Abstract
This article examines the falls of Satan, Eve, and Adam in Milton’s Paradise Lost, arguing that these characters demonstrate neither sincere theology nor genuinely sincere behavior in their initial transgressions and continued unrepentant behavior. In analyzing matters of sincerity concerning these characters, this article interacts with numerous voices in the history of Paradise Lost criticism, particularly those critics who, advocating a Romantic understanding of sincerity against traditional Christianity, have defended the decisions of Satan, Eve, and Adam to transgress against God’s commands. This article also examines Adam and Eve’s sincere repentance later in Milton’s epic.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.Bagehot, Walter. Literary Studies . Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Ed. Richard Holt Hutton. London: Longmans, 1879 .
2.Ball, Patricia M. “Sincerity: The Rise and Fall of a Critical Term.” Modern Language Review 59.1 (1964): 1–11 .
3.Bauman, Michael. Milton’s Arianism . Frankfurt: Lang, 1987 .
4.Boswell, James. “[Boswell Interviews Voltaire].” The Norton Anthology of English Literature , 9th ed. Vol. C. Stephen Greenblatt, gen. ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 2960–62 .
5.Brooke, Stopford A. Milton . 1879. London: Macmillan, 1902 .
6.Bryson, Michael. The Tyranny of Heaven: Milton’s Rejection of God as King . Newark: U of Delaware P, 2004 .
7.–– and Arpi Movesian. Love and Its Critics: From the Song of Songs to Shakespeare and Milton’s Eden . Cambridge: Open Books Publishers, 2017 .
8.Campbell, Gordon, Thomas N. Corns, John K. Hale, and Fiona J. Tweedie. Milton and the Manuscript of “De Doctrina Christiana”. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007 .
9.Clementine Homilies . In The Ante-Nicean Fathers , vol. 8. Ed. Cleveland Cox. Buffalo, NY: 1886. 215–346. Accessed at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/coxe-ante-nicene-fathers-volume-8
10.Cyr, Marc D. “The Archangel Raphael: Narrative Authority in Milton’s War in Heaven.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 17.3 (1987): 309–16 .
11.Danielson, Dennis. Milton’s Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982 .
12.––. “Through the Telescope of Typology: What Adam Should Have Done.” Milton Quarterly 23.3 (1989): 121–27 .
13.Edwards, Karen L. Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in “Paradise Lost” . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999 .
14.Empson, William. Milton’s God . 1961. Rev. ed. London: Chatto & Windus, 1965 .
15.––. Some Versions of Pastoral . 1935. London: Chatto & Windus, 1950 .
16.Evans, J. M. “Paradise Lost” and the Genesis Tradition . Oxford: Clarendon P, 1968 .
17.Fish, Stanley. How Milton Works . Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard UP, 2001 .
18.––. “Milton and Interpretation.” Milton Studies 56 (2015): 3–16 .
19.––. Surprised by Sin: The Reader in “Paradise Lost”. 1967. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998 .
20.Flannagan, Roy, ed. The Riverside Milton . Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1998 .
21.Forsythe, Neil. The Satanic Epic . Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2003 .
22.Fresch, Cheryl H. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton . Vol. 5, Part 4: Paradise Lost , Book 4. Ed. P. J. Klemp. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2011 .
23.Grierson, Herbert J. C. Milton and Wordsworth, Poets and Prophets: A Study of Their Reactions to Political Events . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1937 .
24.–– Rev. of Denis Saurat, Milton: Man and Thinker . Modern Language Review 21.1 (1926): 440–42 .
25.Hanford, James Holly. “The Dramatic Element in Paradise Lost .” Studies in Philology 14 (1917): 178–95 .
26.Hunter, William B. Visitation Unimplor’d: Milton and the Authorship of “De Doctrina Christiana”. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1998 .
27.Ide, Richard S. “On the Begetting of the Son in Paradise Lost .” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 24.1 (1984): 141–55 .
28.Kelley, Maurice. This Great Argument: A Study of Milton’s “De Doctrina Christiana” as a Gloss upon “Paradise Lost”. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1941 .
