Milton and the Republican Politics of Paradise Lost

Milton was both a great poet and in his own time a well-known political writer. Reading Paradise Lost in the light of his republican political writings, however, presents a serious problem because it is Satan and his confederates who speak and act like republicans in that epic poem, as would have been obvious to his contemporary readers. Rather than try to explain this problem away as others have done, this paper argues that Paradise Lost advances a powerful republican argument continuous with Milton’s earlier political views. Specifically, Paradise Lost shows that monarchy and other artificial hierarchies are evil because they contradict the natural and equal right to freedom of all human beings.