Postlapsarian Life In John Milton's Paradise Lost

Register to read the introduction… In their prelapsarian state, Adam and Eve were set to reap “immortal fruits of joy and love” (III.67) but after eating of the forbidden fruit they realize that this will no longer be the case. Adam bemoans how they “might have lived and joyed immortal bliss/Yet willing chose rather death,” (IX.1166-1167) and this fact is quickly confirmed by Jesus. Jesus judges Adam and tells him he will “return unto the ground for thou/Out of the ground wast taken. Know thy birth,/For dust thou art and shalt to dust return.” (X.205-207) The concept of death is troubling to Adam and Eve, and they wonder when and how life will be taken from them. Adam is told by Michael the various ways in which death will come to Adam, Eve, and their progeny, and the description is so terrible as to cause Adam tears. The two original parents have introduced death into the world for generations to come. Ironically, however, while Adam's judgment …show more content…
However, as Milton describes the Fall in Paradise Lost, God has given us the potential to regain all we have lost through the love and sacrifice of the Son. Modern man has no concept of prelapsarian life, although we can imagine that it is beyond any good we have ever experienced. Milton's God has given us the ability to one day experience that as long as we are diligent in bruising the head of the serpent and being redeemed through Jesus. As long as modern man can live this life, he has the potential to experience the prelapsarian state, and that redeems all that was lost through Original Sin. This ability to one day regain the unfallen state makes John Milton's Paradise Lost an exercise in hope once the reader realizes that all is not, in fact, lost, but can be