Chapter Themes of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

with inner deliberation. This is a familiar feature of Milton – compare the resolutions of both Samson and Abdiel.

Eve reasons they "Both have sinned, but thou | Against God only, I against God and thee" (X.930-1). In forgiving Eve, Adam makes the first step in regeneration, enacting a central tenet of Christianity :by forgiving he too will be forgiven.

Sexuality

Milton presents prelapsarian sexual relations that are wholly within the divine Creation. We are reminded of the evening prayers that precede the love-making. The union of Adam and Eve is significant for humankind and conducive to the further absorption of the goodness of God. From God they are "promised from us two a race | To fill the earth, who shall with us extol | …goodness infinite" (IV.732-4). The abuses of sex can easily be interpreted as postlapsarian. However, Milton concludes that physical union between the sexes must be a God-given, and therefore justified, component of Paradise.

Angelic sex is a theme Milton introduces to the poem gratuitously. The idea that fallen angels have sex with humans was commonplace; there was an ancient belief that incubi and succubi (devils in the form of men and women) had sex with humans. Milton alludes to this in Paradise Regained. Even righteous angels, we are told, have sexual intercourse with each other. Raphael tells Adam of this in Book VIII. Though warned off his inquiry about the universe, Raphael explicitly answers Adam’s question (VIII.615- 17) on the relations between angels.

"Let it suffice thee that thou know’st

Us happy, and without love no happiness.

Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st

(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy

In eminence, and obstacle find none

Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars;

Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace,

Total they mix, union of pure with pure

Desiring; nor restrained conveyance need

As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.

(VIII.620-9)"

This view of angels is unorthodox in the angelological tradition, but it serves Paradise Lost in a number of ways. Firstly, linking with Milton’s earlier writing on the sanctity of sexual relations, Milton is asserting the heavenly status of sexuality that is part of love. With this, by implication, therefore human sexuality is not immoral, rather it is divine. The angels are not gendered, therefore their coition is for love rather than procreation – Milton argues that so do Adam and Eve, and by implication all of the godly.

All of this is in contrast to the Satanic party. On watching Adam and Eve embrace, Satan remarks

"I to hell am thrust,

Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire

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