ABSTRACT
In Paradise Lost John Milton offers two accounts of Fall, one angelic and one human, presented at some points as causally related but at other points as related thematically — as separate illustrations of the same law. From the causal point of view man fell because tempted by Satan, who had himself already fallen and now sought revenge on God by securing new converts to his kingdom. The reaction of Satan to his fall is the first thing we meet in the poem. The situation is one that draws out some of Milton’s most famous lines. Satan rises to embrace separation from God as a permanent condition, learning to rely on himself rather than on anything outside himself. It is hard to imagine a stronger contrast to the wavering and contradictory responses of Adam and Eve after the Fall, their pleasure, their tears, their unreliability, than what is reported to us of the rebel angels.
