The Decentralization of Morality in Paradise Lost

Abstract

true source of moral complication in the poem may lie in the struggle between Milton’s need to uphold the authority of God while simultaneously legitimizing opposition to the will of God. Milton needs to vindicate elements in the poem contrary to God’s will in order to add weight to the reader’s choice either to figuratively uphold or reject divine law. These conflicting aims ultimately lend contrary thematic values to the poem that create a fascinatingly paradoxical and engaging narrative. In order to create a legitimately questionable but ultimately beneficent God, Milton employs various representations of otherness—elements that are literally or figuratively outside of the rule of God. The fact that Milton creates a universe in which dwell sentient beings that are not created by God precede the rule of God, and/or are opposed to the will of God, greatly influences the moral structure of the poem. Given that there are entities in Paradise Lost which are essentially outside of God’s system, God becomes a ruler, a creator, not the ruler, the creator. Ancient night is the eldest of things, not simply the eldest creation of God. The realm of Chaos is infinite. God’s created system of existence, an affront to Chaos, is seemingly finite. Milton could certainly have chosen to leave these concepts as pure abstraction; yet he chose to give them voice, give them agency. This validation of otherness, in turn, lends textual credence, if not literal plausibility, to the desires of Adam, and the “stygian council” when they propose embracing nothingness (suicide) in order to escape God’s rule. Moloc argues: What fear we then? what doubt we to incense His utmost ire? which to the highth enrag’d, Will either quite consume us, and reduce To nothing this essential, happier farr Then miserable to have eternal being.

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