A815 - Representing the Divine: Genesis and Paradise Lost Analysis

This essay delves into the approaches taken by Genesis and John Milton's Paradise Lost in representing the unrepresentable, specifically focusing on the portrayal of God, Satan, and supernatural elements. It explores the similarities and differences in their depictions of divinity, the use of linguistic tools to represent abstract concepts like sin and death, and the exploration of free will and forgiveness. The analysis highlights Milton's invocation of divine inspiration and the contrasting perspectives on the fall of mankind, examining the role of Satan, the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, and the theme of redemption. The essay also discusses the literary devices employed in Paradise Lost, particularly the use of allegorical characters and epic conventions, to convey the complex relationship between sin, death, and humanity's connection to the divine.

Running head: GENESIS AND PARADISE LOST
GENESIS AND PARADISE LOST
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The treatment of Supernatural elements in the different works of literature is an important
topic of discussion. The theme of religion God and Satan are discussed in different of books
literature of various linguistic tools have been used to express the supernatural in the light of the
modern language. In the following essay, the representation of the supernatural, God and Satan
and free will and forgiveness as God's gift is explored in the essay. It also explores the
representation and the linguistic tolls of representation of abstract elements like sin and death.
Language is an important part of describing different stories that make up the Genesis or John
Milton's Paradise Lost. The Bible and Paradise Lost are very contradictory books. The Bible is
the religious text of Christianity covering all the topics related to the society and the history of
the Christian religion1. One of the problems of representing something religious and related to
Supernatural such as God cannot be easily expressed in simple languages and terms. While
taking into consideration the two texts which are analysed the Genesis is the book one of The
Bible and Paradise Lost is a poem written in blank verse by John Milton. The two documents are
very varied in their approaches of discussion of God and humanity. Milton, however, tries to
invoke God's presence in him while writing the poem so that he can present most of the facts
truly.
Both the texts are quite alike in their representation of the supernatural and God. One of
the important aspects that stand out in Paradise Lost is that they explore the concept of divinity
in a very similar fashion which is the glorification of the omniscience and omnipresence of God.
The Genesis and Paradise Lost texts focus on the glorification of God and show how he punishes
and chooses to forgive when one is penitent. The use of the linguistic tools of the representation
of Sin and Death is an important aspect of the poem. The poem presents a number of allegorical
1 Herman, P., 2016. Destabilizing Milton:" Paradise Lost" and the poetics of incertitude. Springer.

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references in correlation to a number of previous epic tools. The personification of death and sin
and representation of their being as abstract living identities are one of the highlights of the
poem.
The use of language to depict the omnipotent omnipresent and ubiquitous presence of
God makes it tough for it to be expressed linguistically. John Milton in his poem to invokes God
to help him in presenting the ideas and the details of the various stories of God and Satan in a
proper way. Genesis and Paradise Lost both deals with divine topics in different ways. The
Genesis is the word of God about the creation of the world and how everything was created 2.
Paradise Lost, on the other hand, shows the fall of an Angel and of the whole of mankind which
brought them to earth. The divinity in both the aspects make it hard for the people to comprehend
and it must have been a challenge for Milton to portray the idea in a colloquial language.
The Bible and Paradise Lost are two different literary works focussing on the similar
topic of understanding the fall of mankind and development of the concept of good and evil. The
concept of divine interventions in the fate of mankind was never an easy topic to discuss fall of
mankind. The fall of mankind at the hands of Satan for eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge
has been portrayed by John Milton in his work. The understanding of the divine approach in the
fall of Satan and mankind helps in establishing the causes of the fall of mankind. The eating of
the fruit of knowledge and the further discourse between God and Adam before he is sent to
earth as a punishment for the sin they committed by having the forbidden fruit. It is said that the
humankind was to permanently reside in the heaven until they were misguided by Satan. The
2 Loewenstein, D., 2018. Paradise Lost: Experimental and Unorthodox Sacred Epic. A Companion to Renaissance
Poetry, 2287, p.214.

