Epic Synthesis of Milton's Paradise Lost 2/2
The Poetic Weaving of Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Medieval, and Anglo Saxon Traditions
Anglo-Saxon Cadence and Poetic Tradition
Though trained in Latin and Greek, Milton wrote in English, and not just any English. His diction and rhythm channel the gravity of Old English verse. The moral seriousness, the compound epithets, and the heroic tone recall Beowulf and The Dream of the Rood. Yet he baptizes that tradition, holding off pagan fatalism with Christian hope.
He also echoes specific Anglo-Saxon poems like Christ I, Christ II, Christ III, and the Harrowing of Hell. The triumphant descent of Christ into hell, freeing the righteous dead, rings in Milton’s depiction of the Son’s pre-incarnate victory over Satan. Similarly, the Dream of the Rood's warrior-Christ—who mounts the cross like a knight going to battle—prefigures Milton’s majestic portrayal of the Son who rides to war in heaven, casting down the rebel angels.
Christ III, a portion of The Christ Trilogy, culminates in a vision of the Last Judgment where Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. This apocalyptic imagery, shot through with light and majesty, resonates with Milton’s hints of eschatological fulfillment. Though Milton does not narrate the final judgment directly, his poem ends with a promise that history will one day be redeemed and the cosmic order restored—a vision shared with the closing movement of *Christ III*, where justice and mercy are fully revealed.
Satan himself resonates with the Anglo-Saxon image of the treacherous thane or ring-breaker—a once-noble servant turned traitor. This theme of cosmic exile, drawn from elegies like The Wanderer or The Seafarer, pervades Paradise Lost: Satan and his host are cast into the outer void, while Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden, with only a promise of return.
Though he may have never read the poems directly, these Anglo Saxon poems have so entered the English imagination that they echo in the images that all English poets use for Satan and his hordes. But Milton was not isolated from the antiquarian scholars reviving interest in these Old English texts in his day. He was a close acquaintance of Franciscus Junius the Younger, one of the foremost collectors and editors of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Junius's edition of the Cædmon manuscript, including Genesis B, profoundly shaped the biblical-poetic landscape that Milton’s imagination was shaped by. While we have no record of Milton reading these manuscripts directly, it is likely that his conversations with Junius exposed him to their themes and styles.
Likewise, Milton admired and drew upon the work of John Selden, the jurist and scholar of ancient laws and traditions. Selden’s deep knowledge of England’s legal and literary past, including Anglo-Saxon charters and ecclesiastical history, provided a rich intellectual backdrop to Milton’s own poetic enterprise. Selden, whom Milton called “the chief of learned men in this land,” owned and likely discussed many of the texts that shaped the English Christian heritage with Milton.
Science, Cosmology, and the Limits of Reason
Milton wrote during the rise of modern science, and he wrestles with it. He references both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, acknowledging their explanatory power while subordinating them to divine mystery. The cosmos of Paradise Lost is majestic, not because it is mechanistic, but because it is the theater of divine drama.
Republican Liberty and the Abuse of Power
Milton’s political ideals—formed in the crucible of the English Civil War—infuse the poem. Satan’s rebellion is a parody of liberty: self-willed autonomy masquerading as freedom. In contrast, true liberty in the poem is found in loving obedience to just authority.
Renaissance Humanism and Literary Craft
Finally, Milton is writing in the Christian Renaissance humanist tradition, aiming to educate through beauty. His epic is not merely a story—it is moral instruction, intellectual provocation, and spiritual meditation. He joins the ranks of Boethius, Dante, Chaucer, and Petrarch, seeking not only to express truth, but to form the soul be showing the beauty of truth as well as sorting out the beautiful aspects of the pagan poetry and employing them in the service of truth.
Milton thus accomplishes what Augustine dreamed of: baptizing classical reason into the service of divine revelation. He portrays man’s fall not as a myth but as history, infused with theological depth and cosmic significance. He stands in the long Christian humanist tradition who saw no conflict between faith and reason, Scripture and philosophy, poetry and theology.
A Cathedral of Word and Spirit
Paradise Lost is not merely a poem; it is a great Christian synthesis. Like a cathedral, it gathers stone from many quarries—Greek and Roman, Hebrew and English, theological and poetic—and raises them into a harmonious whole. At its center is not Milton, but the Triune God: Creator, Redeemer, Judge. In reading it, we walk into the vast nave of the Christian imagination, where Scripture meets song, reason meets revelation, and all creation is drawn into the drama of redemption as the Theatre of God’s Glory.
If you can read through book 3 aloud without weeping, you might not be a man.
I’m 38 and have never been compelled to read Paradise Lost before now. It was on my shelf, and now it will be by my bedside.