Micah Mattix has a fantastic essay on Paradise Lost in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard.

It's appropriate that I finished Paradise Lost on the morning of Christmas Eve, because the poem ends in glorious hope for the coming Messiah, the one who will overturn the curse for Adam's sin. In the last two books of the poem, the Archangel Michael reveals the future to Adam: one day, the Seed of the Woman will come and restore the world to Paradise--this time, for all eternity.

In the Christmas spirit, I loved these lines from Book XII:

     . . . At his birth a Star,
     Unseen before in heaven, proclaims him come,
     And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
     His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold:
     His place of birth a solemn Angel tells
     To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;
     They gladly thither haste, and by a quire
     Of squadroned Angels hear his carol sung.
     A Virgin is his mother, but his sire
     The Power of the Most High. He shall ascend
     The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
     With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the Heavens.

lines 360-371

Just for fun: I enjoyed this passage describing Satan's entrance into Eden simply because it reminded me of rural Wisconsin.

     As one who long in populous City pent,
     Where houses thick and Sewers annoy the Aire,
     Forth issuing on a Summers Morn to breathe
     Among the pleasant Villages and Farmes
     Adjoynd, from each thing met conceaves delight,
     The smell of Grain, or tedded Grass, or Kine,
     Or Dairie, each rural sight, each rural sound . . .

Paradise Lost, Book IX, ll. 445-51

Eve to Adam:

     With thee conversing, I forget all time,
     All seasons, and their change; all please alike.
     Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
     With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun,
     When first on this delightful land he spreads
     His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
     Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertil Earth
     After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
     Of grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,
     With this her solemn bird, and this fair Moon,
     And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:
     But neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
     With charm of earliest birds; nor rising Sun
     On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flowr,
     Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
     Nor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,
     With her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
     Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.

Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 639-56

In Paradise Lost, Book IV, there's an amazing passage in which Milton describes Satan's first look at Adam and Eve in the Garden. Satan cannot speak--he is in awe as he gazes at these two creatures in all their unfallen majesty. In this scene, Milton reminds us that every human being holds a unique place of dignity among all of creation. We are created in the image of God Himself--and this makes all the difference.

     Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
     Godlike erect, with native honour clad
     In naked majesty, seemed lords of all,
     And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
     The image of their glorious Maker shon,
     Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure—
     Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,
     Whence true authority in men: . . .
     So hand in hand they passed, the lovliest pair
     That ever since in loves imbraces met,
     Adam the goodliest man of men since borne
     His Sons, the fairest of her Daughters Eve.
     . . . Satan, still in gaze as first he stood,
     Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad:—
    “O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold? 
     Into our room of bliss thus high advanced  
     Creatures of other mould—Earth-born perhaps,
     Not Spirits, yet to Heavenly Spirits bright
     Little inferior—whom my thoughts pursue    
     With wonder, and could love; so lively shines
     In them divine resemblance, and such grace 
     The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured."

Milton does a masterful job of portraying Satan's guilt in Book IV of Paradise Lost. At this point in the poem, Satan has escaped hell, and has just taken his first look into the created world, but he has no sense of joy. Milton shows great psychological insight into the effects of sin and guilt. This is a moment when Satan should be glad, but instead,

     . . . Horror and doubt distract
     His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
     The hell within him; for within him Hell
     He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
     One step, no more than from Himself, can fly
     By change of place. Now conscience wakes despair
     That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
     Of what he was, what is, and what must be
     Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

Lines 19-26

In Book III of Paradise Lost, the poet describes Satan's first view of the created universe:

     . . . As when a scout,
     Through dark and desart ways with peril gone
     All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
     Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
     Which to his eye discovers unaware
     The goodly prospect of some foreign land
     First seen, or some renowned metropolis
     With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,
     Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams;
     Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen,
     The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized,
     At sight of all this World beheld so fair.

Paradise Lost, Book III, lines 543-55

I'm making an attempt this Christmas break at reading Paradise Lost through. I've read Daniel Danielson's prose translation of the poem (which made for a wonderful reading experience), but I've never read the poem start to finish. We'll see how it goes.

I'm currently in Book 2, when Satan begins his journey out of Hell. As the other fallen angels wait to see how Satan's journey goes, they amuse themselves in all sorts of ways--military practice, athletic competitions, exploration, music, . . . and even philosophical discussion. One group of particularly bookish fallen angels sits apart from everyone and debates philosophy. I thought this passage was notable for its satire coming from Milton, a strong believer in free will:

     Others apart sat on a hill retired,
     In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
     Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate—
     Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute—
     And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
     Of good and evil much they argued then,
     Of happiness and final misery,
     Passion and apathy, and glory and shame:
     Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!—
     Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm
     Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
     Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast
     With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

Book 2, lines 557-69.

     O shame to men! Devil with devil damned
     Firm concord holds, men only disagree
     Of Creatures rational, though under hope
     Of heavenly Grace: and God proclaiming peace,
     Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
     Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
     Wasting the earth, each other to destroy:
     As if (which might induce us to accord)
     Man had not hellish foes enough besides,
     That day and night for his destruction wait.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, ll. 496-505

C. S. Lewis shows the influence of St. Augustine on Milton's theology of the fall in chapter 10 of A Preface to Paradise Lost. Some of the specific doctrines of this theology are as follows:

1. God created all things without exception good, and because they are good, 'No Nature (i.e. no positive reality) is bad and the word Bad denotes merely privation of good.' (De Civ. Dei, xi, 21, 22). ...

2. What we call bad things are good things perverted (De Civ. Dei, xiv, 11). ...

3. From this doctrine of good and evil it follows (a) That good can exist without evil, as in Milton's Heaven and Paradise, but not evil without good (De Civ. Dei, xiv, 11). (b) That good and bad angels have the same Nature, happy when it adheres to God and miserable when it adheres to itself (ibid., xii, 1). ...

4. Though God has made all creatures good He foreknows that some will voluntarily make themselves bad (De Civ. Dei, xiv, 11) and also foreknows the good use which he will then make of their badness (ibid.). For as He shows His benevolence in creating good Natures, He shows His justice in exploiting evil wills. . . . All this is repeatedly shown at work in the poem. God sees Satan coming to pervert man; 'and shall pervert,' He observes (III, 92). He knows that Sin and Death 'impute folly' to Him for allowing them so easily to enter the universe, but Sin and Death do not know that God 'called and drew them thither, His hell-hounds to lick up the draff and filth' (X, 620 et seq.). . . . The same doctrine is enforced in Book I when Satan lifts his head from the burning lake by 'high permission of all-ruling Heaven' (I, 212). As the angels point out, whoever tries to rebel against God produces the result opposite to his intention (VII, 613). At the end of the poem Adam is astonished at the power 'that all this good of evil shall produce' (XII, 470). This is the exact reverse of the programme Satan had envisaged in Book I, when he hoped, if God attempted any good through him, to 'pervert that end' (164); instead, he is allowed to do all the evil he wants and finds that he has produced good. Those who will not be God's sons become His tools.