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misguidance from the Satan made Adam and Eve commit a sin by defying God3. Sin is an
important aspect of understanding the unpresentable vices that humankind possessed bringing
about their fall. The Sin and its forgiveness is an important aspect in the understanding of the
glory of God and the love of God for mankind. This is also used in both the texts to help
establish how the man can redeem themselves of their ill actions by asking for forgiveness from
God.
The fall of man is one of the major turning points of the poem and The Bible and
Paradise Lost as they seek to establish the relationship between good and evil. It was through
this poem that Milton brings the representation of The Bible to the understanding of the common
population. The invocation to the different muse to guide him in the writing of the poem help in
the establishing of the idea that he seeks divine intervention so that he can present the situation in
an unbiased way. The fall of mankind in The Bible is in the Genesis where Satan misguides Eve
to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge. She likes the fruit and makes Adam taste it. Before
eating the fruit of knowledge the mankind has no understanding of the good and evil but the
eating of the forbidden fruit gave them the knowledge of the good and evil. Since the mankind
had the complete penitence to God before they had the knowledge of good and evil4. Since
having knowledge the penitence was questionable as they could choose between the good and
bad. The insistence of not eating the fruit of knowledge was the sole criterion of residing in the
Garden of Eden. The motives of Satan were also shown in the poem and The Bible. The fall of
3 Wittreich, J., 2015. “From a Small Seed of History”: Toward a Reception History of Paradise Lost. Modern
Philology, 112(3), pp.569-589.
4 Cefalu, P., 2016. Incarnational Apophatic: Rethinking Divine Accommodation in John Milton's Paradise
Lost. Studies in Philology, 113(1), pp.198-228.

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the man is one of the important situations and it was done by Satan to bring down to his level the
beloved creation of God.
Satan himself was an archangel Lucifer, literally meaning to the bringer of light and was
one of the high angels residing in the heaven with God. Lucifer was overtaken by a pride of his
power and wanted to take over the power of God. The uprising of the angels led to a war
between the angels on the side of God and the ones choosing to rise against the power of God.
When the angels under Lucifer lost the war they were sent to hell with his followers. This greatly
enraged Lucifer and other angels who were with him. They were waiting for extracting a revenge
on God. When God created humans it was his most prized creation and the Satan decided to
work a plan to harm the will of God by making Adam and Eve rebel against him5. To achieve
this, Lucifer took the form of a serpent and entered the Garden of Eden and told her to consume
the forbidden fruit of knowledge.
When God created man it was one of his most prized and beloved creation, even more
than the angels and he kept them in the Garden of Eden. One of the conditions that God put
forward was to not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The lack of decision making would
help the people to remain penitent to God. When Adam and Eve had the fruit of knowledge and
this gave them a chance to understand the differences between good and bad. This greatly
enraged God but Adam begged for forgiveness and being one of the beloved creation of God he
was forgiven. Due to his actions, he could no longer live in the Garden of Eden and was sent to
earth. The humankind was forgiven but since they had been swayed into eating the forbidden
fruit of knowledge. The knowledge that was bestowed upon the mankind could help them decide
5 Kwam, K.E., Schearing, L.S. and Ziegler, V.H., 2016. “THUS GOD THE HEAVEN CREATED, THUS THE
EARTH” THE BIBLICAL CREATION STORY IN MILTON’S PARADISE LOST1. The King James Bible, 1611-
2011: Prehistory and Afterlife.

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between the good and bad. The Bible suggests it was thereon onto people to decide between the
good and bad and redeem themselves by their actions6. One of the important aspects of the
biblical aspect and Paradise Lost in this context is that they both show the love that God had
towards mankind allowing themselves to redeem themselves of their sins.
The depiction of the fall of mankind in The Bible and Paradise Lost set the scene for the
overall literature that goes on further. The Bible focusses on informing the readers about the
greatness of God focussing on his forgiveness to mankind given that they repent for their sins.
The idea of repentance and asking for forgiveness is one of the main ideas conveyed in the fall of
mankind as depicted in Paradise Lost and The Bible.
The Bible and the poem show the changes that the eating of the fruit has brought about a
change in the ideology of mankind. Before eating the fruit they had no knowledge of the self or
any identity of their own7. When they ate the fruit of knowledge as The Bible suggests they
became aware of their nakedness and tried to cover it. The self-awareness was the thing that
lacked among Adam and Eve had been awakened by the eating of the fruit and they were
ashamed.
Then shining Heav'nly fair, a Goddess arm'd
Out of thy head I sprung; amazement seis'd
All th' Host of Heav'n back they recoild affraid
At first, and call'd me Sin,and for a Sign.
6 Treip, M.A., 2015. Allegorical Poetics and the Epic: The Renaissance Tradition to Paradise Lost. University Press
of Kentucky.
7 Fenton, M.C., 2017. Milton's places of hope: spiritual and political connections of hope with the land. Routledge.

