The State of Innocence The State of Innocence The State of Innocence was intended to be performed as an opera, with the libretto written in 1674, (first published in 1677) by John Dryden. It is basically a musical stage adaptation of John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost", a tribute to Milton rather than a satire of the poem. That Dryden was an admirer of Milton's is surprising as the two men were politically opposed. Milton was against the restoration of the British monarchy, while the royalist Dryden was created England’s first Poet Laureate by the restored Charles II. So great an admirer of Milton
Adam and Eve Knowledge symbolizes "the human world", and the serpent symbolizes "attachment to the human world". The fall of Adam thus represents the way humanity became conscious of good and evil. In another sense, Adam and Eve represent God's Will and Determination, the first two of the seven stages of Divine Creative Action. While a traditional view was that the Book of Genesis was authored by Moses and has been considered historical and metaphorical, modern scholars consider the Genesis creation narrative as one of various ancient origin myths. Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of