John Miltons Paradise Lost Essay: Allegory of Sin and Death :: Milton Paradise Lost Essays

Allegory of Sin and oddment in Paradise Lost That Miltons Paradise Lost is unsurpassed--and hardly equaled--in face literature is generally accepted by critics and scholars. Whether it may have heartbreaking flaws, however, and what they may be, is less certain, for it is here that opinion varies. Of qualityicular interest to whatever is the allegory of Sin and Death (II. 648-883). Robert C. Fox wonders that it has non been the subject of frequently more critical discussion, asking Is it that Miltons readers argon puzzled by this chronological succession and, unable to explain its significance, prefer to pass it over in secrecy? Or do they regard it as so obvious in meaning that no interpretive remarks are necessary? (The Allegory 354). any(prenominal) the answer to Foxs query, his point is well taken in a thought of the bibliography of the Modern Language Association from 1950-1980, fewer than twenty references specifically given up to this allegory can be located, and m any of these, rather than pursuing the inquire of its appropriateness and/or its importance within the total work, simply enquire its tradition and sources. Merritt Y. Hughes, in referring to those scholars who have commented on the allegory, writes that for two centuries critics agreed that the criterion into pure allegory in Sin and Death was a make out on the poem and an external incrustation. Recently they have been wondering whether it is not a part of the structural irony of the whole design (177). It is this latter(prenominal) view on which this paper focuses the allegory is indeed an integral part of the whole of Paradise Lost, not an error of judgment on Miltons part, as or so critics believe. It is defensible on two levels, both in term of structure and in terms of content. Since it is the presence of allegorical figures--abstractions--in the epic to which some critics object, it is necessary here to discuss both allegory and epic form. Allegory, fit to William Fl int Thrall and Addison Hibbard, is defined as an extended metaphor in which objects and persons in a narrative . . . are equated with meanings that lie outside it, uses characters that are usually personifications of abstract qualities, the action and the setting representative of the relationships among these abstractions. Allegory attempts to produce a dual interest, one in the events, characters, and setting presented, and the other in the ideas they are intended to convey or the significance they bear (7-8).