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The literary devices used in the Paradise Lost are focussed on defining the biblical verses
in the light of the works of ancient pagan poets such as Homer and Virgil. The poem follows the
epic conventions from a number of ancient texts focussing on the development of the story. The
book opens with the conventions of ancient epics with invocation of the muse. One of the
important aspects in the representation of the epic conventions in the poem. The language used in
the blank verse poem focusses on the development of the ideals of muses. Instead of the
focussing on the development of the ideals of the real scenarios in the society the work of Milton
focusses on the language of the epics that have been written before.
The epic convention and the language use to depict the correlation between death and sin.
They are presented as allegorical characters in the poem always in correlation with each other.
The death is seen as the mother of sin and they go hand in hand and the sin of the human brings
about death. Death and sin are correlated in the poem taking into focus on the development of the
ideals of the psychological aspects of the sin and death in the poem. Satan encounters the Sin and
death in Book 2 of Paradise lost taking into account the intricate connection of the two with the
mankind and the society. One of the major issues in this context is the general understanding of
the connection between sin and death.
The understanding of the aspects and the encounter of Satan with sin and death is one of
the important aspects represented in the Paradise lost. According to a number of critics that
allegorical use of the terms of Sin and death helps Milton deal with the supernatural elements
that take place in the book. The use of the language does not make the situation literal for a
number of readers making it hard for them to relate to the constructs of the norms of language.
The syntactical ambiguity in the lines in the poem makes it seem that the Satan and sun have
converged among themselves making them one. The language used in the case shows that sin in

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its terms is generated and self-generated making it incomprehensible. The death sin and the
Satan himself are shown to be connected as a trinity in the poem. It also stands in opposition to
the holy trinity that is held in much holier sense in bible. The trinity holds itself in contrast to the
trinity of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Milton very subtly places the fall of the mankind in
the Garden of Eden contrary to the biblical version which shows the sublimity of his work. The
prohibition to not eat from the tree of knowledge itself one of the first kinds of law in itself
marking the prohibition of actions. The disobedience to these laws would be considered a sin by
most of the people in the society. Milton in his works takes a Lutheran position of the defence of
the actions that happen in the poem. In this poem the Lutheran position suggests that the texts
may show the presence of the freewill in the actions of mankind but the mankind itself was
devoid of their freewill to choose their fall.
Teskey, however, disagrees with the representation of the death and sin as allegories in
the poem and points that the narrative of the poem being coherrant and direct may not be
allegorical8. One of the major linguistic tools used here is the personification. The personification
of sin as the self-identifying entity in the society shows the poetic diction of Milton in his epic
representation of the characters of the narrative. In its personification, Milton shows the doom
that death brings attaching the word nothingness to describe the identity of death. Similar to the
Spencer’s depiction of Dispaire, death is shown as extremely disembodies in the work. The
depiction of death in its personification is only as a shape which as no identity or a form by
which Milton signifies the universality and the presentation of death by embodying without
extreme portrayal. One of the most important factors of the representation of the depiction the
8 Gallagher, P. J. (1976). “Real or Allegoric”: The Ontology of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost. English Literary
Renaissance, 6(2), 317-335.

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poem is the fact that it raises the question of using nothing for the representation of something9.
It has been said that the Milton’s representation of death is like a “0” it is represented but it has
nothing or nothing can be attached to it and it can bring nothingness to wholesome beings. The
representation of Sin in its personified form is one of the first visual representation in the poem
and the imagery presents a vile picture in the form of creature. The womb with all the decadence
that death will bring and pain that sin wishes to impose on mankind. The representation of sin is
the reminder of Ovid's Scylla and Spencer's Errour with a bifromed body. All these characters
like sin have deceitful appearances and represent the allegorises used in the poem. It has been
argues by Browning that Like Ovid’s Scylla Sin itself is powerless and has been contaminated by
the different vices. Like Scylla she is depicted as a horrific monster but interjects her
representation by the vile representation of pregnancy, mutilation and rape. T10he association of
the Sin with Satan goes on to show that how Sin will infect the mankind with a number of vices
gradually pushing them towards hell. Sin is distinguished as her experience is a united and
uniform one. The sin in its complete for is the unity of the vices that it brought upon the mankind
pushing them towards their deaths. Like Ennour, Sin is depicted as a serpent, but its form has
been focussed on by the death that resides in her body itself tearing through the entrails of Sin.
One of the important aspects of the personification of Sin is the fact that she has the
ability to speak and recounts her story in addition to the narrative and the assessment of Satan.
Sin is not beautiful rather described as ‘woman to the waist, and fair’ and goes on to paint a
rather horrid picture of her in the representation that the mankind has in the various forms. Sin in
its representation is not presented as a sign it self but rather as the artifice of language. The
representation of the word ‘sign’ to represent the sin is an important aspect presented in the poem
9 Shawcross, J. T. (2015). With Mortal Voice: The Creation of Paradise Lost. University Press of Kentucky.
10 Miller, S. A. (2017). Monstrous sexuality: Variations on the vagina dentata. In The Ashgate Research Companion
to Monsters and the Monstrous (pp. 351-368). Routledge.

