Eden Flashcards
Introduction
In Paradise Lost, John Milton presents Eden not merely as a physical place, but as a spiritual and psychological landscape shaped by the moral condition of those who inhabit it. As a setting, Eden initially reflects the divine order, harmony and obedience of Ada and Eve before the Fall, aligning physical beauty with inner virtue. However, Milton gradually reveals that paradise is not fixed- it is mutable, contingent on the state of the soul. Satan’s arrival and his perception of Eden as a tormenting reminder of lost grace, and the eventual disobedience of Adam and Eve, transform the garden from a site of delight into a sight of shame and alienation. The central Miltonic idea: paradise and hell are not objective realities, but internal states reflected outward.
Thus, Eden functions not just as a biblical garden, but as a moral mirror: its serenity or corruption corresponding to the internal purity or fallenness of the characters who behold it.
Conclusion
Milton’s Eden is not a static paradise, but a landscape shaped by the moral and spiritual condition of its beholders. In its prelapsarian state, it reflects Adam and Eve’s obedience and unity; after the Fall, it becomes a corrupted space of shame and alienation. Satan’s view of Eden as a “hell of heaven” reveals how internal distorts perception, while the natural world’s response to disobedience- trembling earth, darkened sky, weeping heavens- externalises the rupture between humanity and God. Milton ultimately shows how paradise is not secured by geography, but by moral order. Though Eden is lost, its loss opens the path to inner redemption, affirming that true paradise lies not in place, but in the soul rightly aligned with divine will.
1: Prelapsarian Eden as a reflection of internal purity
Quotes and analysis
-Milton presents Eden not only as a biblical paradise, but as a material expression of Adam and Eden’s prelapsarian moral and spiritual purity.
-rooted in its genesis origins as a ”rich and fertile place of unbroken fellowship” and the hebrew meaning of ”Eden” being ”delight and pleasure”, the garden mirrors a world untouched by sin
-Milton’s Eden is characterised by perfect order, symmetry and sensory abundance, which reflects the obedient unity of its first inhabitants. Adam and Eve’s compliance to “work” that “God hath assigned” amid “the sweetest scents of airs” displays an alignment between human will and divine purpose.
-the landscape, rich with floral imagery ”in Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed/ their morning incense” uses personification and enjambement to evoke a sense of unbroken sanctity. The flowers ”breathe” as if in worship, capturing the moral and ecological harmony of the garden.
-Eve’s presence ”in yonder spring of roses intermixed with myrtle” further aligns the natural world with human internal states: ”roses” suggesting transient beauty or desire, ”myrtle” evoking faithfulness and sacrificial love.
-Eden thus becomes an outward manifestation of inward obedience, a visible expression of innocence, unity and love
1: Prelapsarian Eden as a reflection of internal purity
CRITICS
CRITIC: Bell controversially argues that “there was no fall” and that “Adam and Eve were always flawed” but this reading fails to account for the intimate correlation between the harmony of Eden’s setting and the purity of its inhabitants’ state of mind. Milton’s Eden is not flawed from the start- it is morally dependent on the state of those who inhabit it
2: Eden through Satan’s Lens- projection of internal torments
Quotes and analysis
-Milton juxtaposes Adam and Eve’s harmonious perception of Eden with Satan’s anguished and inverted view, wherein the garden’s beauty becomes a source of torment.
-despite Eden’s objective perfection, Satan perceives it as ”a hell of heaven” (book 4), a reflection of his internal estrangement from God.
-his presence in Eden is driven by envy and unresolved bitterness, recalling his punishment in Book 1 where he is ”hurled headlong” from heaven and chained on a lake of fire. This memory fuels ”the hot hell that always in him burns” (book 4), making Eden’s delights a source of deeper suffering
-Milton foregrounds Satan’s alienation: ”Anguish driven, the space of seven continued nights he rode/ with darkness”
Here the trochaic substitution on “anguish” breaks the iambic flow, reflecting the disruption Satan’s inner turmoil brings to Eden’s harmony. The allusion to “seven” days subverts the creation narrative- Satan’s descent into darkness becomes a twisted anti-creation, highlighting the cosmic implications of his rebellion.
-his famous lament ”the more i see/ Pleasures about me, so much more i feel/ torment within me”- draws a direct connection between external beauty and internal suffering. The more perfect Eden appears, the more unbearable it becomes for Satan. His torment is psychological, and Milton emphasises this with disrupted rhythm and emphatic parellelism
2: Eden through Satan’s Lens- projection of internal torments
CRITICS and CONTEXT
CRITIC: Stanley Fish suggests that **”milton means for us to be seduced by Satan” but book 9 resists this. Satan’s **”relentless thoughts” and his soliloquy beginning with ”Miserable me” (book 4) paint a picture of a creature haunted by despair, not a charismatic anti-hero.
CONTEXT: his chilling declaration, **”Myself am hell” (book 4) solidifies the idea that Eden’s appearance shifts depending on the soul’s condition. For satan, Eden does not redeem; it condemns. The garden therefore becomes a psychological mirror, and Milton uses Satan to show how corruption of the mind distorts the perception of paradise.
3: Postlapsarian Eden- Moral collapse reflected in Nature
Quotes and analysis
-the Fall irrevocably alters Eden, transforming it from a site of moral clarity to one of shame, dissonance and exile. Before, Eden reflects the harmony between inner purity and outward beauty; after it becomes a theatre of divine judgement mirroring Adam and Eve’s fallen internal states.
-Eve’s disobedience is starkly conveyed: ”she plucked; she ate;/ Earth felt the wound”. The monosyllabic rhythm here punctures her act with brutality and simplicity; while the personification of Earth’s suffering underlines how spiritual disobedience now scares the physical world
-when Adam joins in: ”Earth trembled […] sky loured, and muttering thunder, some sad drops/ Wept at completing of the mortal sin”. Milton fuses internal guilt with ecological response. Nature itself reacts, not as metaphor, but as a moral barometer. Eden- the once perfect reflection of obedience- now expresses disobedience. The Tree of Knowledge becomes not just a test, but a symbol of the human struggle to choose between good and evil.
-Adam and Eve’s altered perception of Eden is most evident in their experience of shame and alienation. Where before in book 4 they embraced each other ”under open sky” now they retreat to a ”shady bank”. The description **”Naked left/ to guilty shame […] uncovered” marks a transition from innocence to self-consciousness, from unity with nature to fear of exposure. Eden has not changes in structure, but its meaning has shifted. It becomes a landscape of regret, no longer reflecting their obedience, but projecting their guilt.
3: Postlapsarian Eden- Moral collapse reflected in Nature
CRITICS and CONTEXT
CRITIC: Noam Reisner calls it “an arbitrary sign of mankind’s trial and obedience”, yet Milton’s Areopagitica frames the ability to choose between evil as a precondition for true virtue. The fruit symbolises more than prohibition- it externalises the battle of internal moral agency.
CONTEXT: the poem’s final movement reinforces this interconnection between landscape and inner transformation. Though Adam and Eve are banished, Milton writes ”the world was all before them, where to choose/ their place of rest and, Providence their guide”. This final line, echoing Edenic freedom but in a fallen world, affirms that paradise is no loner a place but a state of the soul- lost through sin, but recoverable through repentance.
