What work of literature, over three and a half centuries old, still echoes through the ages – from the speeches of revolutionaries to the annals of science fiction? Look no further than John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, a sprawling masterpiece that seems to contain multitudes. Published in 1667 and revised in 1674, the year of Milton’s death, the 10,000-line poem has inspired and provoked in almost equal measure.
In his new book What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, author Orlando Reade takes a deep dive into the poem’s enduring relevance and its ability to speak to wildly disparate audiences. Drawing on a cast of famous readers and thinkers from Thomas Jefferson to Hannah Arendt, Reade shows how Milton’s work has been a touchstone for political and philosophical discourse for centuries.
The Devil’s Party
One of Paradise Lost‘s most compelling and controversial elements is Milton’s vivid portrayal of Satan. In an age of stark moral absolutes, Milton imbued his devil with a startling degree of complexity and even charisma. The Romantic poets, in particular, were drawn to Satan as a rebel hero, with Percy Shelley adopting Satan’s rallying cry for his own revolutionary purposes:
“Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n”
— Satan in Paradise Lost, adopted by Percy Shelley
This embrace of Satan as a political symbol points to the ambiguities and contradictions that animate Paradise Lost. Milton was a man of his time, caught between the revolutionary fervor of the English Civil War and the return to monarchy. His Satan is both villain and antihero, tyrant and underdog.
Light and Darkness
Beyond its political reverberations, Paradise Lost has also left an indelible mark on literature, perhaps nowhere more so than in the realm of science fiction. When Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein in 1818, she turned to Milton for the novel’s epigraph:
“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
— Adam in Paradise Lost, quoted in Frankenstein
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”
The parallels are striking – like Milton’s Adam railing against his creator, Shelley’s monster turns on the man who made him. It’s a theme that recurs throughout science fiction, from Blade Runner to Ex Machina. Paradise Lost provides the template: a story of creation and rebellion, of light against darkness.
An Endless Fascination
What accounts for Paradise Lost‘s staying power? For Reade, it’s the poem’s bottomless complexity, the way it seems to contain arguments and counterarguments without end. Like Milton’s “great Argument” – the attempt to “justify the ways of God to men” – the debates around the poem’s meaning seem inexhaustible.
And perhaps that’s as it should be. Great works of art don’t provide easy answers; they provoke, challenge, and inspire. Paradise Lost is no exception. In plumbing its depths, we continue a conversation that stretches back centuries, one that touches on questions of freedom, authority, and what it means to be human. It’s a conversation that’s sure to endure, as new generations discover both the darkness and the light in Milton’s timeless epic.