29.Leonard, John. Faithful Labourers: A Reception History of “Paradise Lost,” 1667–1970 . Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013 .
30.––. Naming in Paradise: Milton and the Language of Adam and Eve . Oxford: Clarendon P, 1990 .
31.––. The Value of Milton . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016 .
32.Lewalski, Barabara Kiefer. “Paradise Lost” and the Rhetoric of Literary Forms . Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1985 .
33.Lewis, C. S. A Preface to “Paradise Lost”. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1942 .
34.Lieb, Michael. The Dialectics of Creation: Patterns of Birth & Regeneration in “Paradise Lost”. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1970 .
35.Low, Anthony. “The Parting in the Garden in Paradise Lost .” Philological Quarterly 67 (1968): 30–35 .
36.Magill, R. Jay, Jr. Sincerity . New York: Norton, 2012 .
37.McColley, Diane Kelsey. Milton’s Eve . Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1983 .
38.Miller, Shannon. Engendering the Fall: John Milton and Seventeenth-Century Women Writers . Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2008 .
39.Milton, John. Christian Doctrine . The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, vol. 6. Ed. Maurice Kelley. Trans. John Carey. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1973 .
40.–– De Doctrina Christiana . The Complete Works of John Milton, vol. VIII. Ed. and trans. John K. Hale and J. Donald Cullington. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012– .
41.Musacchio, George. Milton’s Adam and Eve: Fallible Perfection . New York: Lang, 1991 .
42.Oxford English Dictionary (online). Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000–
43.Peter, John. A Critique of “Paradise Lost” . New York: Columbia UP, 1960 .
44.Pruitt, Kristin A. Gender and the Power of Relationship: “United as One Individual Soul” in “Paradise Lost”. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2003 .
45.Quint, David. Inside “Paradise Lost”: Reading the Designs of Milton’s Epic . Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2014 .
46.Raleigh, Walter. Milton . 1900. New York: Blom, 1967 .
47.Revard, Stella P. “Eve and the Doctrine of Responsibility in Paradise Lost .” PMLA 88.1 (1973): 69–78 .
48.Saurat, Denis. Milton: Man and Thinker . New York: Dial P, 1925 .
49.Schultz, Charles M. The Complete Peanuts: 1959 to 1960 . Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 2006 .
50.Shears, Jonathon. The Romantic Legacy of “Paradise Lost”: Reading against the Grain . Farnham: Ashgate, 2009 .
51.Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Shelley’s Prose or The Trumpet of Prophecy . Ed. David Lee Clark. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1954 .
52.Sinanan, Kerry, and Tim Milnes, “Introduction.” Romanticism, Sincerity and Authenticity . Ed. Tim Milnes and Kerry Sinanan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 1–28 .
53.Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments . Ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982 .
54.Sullivan, Ernest. Rev. of Campbell, Gordon, Thomas N. Corns, John K. Hale, and Fiona J. Tweedie, Milton and the Manuscript of “De Doctrina Christiana”. Review of English Studies 60.243 (2009): 153–54 .
55.Swinden, Patrick. “Doing God’s Will: Motives, Intentions and the Characters of Paradise Lost .” Literature & Theology 12.4 (December 1998): 363–78 .
56.Thickstun, Margaret Olofson. Milton’s “Paradise Lost”: Moral Education . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 .
57.Tillyard, E. M. W. Milton . London: Chatto & Windus, 1930 .
58.Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972 .
59.Urban, David V. “The Lady of Christ’s College, Himself a ‘Virgin Wise and Pure’: Parabolic Self-Reference in John Milton’s Sonnet IX .” Milton Studies 47 (2008): 1–23 .
60.––. Milton and the Parables of Jesus: Self-Representation and the Bible in John Milton’s Writings . University Park: Penn State UP, 2018 (forthcoming) .
61.––. Rev. of John Leonard, The Value of Milton . Modern Philology 115.2 (November 2017): E83–86 .
62.Waldock, A. J. A. “Paradise Lost” and Its Critics . 1947. Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1959 .
63.Whittington, Leah. “Milton’s Poetics of Supplication.” Milton Studies 55 (2014): 113–45 .