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as it is the name that the angels refer to Sin. The representation of Sin as a sign also points out
that she herself points out towards a number of possible futures that have not taken place yet.
The allegorical representation of sin makes it tough to comprehend given that Sin though
personified is identified as a sign of an impending future. She is the first potential allegory to be
represented in the heavens as though ut cannot be seen it exists in its various forms and has its
influence as in the case of Adam and Eve. She is also seen as the first creature whose existence
and meaning is incomplete in itself but it marks her presence as indications. The representation
of the attached nothingness to the identity of Sin goes on to Shoe that she portends rather than
directly represent something that may occur. Sin is the sign in its presentation in the perfection
that exists in heaven. She is also seen as the first character to be gendered in the poem and
despite being a sign in itself has an identity of her own11. The identity that the Sin has is shown
by the usage of the words like “I” and “me” in her speech when she disorients herself and
attaches her identity with the body.
In the biblical context it Eve that is taken to be the Sin and the sign of an impending
doom for the mankind. The identifying of the gender and both their stories of being affected by
the external factors affecting their actions bring their stories together in a number of forms. On
the other hand death is shown as the male form in the Poem bringing nothingness into the
existence with his personification. He is shown as waving the metaphorical dart or the phallus
metaphorically in the poem. Death on the other hand identifies itself to the hunger that he feels
rather than the pains of birth as felt by Sin. Death is shown to cause the pain to the body of sin as
she gives birth to him. It is one of the most important metaphorical and allegorical representation
11 Rumrich, J., & Unbound, M. (2014). Things of darkness: sin, death, chaos. The Cambridge companion to
paradise lost, 29-41.

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of the biblical representation as they focus on the personification of something that cannot be
represented and itself seen as the sign.
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,
and above Every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, all the days of
thy life.
Due to his deeds, the serpent was cursed to crawl the earth all their life and live in the
dust. The book X of the Paradise Lost also shows how God cursed all the serpents to crawl on
their bellies and live in the dust. The curse that the serpent got was because he misguided Eve
into eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge. One of the strong argument presented in both the
work was that the serpent was not repentant nor was allowed any forgiveness. It is also seen in
the discourse that mankind was forgiven due to their penitence before God.12 It also brought
about the relation between the man and the serpent making them lifelong enemies as the
mankind would always be eager of killing the serpent and serpent would always bite the
mankind in the heel. The depictions in the poem Paradise Lost is very moving regarding their
resemblance to the contexts in The Bible. The representation in both the texts are quite alike but
in Paradise Lost, Milton chooses to establish the Satan as the prime monster for deterring the
mankind of path and doing what was told to them.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou
shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
12 Ittzés, G., 2016. “Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth”: The biblical creation story in Milton's Paradise
Lost.

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of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for
thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it
bring forth to thee: and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground: for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all
living. Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed
them.
The action of Adam and Eve also allowed the bridging of hell and earth freeing sin and
death to infect mankind forever. From then on the death and sin have infected mankind and made
the life of the people controlled by their own will. The pain in the giving of the birth was also
one of the curses that were brought unto the women for they were tempted to have the forbidden
fruit of knowledge first. When being sent from the garden of Eden Adam and all the men that
would be further be born to him would have to search and hunt for the food. The texts go on to
show the ways in which God chooses to punish the mankind for their sins. The depiction of ways
in which man will live the rest of their life on earth is in stark contrast to theirs on Eden. The
forgiveness which comes at a price helps in showing that mankind in the long term will have to
pay for the disobedience and redeem themselves to Eden only after purging their sins on earth.
The curse has been brought upon the mankind as they had been sent away from the Garden of
Eden where they had everything that they needed13. The fall of the mankind was one of the
reasons that they had to find a way for forgiveness of their action and it is seen by the actions of
13 Danielson, D., 2014. Paradise Lost and the cosmological revolution. Cambridge University Press.