MILTON'S HOUSEHOLD EPIC

Abstract

ABSTRACT Formal epic is both consummated and altered by Milton in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, which absorb much of the tradition but recast it. The focus in Paradise Lost on Adam and Eve is part of Milton's conscious resistance to chivalric epic on behalf of Puritan and domestic values. In contrast to the royalist apologetic still active in his day, Milton subordinated civil to religious institutions. The sublime domesticity of Adam and Eve is expressed by the meet conversations of Book IV, where Milton defines a new love language and combines pastoral and heroic virtues. The Fall adds the moral values of redemption in a chastened Adam and Eve and in Christ, who completes the heroic paradigm. This notion of the heroic is not new, but reformative; it goes back to scriptural precedents. But it is also provoked by the times, and Milton invents a new style to handle the scriptural materials.