Paradise Lost as Reformation history

Milton\u27s entry into the political affairs in the early 1640\u27s was motivated by his belief that the millenium was imminent. Indeed, the wide appeal of millenarianism during this period can be attributed to the stress placed on the belief in the second advent as the sign of the true believer in Jesus Christ and a guide to personal godliness, and impetus to piety. The purpose of my dissertation, then, is to examine the extent of the effect of the millenarian movement on Milton and his art. In Chapter Two, I show how Milton modified his own conception of himself as poet once he enters the political fray of the 1640\u27s. During this period his role as poet is contingent upon social reform, and he promises to celebrate the victory of the Reformation which, of course, he cannot do until victory is achieved. Prior to this, in the 1630\u27s, Milton was more the humanist poet in the tradition Sidney and Jonson who worked to help shape society. But when the godly kingdom collapses in the late 1650\u27s and when Christ does not return, he does not retreat from the world. He assumes the role as prophet, continuing to believe in man\u27s capacity for change and, as I demonstrate in Chapter Five, his millenarianism is transformed into a belief that the kingdom of God will appear on earth, founded within each believer who possesses what he calls a paradise within. In Chapter Three, I explore the effect of this millenarianism on the poet\u27s conception of history, establishing that Milton modifies the Augustinian view of the dialogue between the two cities to make Babylon external, hierarchical, papistic and Jerusalem an internal state created by a kind of tropological millenium. I analyze in detail the historical view of the final books in these terms and show how the cosmic war of the middle books typologically anticipates the eschatological war posited by seventeenth-century millenialists. In Chapter Four, I demonstrate how clusters of anti-papistic and anti-prelatical emblems fill in the view of history described in Chapter Three, and in Chapter Five I develop the meaning of Milton\u27s \u27millenialist\u27 paradise within for the political/religious implications of the book