ABSTRACT
Speaking of Milton's heaven in Paradise Lost, J. B. Broadbent argues that all objective discussions of God are absurd' as their contact with reality is restricted to moments at which the listener share a glimpse of the poet's God. Milton's Michael describes the problem which Adam and the reader face in trying to approach Milton's God: Much thou hast yet to see, but he perceive Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine must needs impair and weary human sense. Broadbent comments that Milton transfers our attention to the angels, and through their dazzlement makes God not an abstract celestial light but a power active in his own creation. The problem of the inapproachability of God seems, to be particularly potent for Milton among seventeenth-century poets. Milton is able to circumvent the theological issue of God's resistant light for his own narrative purposes, and C. A. Patrides has argued that Milton often differentiated between the father and the son', specifically for dramatic purposes.
