died. Though this was a very difficult and trying decade for Milton, it was also toward the end of the 1650s that Milton began Paradise Lost.

Early on in this work, right after Eve succumbs to the temptation from Satan and Adam also succumbs, the effects of the fall begin to ricochet through the garden. Before the fall, there was perfect harmony—between God and the man and woman He had created, and between the man and his wife. But with the fall, all that changed. Milton puts it this way:

Thus they in mutual accusation spent The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning; And of their vain contest appeared no end.

Adam and Eve turned on each other. Of course, we know how the story turns out. The effects of the fall continue to ricochet through their children, as Cain not only turns on Abel but slays him. In fact, Milton has Adam say this,

O miserable of happy! Is this the end Of this new glorious world, and me so late The glory of that glory, who now become Accursed of blessed? Hide me from the face Of God, whom to behold was then my height Of happiness: yet well, if here would end The misery, I deserved it, and would bear My own deservings.

Adam recognizes all that was lost in the fall. But Milton goes on to write about the second Adam, Christ, who comes to undo what Adam did.

We also have this beautiful line from Paradise Lost. Adam reaches down and gently pulls Eve up and says,

But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame each other, blam'd enough elsewhere, but strive In offices of Love, how we may light'n each others burden in our share of woe.

That's Britain's poet, the poet of paradise.